Asked by: Karin Smyth (Labour - Bristol South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of capacity in district nursing on the timeliness of patient discharge from hospital in 2023.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Between the end of March 2023 and the end of March 2024, the number of supported discharges for patients assessed as no longer meeting the criteria to reside has increased by 17% for patients on pathway 1. Pathway one is for patients returning to their usual place of residence with new or additional health or social care needs. Packages of post-discharge support for these patients may include support from district nurses.
We recognise the importance of increasing district nursing capacity. Through the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan we aim to increase training places for district nurses by 150% by 2031/32. As of January 2024, there were 4,295 full-time equivalent district nurses working in community services in NHS trusts and other core organisations in England, this is 0.5% fewer than in 2019.
Asked by: Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to tackle diet-related ill-health, including type 2 diabetes and heart disease.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We remain committed to promoting a healthy diet for adults and children and are delivering an ambitious programme of work to create a healthier environment to help people make healthy food choices to improve health and to tackle diet related ill health. There are a range of measures in place to support improving diets, promoting physical activity and reducing obesity.
Regulations on out of home calorie labelling for food sold in large businesses, including restaurants, cafes and takeaways, came into force in April 2022. Restrictions on the placement of products high in fat, sugar or salt in key selling locations, came into force on 1 October 2022. We will be implementing restrictions on the sale of less healthy products by volume price such as ‘3 for 2’ and will introduce restrictions on the advertising of less healthy products before 9pm on TV and paid for less healthy product advertising online from 1 October 2025.
We are working with the food industry to make further progress on reformulation and ensure it is easier for the public to make healthier choices. The Food Data Transparency Partnership will help enable and encourage food companies to voluntarily demonstrate progress on the healthiness of their sales.
The Government continues to promote the Eatwell Guide principles through the NHS.UK website and government social marketing campaigns such as Better Health Healthier Families and Start for Life. We are also supporting more than three million children through the Healthy Foods Schemes and helping schools boost physical activity to help children maintain a healthy weight and good overall health through the Primary School PE and Sport Premium and the School Games Organiser Network.
We are continuing to support local authorities to improve the uptake of the NHS Health Check, England's cardiovascular disease prevention programme. The NHS Health Check helps to prevent a range of conditions including heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Each year the programme engages over 1 million people and prevents around 400 heart attacks or strokes.
Asked by: Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, following the Food Data Transparency Partnership’s decision not to make reporting on health data mandatory, what steps they are taking to ensure enforcement of and consistency in the voluntary scheme.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Food Data Transparency Partnership’s (FDTP) Health Working Group (HWG) has been testing the effectiveness and quality of potential standardised metrics that food and drink companies can use to report on the healthiness of their sales. This is an important part of government’s strategy to address poor diet and reduce obesity and was restated in the Major Conditions Strategy interim report August 2023.
Once a recommended set of metrics and reporting guidance has been produced and approved by Ministers, the expectation is that businesses who voluntarily report will all follow this standardised approach.
A key commitment of the HWG is timely and transparent communication so that wider food sector stakeholders can input into each stage of the process in order to ensure recommendations around comparability and enforcement will be as viable and effective as possible. Alongside engagement with industry, the FDTP also regularly engages civil society organisations and investor groups to gather and integrate wider feedback into discussions. Summaries of these HWG discussions are published online on the FDTP GOV.UK page.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to support unpaid carers in rural areas.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Care Act (2014) requires local authorities to deliver a wide range of sustainable, high-quality care and support services, including support for unpaid carers. Local authorities are required to undertake a Carer’s Assessment for any unpaid carer who appears to have a need for support, and to meet their eligible needs on request from the carer.
Through the Accelerating Reform Fund (ARF), we are investing £42.6 million for innovative local projects focused on transforming the care sector. The purpose of the ARF is to support two or more projects in each area, with at least one of those having a particular focus on unpaid carers. More than half of the projects, and at least one in each integrated care system area, are focused on identifying, recognising, and supporting unpaid carers.
Asked by: Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (Green Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that the proposed WHO Pandemic Preparedness Treaty, due to be considered by the 77th World Health Assembly in May, will include provisions to improve indoor air quality.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The United Kingdom welcomes the Pandemic Accord as an opportunity to strengthen global health security. Improving indoor air quality remains an important issue in public health. However, as the Accord aims to establish a high-level framework for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, we have pursued action on this specific issue in other multilateral settings.
The UK continues to support international improvements to indoor air pollution through its engagement with the World Health Organization (WHO). For example, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) contributed to WHO projects in 2020 and 2022 to assess combined exposure to multiple chemicals in indoor air in schools. UKHSA continues to work with the International Society on Indoor Air Quality and Climate on the development of an open database on international indoor environmental quality guidelines. The database aims to be actively used by researchers, practitioners, and policymakers across the world.
Moreover, the UK was a strong advocate for action to improve indoor air quality at last year’s United Nations General Assembly. We worked with international partners on this issue during the High-Level Meeting on Universal Health Coverage. The UK was supportive of reference being made to the health impacts of indoor air pollution, which was subsequently adopted in the meeting’s political declaration on 5 October 2023, and is available on the United Nations website in an online-only format.
Asked by: Lord Birt (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to review the convenience and efficacy of the systems used by NHS GP practices for patients to make an appointment to see a doctor.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We published our Delivery plan for recovering access to primary care in May 2023, which sets out how we are moving toward a ‘Modern General Practice’ model. This plan is backed by £240 million of retargeted funding going to provide digital services with the goal of increasing access. A copy of the plan is attached.
The sole method for general practices (GPs) to procure these digital services is via NHS England procurement frameworks, which list pre-approved suppliers for digital and IT services. This is to ensure consistency in service provisions, as each supplier must meet a set of requirements to be entered into a framework.
Each practice will run a procurement for these services and will select a supplier based on their differing specifications for how the IT systems will best meet their patients’ needs. Each supplier will offer varied services with varied benefits, including capabilities which allow patients and service users to request and receive support relating to healthcare concerns, at a time and place convenient for them.
As of March 2024, 93% of general practices now have digital telephony systems, this has enabled GP teams to manage multiple calls and helping to end the ‘8am rush’ for appointments. Trials show that this has increased patients’ ability to get through to their practice by almost a third.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what data they are gathering on countries currently implementing immunisation programmes for infant respiratory syncytial virus regarding (1) acceptance and uptake, and (2) hospitalisations.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The UK Health Security Agency continues to monitor international reporting. In the United States, as of 31 January 2024, maternal immunisation was 17.9%. By February 2024, 43% of infants under eight months old had received a dose of nirsevimab.
In Galicia, Spain, 92.9% of 5,357 infants born between 25 September 2023 and 4 February 2024 had nirsevimab, plus 79.7% of 5,823 in a catch-up programme. The peak of hospitalisation rate in infants under six months old was 102 per 100,000, for season 2023 to 2024 during the week starting 27 November 2023 compared to a median of 776 for seasons 2017 to 2018, 2018 to 2019 and 2019 to 2020, peaking during the first week of January 2024.
In Luxembourg, 84% of 1,524 infants born in hospital between early October and mid-December 2023 received nirsevimab. Luxembourg observed a decrease in hospitalisation in infants under six months old of 69% between the 2022 to 2023 and 2023 to 2024 respiratory syncytial virus seasons.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Kilburn)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to ensure that people eligible for NHS continuing healthcare funding have access to services.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Framework for NHS Continuing Healthcare and NHS-funded Nursing Care sets out in paragraph 185 that, where an individual is eligible for NHS Continuing Healthcare (CHC), the integrated care board (ICB) is responsible for care planning, commissioning services, and case management. The ICB is responsible for planning strategically, specifying outcomes, procuring services, and managing demand and provider performance in relation to CHC. The services commissioned must include ongoing case management, including review or reassessment of the individual’s needs.
NHS England holds ICBs accountable, and engages with them to ensure that they discharge their functions via timely and well-established assurance mechanisms. The national framework also sets out that those in receipt of CHC continue to be entitled to access to the full range of primary, community, secondary, and other health services.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, with reference to research by Christine Camacho and Luke Munford at the University of Manchester showing that deaths from drugs, alcohol and suicide are higher in northern and coastal local authorities, what steps they are taking to address that regional inequality.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Levelling Up the United Kingdom white paper sets out the Government’s ambition to improve living standards and wellbeing across the UK, invest in communities, and improve public services. It sets mutually reinforcing levelling up missions to focus Government action, including a health mission to narrow the gap in healthy life expectancy by 2030, and increase healthy life expectancy by five years by 2035.
The Government has published a 10-year drug strategy and is investing an extra £532 million between 2022/23 to 2024/25 to improve drug and alcohol treatment and recovery services. This funding is being used by local authorities to create places for an additional 54,500 people in drug and alcohol treatment services and bolster the workforce, seeking to prevent nearly 1,000 deaths. This funding is being targeted to areas of highest need first.
The Department is increasingly focusing on supporting local areas, including better meeting the needs of vulnerable groups. Current work includes: providing targeted support to local areas; enhancing data tools to better inform local needs assessments; supporting workforce development; implementation of the commissioning quality standard; and sharing good practice. Implementation support will adapt over the course of the 10-year strategy in response to need, to ensure we reach the drug strategy goals.
We also published our new Suicide Prevention Strategy for England in September 2023, setting out the actions we will take to save lives and reduce suicides within the next few years, and have set out our intention in the strategy to write guidance for local areas to support them in aligning their own strategies with the national strategy. We have also established a £10 million Suicide Prevention Grant Fund to run from 2023 to March 2025, and on 4 March 2024 we announced the 79 organisations across the country that have been allocated funding. We have also launched a new nationwide, near real-time suspected suicide surveillance system, that will improve the early detection of, and timely action to, address changes in suicide rates or trends.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, with reference to research by Christine Camacho and Luke Munford at the University of Manchester, what steps they are taking to reduce regional inequalities in what those researchers refer to as "Deaths of Despair".
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Levelling Up the United Kingdom white paper sets out the Government’s ambition to improve living standards and wellbeing across the UK, invest in communities, and improve public services. It sets mutually reinforcing levelling up missions to focus Government action, including a health mission to narrow the gap in healthy life expectancy by 2030, and increase healthy life expectancy by five years by 2035.
The Government has published a 10-year drug strategy and is investing an extra £532 million between 2022/23 to 2024/25 to improve drug and alcohol treatment and recovery services. This funding is being used by local authorities to create places for an additional 54,500 people in drug and alcohol treatment services and bolster the workforce, seeking to prevent nearly 1,000 deaths. This funding is being targeted to areas of highest need first.
The Department is increasingly focusing on supporting local areas, including better meeting the needs of vulnerable groups. Current work includes: providing targeted support to local areas; enhancing data tools to better inform local needs assessments; supporting workforce development; implementation of the commissioning quality standard; and sharing good practice. Implementation support will adapt over the course of the 10-year strategy in response to need, to ensure we reach the drug strategy goals.
We also published our new Suicide Prevention Strategy for England in September 2023, setting out the actions we will take to save lives and reduce suicides within the next few years, and have set out our intention in the strategy to write guidance for local areas to support them in aligning their own strategies with the national strategy. We have also established a £10 million Suicide Prevention Grant Fund to run from 2023 to March 2025, and on 4 March 2024 we announced the 79 organisations across the country that have been allocated funding. We have also launched a new nationwide, near real-time suspected suicide surveillance system, that will improve the early detection of, and timely action to, address changes in suicide rates or trends.