May. 09 2024
Source Page: Mr Martin Groom v Maritime and Coastguard Agency: [2024] EAT 71Found: that the services were to be performed personally.
May. 09 2024
Source Page: The Evaluation of the Restart SchemeFound: Electricians and Building Services 14. Health Industry 15.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to her policy paper entitled Faster, simpler and fairer: our plan to recover and reform NHS dentistry, published on 7 February 2024, when she plans to open her planned consultation with the dental profession on reforming the contract to make NHS work more attractive.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
As set out in Faster, simpler, fairer: our plan to recover and reform NHS dentistry, we are working on further reforms to the 2006 contract, in discussion with the dental profession, to properly reflect the care needed by different patients, and more fairly remunerate practices. We are developing options through consultation with the dental profession, in advance of a further announcement later this year. Any changes would be phased in from 2025 onwards.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate she has made of the number of children unable to access NHS dentistry in England; and whether she has set a target date by which all children in England will be able to access an NHS dentist.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Dentistry Recovery Plan will make dental services faster, simpler, and fairer for patients, and will fund approximately 2.5 million additional appointments, or more than 1.5 million additional courses of dental treatment. The Dentistry Recovery plan also sets out a new emphasis on prevention and good oral health in children. As part of this plan, our 'Smile for Life' initiative includes supporting nurseries and early years settings to incorporate good oral hygiene into daily routines, and providing advice to expectant parents on how to protect their baby’s teeth. The plan will deploy mobile dental teams into schools to provide advice and deliver preventative treatments to more than 165,000 children. Data on the number of children who have been seen by a National Health Service dentist in the last 12 months is available at the following link:
Data is also available on the number of adults who have tried to get an NHS dentist appointment in the last 24 months, and whether they were or were not successful. This data is available at the following link:
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment she has made of trends in levels of morale in the dental profession; and what steps her Department is taking to retain dentists.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England publishes data on dentists’ working patterns, motivation, and morale, most recently on 25 April 2024, which is available at the following link:
The Dentistry Recovery Plan will make dental services faster, simpler, and fairer for patients, and will fund approximately 2.5 million additional appointments, or more than 1.5 million additional courses of dental treatment.
We want to encourage all professionals to commit more of their time to National Health Service work, and to work in areas of the country with low provision of NHS dental care. That is why we are introducing Golden Hellos, as set out in our plan to reform and recover NHS dentistry. A Golden Hello of £20,000 will be offered per dentist, for a total of up to 240 dentists. The Golden Hellos will support practices in areas where recruitment is particularly challenging, and make a real difference to those patients needing dental care.
Furthermore, our New Patient Premium will offer dental practices cash incentives for taking on new patients, giving better access to anyone who has not received NHS dental care in the past two years. Dentists will receive an extra £15 or £50 per treatment, depending on the work required, which is on top of the funding they would already receive for this care.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will hold discussions with (a) Healthwatch England and (b) other relevant stakeholders on the potential impact of the change to the requirement for practices to update the NHS website on whether they are accepting NHS patients to include the phrase when availability allows on the accuracy of reporting of NHS dental access; and what proportion of dental practices are updating their websites in line with that requirement.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
National Health Service dentists are required to update their NHS website profiles at least every 90 days, to ensure patients have access to up-to-date information on where they can access care. Integrated care boards (ICBs) can review which practices in their areas have not updated their profiles in a 90-day period, and work with practices to ensure they comply.
Appointment availability can fluctuate daily, for example with patients cancelling and rescheduling appointments. We have updated the wording on the NHS website profiles to when availability allows, to portray a status which is more reflective of the way that most contractors are already working. This wording was added to the NHS.UK website on 2 April 2024.
Since March 2024 the number of practices reporting that they are taking on new patients via their NHS website profile has increased. Nearly 500 more dental practices on the NHS Find a Dentist website were showing themselves as open to new adult patients as of 8 April 2024, compared to the end of January 2024.
Mentions:
1: Fay Jones (Con - Brecon and Radnorshire) That is why we are quadrupling funding for victim services, up from £41 million in 2010. - Speech Link
2: Martin Vickers (Con - Cleethorpes) They recognise that highway infra- structure and public services are already overloaded. - Speech Link
3: John Penrose (Con - Weston-super-Mare) Weston-super-Mare is a growing town, so local health services are rightly growing as well. - Speech Link
4: Rishi Sunak (Con - Richmond (Yorks)) Our dentistry recovery plan will make dental services faster, simpler and fairer for patients, funding - Speech Link
Correspondence May. 08 2024
Committee: Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice CommitteeFound: that support people living with HIV: • Alan Eagleson, Head of Services, Terrence Higgins Trust
Asked by: Andy Carter (Conservative - Warrington South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many additional NHS dental appointments have been made available for patients as a result of the Dental Recovery Plan in Warrington South constituency.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Our Dentistry Recovery Plan, backed by £200 million, will make dental services faster, simpler, and fairer for National Health Service dental patients. It will fund approximately 2.5 million additional appointments, or more than 1.5 million additional courses of dental treatment. A New Patient Premium is supporting dentists to take on new patients and since the end of January, nearly 500 more practices have said they are open to new patients.
We are committed to evaluating the impacts of the measures included in our plan, and we will publish monthly data on progress once available. Dentists have two months from the date of completion of a course of NHS treatment to submit an FP17 claim for payment.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the policy paper entitled Faster, simpler and fairer: our plan to recover and reform NHS dentistry, published on 7 February 2024, whether funding for that plan will come from integrated care boards' underspend of their dentistry budget; and whether her Department plans to provide additional funding to help meet the objectives of that plan.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Dentistry Recovery Plan, published on 7 February 2024, is backed by £200 million. This is from the £3.8bn primary, community and secondary dentistry budget allocated to Integrated Care Boards for 2024/25. We know that the dental sector has a history of under-performance against commissioned activity and the plan will help to drive new activity that otherwise wouldn’t happen. We are committed to protecting NHS dentistry funding for dentistry, and will strengthen this ringfence for 2024/25, as set out in Our Dentistry Recovery Plan. NHS England has issued planning guidance to integrated care boards, which confirms that a ringfence will apply to NHS dentistry budgets in 2024 to 2025, and that NHS England reserves the right to direct that any unused resources are used to improve dental access through the implementation of the dental recovery plan. In addition, any unspent allocation may be returned to NHS England.