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, further to their paper Review of risk of modern slavery and human trafficking in the NHS supply chain, published on 14 December 2023, and specifically their assessment of human rights violations in Xinjiang, whether an assessment was made of the number of people at risk of forced organ harvesting.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The United Kingdom is committed to tackling the issue of Uyghur forced labour in supply chains, and is taking robust action. We have introduced new guidance on the risks of doing business in Xinjiang, enhanced export controls, and announced the introduction of financial penalties under the Modern Slavery Act. The Procurement Act, which received Royal Assent in 2023, will enable public sector contracting authorities to reject bids and terminate contracts with suppliers which are known to use forced labour themselves or anywhere in their supply chain.
The review, which examined the NHS Supply Chain's supplier base, primarily focussed on medical devices and consumables. It did not specifically address the risk of forced organ harvesting because the National Health Service does not engage with supply chains from China for the procurement of human organs.
Asked by: Julie Elliott (Labour - Sunderland Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the implementation plan for a cyber resilient health and adult social care system in England has been published.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The purpose of the implementation plan is to provide details on how we are going to be delivering our strategy over the current spending period. The plan will be published in spring 2024, but we are already delivering on the strategy through an ambitious Cyber Improvement Programme, aiming to invest up to £147.6 million by April 2025.
This programme is looking to further strengthen existing national cyber security controls for health and care, which already includes cyber monitoring 24 hours a day, seven days a week, through NHS England’s Cyber Security Operations Centre, national-scale defences from cyberattack, such as Secure Boundary, and nationally provided cyber incident response contracts in the event of a cyber incident.
Asked by: Alistair Strathern (Labour - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 9 January 2024 to Question 7731 on Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes Integrated Care Board: Dental Services, how many Integrated Care Boards are in leasing arrangements for primary care provision; and what the value of such contracts is.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Premises used for primary care provision can be leased or owned through a variety of arrangements. For example, in general practices, most premises are directly owned or leased by the general practitioners. NHS England is aware of just one integrated care board (ICB) who is holding a lease on primary care premises. The overall value of this lease commitment is £3.8 million. Whilst other ICBs may be considering taking on leases, they would be required to seek national approval.
Asked by: Neil Hudson (Conservative - Penrith and The Border)
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 General Practices have adequate funding in (a) Penrith and The Border constituency and (b) Cumbria.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The majority of the Department’s funding is allocated to NHS England. In turn, NHS England allocates funding to integrated care boards (ICBs) for primary care, taking account of nationally agreed contracts, such as general practitioner (GP) contracts. The Department and NHS England set the contract and associated funding for GPs each year in consultation with the profession. ICBs have delegated responsibility for commissioning healthcare services, including GP services, for their populations.
In 2022/23, practices in NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria ICB received £171.07 per registered patient and practices in NHS North East and North Cumbria ICB received £173.00 per registered patient. This is higher than the England average of £163.50 per registered patient.
Spending on GPs has risen by almost a fifth in real terms, or 19%, between 2017/18 and the most recent data in 2021/22, from £11.3 billion to £13.5 billion. The Government continues to invest in GPs to ensure it is sustainable in the long-term.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many qualified pathologists work for the coroner service.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The standard NHS histopathology contract does not include coronial post-mortem work, which is separately commissioned by individual coroner areas. Consequently, it is not possible to identify the number of pathologists undertaking coronial work from the number currently holding NHS contracts, and this information is not centrally collated from other sources.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
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 to provide additional funding to help prevent the closure of NHS dental services.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Health Service reformed dental contracts in 2022 which will help to improve access for patients across England while providing fairer remuneration for dentists. We are already investing £3 billion a year into dentistry and are working hard to improve access to care. We know that we must go further and will publish a Dentistry Recovery Plan shortly.
From 1 April 2023, the commissioning responsibility for commissioning primary care dentistry to meet the needs of the local population was delegated to integrated care boards (ICBs) across England. ICBs became responsible for having local processes in place to involve patient groups, and for undertaking oral health needs assessments, to identify areas of need and determine the priorities for investment.
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 assessment she has made of the potential merits of developing one job evaluation scheme across all NHS professions.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The national contracts that cover the National Health Service workforce are managed by different collective bargaining structures.
The Agenda for Change contract is managed by the NHS Staff Council and is underpinned by the NHS Job Evaluation Scheme. There is no equivalent job evaluation scheme for doctors and dentists’ terms and conditions.
Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many (a) CT scanners, (b) MRI scanning machines and (c) linear accelerators for radiotherapy were owned by her Department in the financial year 2021-22; how many and what proportion of the (i) CT scanners, (ii) MRI scanning machines and (iii) linear accelerators for radiotherapy used in the NHS were (A) leased and (B) operated through managed equipment services contracts in the financial year 2021-22; what the average age of the (1) CT scanners, (2) MRI scanning machines and (3) linear accelerators for radiotherapy used in the NHS was in the financial year 2021-22; and with reference to the Answer of 13 July 2022 to Question 31135 on Medical Equipment: Standards, what recent progress integrated care systems have made eliminating the backlog of diagnostic equipment over 10 years old by 2024-25.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
As part of the Government’s commitment to increase diagnostics services, £2.3 billion of funding was awarded to transform diagnostic services over three years. This funding is being used to increase the number of community diagnostic centres (CDCs) up to 160 by March 2025, expanding and protecting elective planned diagnostic services. As of January 2024, there are 150 CDCs currently operational that have delivered over six million additional tests since July 2021.
Asked by: Tobias Ellwood (Conservative - Bournemouth East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Department is taking steps to encourage NHS bank staff to remain employed by the NHS in the context of higher rates of pay available through external agencies.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Most temporary staffing shifts are filled by bank workers with latest available figures for 2022/23 being 76%. Trusts are encouraged to fill workforce gaps through bank workers, including expanding the provision of in-house staff banks, and trusts are working together to improve transparency of pay rates across both bank and agency staff which is helping to reduce costs.
Bank rates of pay are set locally to align with agenda for change pay scales. The agency price cap was set to be broadly comparable with the cost of substantive and bank staff, in terms of cost to the National Health Service. While there are instances of agency workers receiving higher pay levels than the price cap, NHS England is supporting trusts to reduce off-framework agency provision and to improve price cap compliance. Trusts are working to improve flexible working opportunities for staff to encourage them towards substantive NHS contracts.
Asked by: Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds North West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his Department is taking to support disabled asylum seekers in asylum accommodation.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Asylum seekers have access to health and social care services from the point of arrival in the UK. The Home Office and its contractors work closely with the NHS, local authorities and non-governmental organisations to ensure that people can access the healthcare and support they need. All accommodation providers have a contractual duty to assist people in accessing the health care they need. The Home Office also operates a Safeguarding Hub to support vulnerable individuals in accessing these services. In addition, the Home Office contracts Migrant Help to provide advice and guidance to asylum seekers should they have an issue with their accommodation or support, and for signposting to health and welfare services. Asylum seekers can access Migrant Help 24/7, every day of the year by a freephone telephone number, via an online chat or completing an email enquiry form both of which can be accessed free of charge on the Migrant Help website. Interpreting and translation services are available through Migrant Help when the need arises for asylum seekers to raise any queries or concerns.
Where an individual is on asylum support and has a care need, a referral will be made to the local authority for an assessment of care needs under the Care Act 2014. Our guidance sets out the approach to be taken by the Home Office to the duties and obligations owed to asylum seekers who have disabilities, care needs or both. In doing so it sets out how the framework of the Care Act 2014 should be interpreted by the Home Office and its external partners in the context of asylum support. The guidance can be found here: Asylum-Seekers-With-Care-Needs-v2.0ext.pdf (publishing.service.gov.uk).