Asked by: Jason McCartney (Conservative - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to then Answer of 30 January 2024 to Question 11063 on Cancer and Public Health, whether the Minister of State for Health and Secondary Care participates in NHS Public Health Functions Agreement accountability meetings.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England is currently held to account for the delivery of National Health Service public health functions through Director General-led accountability meetings, supplemented with an annual ministerial accountability meeting.
The annual ministerial NHS public health functions accountability meeting with NHS England is chaired by the minister with responsibility for public health. Other Department ministers with responsibility for relevant programmes are invited to attend, or to feed views into the discussion via the lead minister.
As the Minister of State for Health and Secondary Care, I now have responsibility for screening, and engage with the national screening programme performance outside these meetings.
Asked by: Jason McCartney (Conservative - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department plans to take to increase breast screening uptake; how much funding she plans to make available for the breast screening uptake improvement plan developed by NHS England; and what recent assessment her Department has made of the effectiveness of the breast screening programme.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to improving uptake in the NHS Breast Screening Programme (NHS BSP), and is working with NHS England on the development of the breast screening improvement plan.
At this time, NHS England has not requested any additional funding to support the delivery of the breast screening improvement plan. Assessment of the effectiveness of the NHS BSP is made through the regular accountability meetings, under the Public Health Functions Section 7A Agreement.
Asked by: Peter Gibson (Conservative - Darlington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if a Minister from her Department will visit Darlington to hold discussions with (a) the Police and (b) Trading Standards on the joint steps they are taking to help tackle the sale of illegal vapes and illicit tobacco.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Ministers in the department are always happy to consider meetings and visits to understand the impact of their policy areas, and we recommend reaching out to Ministers’ offices directly.
A strong approach to enforcement is vital if the smokefree generation policy is to have real impact. My Rt hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care recently visited a cargo warehouse at Heathrow Airport with Hillingdon Trading Standards to see first-hand the work they are doing to seize illicit vapes at the border, and prevent these products from being sold in the United Kingdom.
Underage and illicit sales of tobacco products, and more recently vaping products, is undermining the work the Government is doing to regulate the industry and protect public health. It also deprives the UK of vital money that could be used to fund essential public services, instead, putting it in the hands of criminals.
This is why alongside the measures in the Tobacco and Vapes Bill, we are supporting enforcement agencies with up to £30 million a year, to scale up their existing activities. This increased investment will help to stamp out criminal activity by boosting enforcement capacity, and help local trading standards tackle underage sales at a local level. Of this funding, over £100 million over five years will support HM Revenue and Custom’s and Border Force’s new illicit tobacco strategy. As is the case with existing age of sale legislation, breaches of the new law will primarily be dealt with by local authority trading standards, rather than by local police forces.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Northern Ireland Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, what recent discussions he has had with the Northern Ireland administration on pay for (a) health and social care and (b) NHS workers.
Answered by Steve Baker - Minister of State (Northern Ireland Office)
In the months leading up to the restoration of the Northern Ireland Executive, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland engaged with the Secretary of State for the Department of Health and Social Care and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury on the issue of pay awards for healthcare workers in Northern Ireland. In addition to these meetings, he met with trade union representatives on this important matter.
Healthcare is a devolved matter and pay awards are ultimately a matter for the Department of Health. The UK Government has provided the Executive with a £3.3 billion financial package to stabilise Northern Ireland’s finances. This package includes £584m to provide public sector pay awards for 2023-24. It will be up to the Executive to decide on the level of pay awards and to balance these costs against other priorities.
Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will ask the Care Quality Commission to undertake an assessment of the quality of the commissioning of children's palliative care services by integrated care boards.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) recently completed the integrated care system (ICS) assessment pilots, which included an assessment of how health and social care provision is planned, coordinated, and delivered in a cohesive way.
For the pilots, the CQC assessed data and local intelligence relating to the safety and effectiveness of different types of services across primary care, secondary care, and adult social care. This included hospices and other palliative and end of life care services. ICS assessments do not inspect individual services or focus on specific sectors. The CQC seeks information from local and regional CQC operations teams, NHS England, and professional regulators such as the General Medical Council and the Nursing and Midwifery Council, to identify areas of good practice and high-performing services, as well as risks and concerns relating to specific providers or sectors. The CQC looks at aggregate ratings of different types of services within a geographical area to identify areas of risk that might require a particular focus during assessments.
The CQC’s ICS assessment methodology incorporates interviews and focus groups with commissioners, providers, patient representative groups, and voluntary and community sector organisations to understand how people experience care. Work continues to define the final methodology and approach, in line with the existing Departmental priorities.
The Department is in ongoing discussions with NHS England about oversight and accountability of National Health Service palliative and end of life care commissioning, and I have met with NHS England officials personally on this matter on a number of occasions. We remain committed to improving patient access to, and quality of, palliative and end of life care, and are working with NHS England to achieve this.
NHS England has developed a palliative and end of life care dashboard, which brings together all relevant local data in one place. The dashboard helps commissioners understand the palliative and end of life care needs of their local population, enabling integrated care boards (ICBs) to put plans in place to address and track the improvement of health inequalities, and ensure that funding is distributed fairly, based on prevalence.
Additionally, as of April 2024, NHS England will include palliative and end of life care in the list of topics for regular performance discussions between national and regional leads. These meetings will provide an additional mechanism for supporting ICBs to continue improving palliative and end of life care for their local population.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he has had discussions with the Northern Ireland Minister for Justice on tackling female (a) trafficking, (b) exploitation and (c) sexual exploitation in Northern Ireland.
Answered by Laura Farris - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Ministry of Justice) (jointly with Home Office)
Criminal justice is devolved in Northern Ireland, with responsibility for the policy and legislative response to modern slavery resting with the Northern Ireland Executive. However, we recognise that trafficking can involve the movement of vulnerable individuals across borders, and we work closely with our partners in the Northern Ireland Executive to ensure that our response to modern slavery across the UK is joined-up and the legislation is complementary.
This includes, at official level, regular engagement with representatives from the Devolved Administrations, through quarterly meetings and the Modern Slavery Engagement Forums. These Forums focus on key policy areas, including enforcement, prevention, adult victim support, and child and victim support policy. Officials also engage in quarterly meetings with representatives on commercial sexual exploitation.
The Home Office also engages with First Responder Organisations, across the whole of the United Kingdom. In Northern Ireland this includes the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), Health and Social Care trusts and Belfast and Lisburn Women’s Aid. First Responders are trained by their respective organisations to identify indicators of modern slavery and refer potential victims into the National Referral Mechanism (NRM). In 2023, there were 462 NRM referrals sent to the PSNI for investigation, accounting for 3% of all referrals received, as published in the National Referral Mechanism statistics on GOV.UK.
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, what discussions she has had with integrated care boards on estimates they have made of how many children are accessing palliative care in their areas.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
While there is no explicit requirement for integrated care boards (ICBs) to identify how many children and young people specifically access palliative and end of life care services, the commissioning of palliative care services is the statutory duty of ICBs, which must commission these services in response to the needs of their population.
In July 2022, NHS England published statutory guidance for commissioners on palliative and end of life care, setting out the considerations for ICBs to meet their legal duties, and making clear reference to the importance of access to services.
NHS England has also published a service specification for children and young people, which provides guidance on undertaking assessments to enable high-quality commissioning of services, that meet both population need and preferences.
The Department is in ongoing discussions with NHS England about oversight and accountability of National Health Service palliative and end of life care commissioning, including for children and young people.
From April, NHS England will include palliative and end of life care in the list of topics for its regular performance discussions between national and regional leads. These national meetings will provide an additional mechanism for supporting ICBs to continue to improve palliative and end of life care for their local population.
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, what steps her Department is taking to help ensure that people receive a good standard of hospice care if they reside in an area covered by an integrated care board that provides less than the national average level of funding for hospices.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Whilst the majority of palliative and end of life care is provided by National Health Service staff and services, we recognise the vital part that voluntary sector organisations, including hospices, also play in providing support to people, and their families, at end of life. Most hospices are charitable, independent organisations who receive some statutory funding for providing NHS services. Charitable hospices are autonomous organisations that provide a range of services which go beyond that which statutory services are legally required to provide. Consequently, the funding arrangements reflect this.
In July 2022, NHS England published statutory guidance for commissioners on palliative and end of life care, setting out the considerations required for integrated care boards (ICBs), in order to meet their legal duties. This can be found at the following link:
NHS England has also published service specifications, for both adults and children and young people, which provide guidance on undertaking assessments to enable high-quality commissioning of services that meet both the population need and preferences. These can be found at the following link:
The Department is in ongoing discussions with NHS England about the oversight and accountability of NHS palliative and end of life care commissioning. We remain committed to improving patient access to, and quality of, palliative and end of life care, and are working with NHS England to reduce disparities in the standard of palliative and end of life care across the country.
From April 2024, NHS England will include palliative and end of life care in the list of topics for its regular performance discussions between national and regional leads. These national meetings will provide an additional mechanism for supporting ICBs in continuing to improve palliative and end of life care for their local population. Additionally, NHS England has commissioned the development of a palliative and end of life care dashboard, which brings together relevant local data in one place. The dashboard helps commissioners understand the palliative and end of life care needs of those in their local population, enabling ICBs to put plans in place to address and track the improvement of health inequalities.
Asked by: Peter Gibson (Conservative - Darlington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she (a) has made an assessment of the potential implications for her policies of the report of the APPG for Hospice and End of Life care entitled Government funding for hospices, published in January 2024 and (b) plans to take steps in response to the findings in that report.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department is already taking actions which will address many of the recommendations of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hospice and End of Life Care report.
As part of the Health and Care Act 2022, the Government added palliative care services to the list of services that an integrated care board (ICB) must commission, which will ensure a more consistent national approach and support commissioners in prioritising palliative and end of life care.
In July 2022, NHS England published statutory guidance and service specifications for commissioners on palliative and end of life care, setting out the considerations for ICBs in order to meet their legal duties. The guidance makes specific reference to commissioners defining how their services will meet population needs 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The majority of palliative and end of life care is provided by National Health Service staff and services. However, we also recognise the vital part that voluntary sector organisations, including hospices, play in providing support to people at end of life, and their families. Most hospices are charitable, independent organisations which receive some statutory funding for providing NHS services. The amount of funding hospices receive is dependent on many factors, including what other statutory services are available within the ICB footprint. Charitable hospices provide a range of services which go beyond that which statutory services are legally required to provide. Consequently, the funding arrangements reflect this.
NHS England has developed a palliative and end of life care dashboard, which brings together all relevant local data in one place. The dashboard helps commissioners understand the palliative and end of life care needs of their local population, enabling ICBs to put plans in place to address and track the improvement of health inequalities and ensure that funding is distributed fairly, based on prevalence.
Additionally, as of April 2024, NHS England will include palliative and end of life care in the list of topics for regular performance discussions between national and regional leads. These meetings will provide an additional mechanism for supporting ICBs to continue to improve palliative and end of life care for their local population.
The Government have also provided additional funding to help deliver the one-off payments to eligible staff employed by non-NHS organisations, who employ their staff on dynamically linked Agenda for Change contracts. Organisations were able to apply for the funding and needed to show they had been negatively financially impacted by the pay deal, and that their staff are employed on dynamically linked Agenda for Change contracts.
Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the recommendations in the report entitled Still nowhere near enough, published by Parkinson’s UK on 26 February 2024.
Answered by Laura Trott - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
HM Treasury ministers have regular discussions with Department for Health and Social Care ministers on a range of issues, including meetings between the Chancellor and the Secretary of State
The Government delivers a wide range of support to help those with disabilities and long-term health conditions, such as Parkinson’s. If individuals incur extra costs whilst performing tasks associated with daily living, then they may qualify for disability benefits such as Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and Attendance Allowance (AA). This extra support can be worth over £8,900 per year and is due to increase from April by 6.7%. Depending on their needs, additional support for those with Parkinson’s may be available via local authorities who deliver adult social care services.