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, if he will take steps with integrated care boards to ensure that all (a) children, (b) older people, (c) people on low incomes, (d) vulnerable people and (e) pregnant women are able to access dental services.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
Many of the dentistry commissioning functions undertaken by NHS England will transfer to integrated care boards (ICBs) from April 2023. ICBs will be responsible for meeting the needs of the local population by working with patient groups, including on access to dental care. NHS England has made available to commissioners an assurance framework to provide assurance that commissioning functions are carried out safely and effectively by ICBs.
Where a person is unable to access an urgent dental appointment directly through a local National Health Service dental practice, they are advised to contact NHS 111 for assistance. Community Dental Services provide NHS dental care to people who cannot be treated in general dental practices. This includes vulnerable people or people in situations or locations that are out of reach. In September 2022, we announced ‘Our plan for patients’ which outlines how we will meet oral health needs and increase access to dental care, including for groups such as vulnerable people, whilst making the NHS dental contract more attractive to dental practices. These changes have been implemented, including through regulations that came into effect on 25 November 2022.
Discussions on further improvements to the NHS dental system are underway and being led by NHS England, involving the British Dental Association, other dental stakeholder groups and patients.
Asked by: Lord Patten (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made, if any, of (1) the work of the charity Hourglass, and (2) its helpline for older people.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
This government recognises that, although anyone can suffer from domestic abuse, for older victims, abuse may be more hidden and disguised or compounded by other age-related factors such as ill health.
When tackling domestic abuse, we also understand the importance of specialist and ‘by and for’ services (specialist services that are designed and delivered by and for the users and communities they aim to serve) are vital in providing the tailored support that victims and survivors of domestic abuse need.
We work closely with and fund organisations providing this support, including Hourglass, which supports elder victims of abuse, including domestic abuse.
Since 2018, the Home Office has funded Hourglass to enhance their helpline, provide casework support, and train specialist Independent Domestic Violence Advisers. As with all our funded programmes, we hold regular monitoring meetings with Hourglass to understand the impact of this funding. In 2021/22, Hourglass supported over 3,000 cases.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Batley and Spen)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of including teaching on suicide and self-harm prevention in the national curriculum; and what steps he is taking to help ensure students starting examinations have access to mental health and other support services.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
All pupils in schools are taught about mental health as part of the relationships, sex and health education (RSHE) curriculum, which the department made mandatory in 2020 to ensure that all pupils are taught about important topics.
Schools can teach older pupils about suicide in an age-appropriate and sensitive way. The RSHE statutory guidance advises that schools should approach teaching about self-harm and suicide carefully and should be aware of the risks to pupils from exposure to materials that are instructive rather than preventative, including websites or videos that provide instructions or methods of self-harm or suicide. The guidance is clear that where teachers have concerns about a specific pupil in relation to self-harm or suicidal thoughts, they must follow safeguarding procedures immediately.
Schools and other education providers should be preparing all children and young people for examinations and should have strong pastoral support in place to help pupils deal with any worries they might have throughout the year.
Ofqual has a series of dedicated resources on exam anxiety and stress. This includes a practical guide for students on coping with exam pressure, available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coping-with-exam-pressure-a-guide-for-students/coping-with-exam-pressure-a-guide-for-students. The NHS have also produced advice and guidance aimed at parents and carers on supporting their child through examinations, accessible at: https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/children-and-young-adults/advice-for-parents/help-your-child-beat-exam-stress/.
Asked by: George Howarth (Labour - Knowsley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of enabling fire services personnel to detect mental health problems among older people during home fire safety visits.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
The Home Office is working with the National Fire Chiefs Council to improve Home Fire Safety Visits and ensure a nationally consistent approach across fire and rescue services. This will include tailoring each intervention to the individuals within a particular home, while still allowing for local adaptation in line with local priorities. Where fire and rescue services identify particular issues or concerns during home fire safety visits, they can signpost people to local agencies such as NHS partners or local authorities.
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 he is taking to move emergency care interventions closer to the patient.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The National Health Service is increasing the capacity of NHS 111 to act as the first point of triage for urgent care services. In 2022/23, we are providing an additional £50 million to support increased call taking capacity to relieve pressures on accident and emergency departments. The ambulance service is also increasing the number of calls resolved without requiring a face-to-face response, from 6.5% in May 2019 to 11.6% in May 2022.
Where appropriate, urgent community response teams are providing urgent care to patients in their homes. This includes older people and adults with complex health needs and provides access to a range of health and social care professionals within two hours.
Asked by: Jess Phillips (Labour - Birmingham, Yardley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what support he has provided to ensure best practices of emotional and psychological support delivery can be shared across NHS England services.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
A new Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) dataset is being implemented to enable NHS England to monitor existing integrated pathways and support local areas and share best practice. NHS England has also published guidance developed with the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines (NICE) to share best practice on implementing the IAPT long term conditions pathway. This expansion of IAPT will ensure that more people can receive emotional and psychological support in line with NICE’s guidance.
We are also expanding integrated community models to allow at least 370,000 adults and older adults with severe mental illness each year to have greater choice and control over their care and are supported to live well in their communities.
Asked by: Fleur Anderson (Labour - Putney)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to help ensure that social care support is accessible to older and disabled people in the context of rising living costs.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
Local authorities are best placed to understand and plan the care and support needs of the local population. We have made an additional £3.7 billion available for councils for 2022/23, which includes £1 billion specifically for social care. Councils can also use funding from un-ringfenced grants and council tax to meet inflationary and demographic pressures on these services.
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, what assessment he has made of reasons for the fall in dementia diagnosis rates in St Albans; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
The pandemic had a significant impact on memory assessment services and general practitioner referrals to those services through the re-prioritisation of health and care provision and the instruction for older people to shield and remain at home. This ongoing disruption has impeded the recovery of the dementia diagnosis rate in England, including in St Albans.
In 2021/22, we allocated £17 million to address dementia waiting lists and increase the number of diagnoses. We will set out plans for dementia in England in the next 10 years later this year, which will include a focus on diagnosis.
Asked by: Andrew Gwynne (Labour - Denton and Reddish)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the covid-19 outbreak on rates of dementia diagnosis; what steps he plans to take through the upcoming Dementia Strategy to tackle any backlog in dementia diagnosis; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
The pandemic had a significant impact on access to memory assessment services and general practitioner referrals due to re-prioritisation of services and the guidance for older people to shield at home. As of April 2022, the dementia diagnosis rate had recovered to 61.8%.
We will set out plans for dementia in England for the next 10 years later this year, including a focus on dementia diagnosis.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of trends in the level of referrals of people aged over 65 to the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme since 2019.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
The following table shows the number of referrals of people aged over 65 years old to Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) services. The data shows a decline in referrals from 2020/21 due to the impact of the pandemic as many people aged over 65 years old were more likely to be isolating. While complete data for 2021/22 is not yet available, the number of referrals is now increasing.
Year | Number of referrals |
2018/19 | 104,347 |
2019/20 | 105,438 |
2020/21 | 74,565 |
2021/22 to Quarter 3 | 72,717 |
Source: Psychological Therapies, Annual Reports on the use of IAPT services, NHS Digital