Asked by: Baroness Altmann (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what are the top five causes of (1) disability, and (2) premature death, in England; and how the NHS plans to mitigate or reduce each cause.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study provides a comprehensive picture of mortality and disability across countries, time, age, and sex. It quantifies health loss from hundreds of diseases, injuries, and risk factors, so that health systems can be improved and disparities eliminated.
According to the data for England published by the GBD study in 2019, the top 5 causes of years lived with disability for England were low back pain, diabetes, depressive disorders, headache disorders and falls.
Data for 2022 for England indicates that the five leading causes of death aged under 75 were cancers, cardiovascular diseases, respiratory diseases, deaths from external causes, and digestive system diseases.
On the 24 January 2023, we announced our plan to publish the Major Conditions Strategy. This strategy will explore how we can tackle the key drivers of ill-health in England, reduce pressure on the NHS and reduce ill-health related labour market inactivity.
To deliver on these objectives, the strategy will focus on tackling the six major conditions groups – cancers, mental ill-health, cardiovascular disease (including stroke and diabetes), dementia, chronic respiratory diseases, and musculoskeletal disorders – that account for around 60% of ill-health and early death in England.
Focusing on these groups of conditions that contribute most to mortality and morbidity will allow us to focus our efforts on the key actions needed to achieve our Levelling-Up mission to gain five extra years of Healthy Life Expectancy by 2035.
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, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of implementing a dedicated cancer strategy to work in conjunction with the Major Conditions Strategy.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
On 24 January 2023, the Government announced plans to publish the Major Conditions Strategy, which will focus on tackling the six major conditions groups: cancers, mental ill-health, cardiovascular disease including stroke and diabetes, dementia, chronic respiratory diseases, and musculoskeletal disorders, which together account for approximately 60% of ill-health and early death in England. Addressing cancer together with other major conditions will allow the Department and NHS England to focus on similarities in approach, ensuring care is better centred around the patient.
Following the call for evidence for a 10-year cancer plan in 2022, the Department received over 5,000 submissions. These findings will be fed into the development of the Major Conditions Strategy.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to tackle disparities in diabetes care (a) access and (b) treatment for people living in low socioeconomic areas.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government continues to support local authorities to make provision for the NHS Health Check, England’s flagship cardiovascular disease prevention programme.
The programme aims to prevent heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and kidney disease, and some cases of dementia among adults aged between 40 and 74 years old. Each year, the programme engages over one million people.
A review of the programme in 2021 found that there were higher rates of NHS Health Check attendance among people over 55, women, black African and Asian ethnic groups. Across all ethnic groups, attendance is lowest amongst people in the most deprived decile.
The NHS Long Term Plan committed to providing a weight management services for people with a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes or hypertension and with a body mass index of 30 or higher, adjusted appropriately for ethnicity.
Diabetes is also one of six major groups of conditions that we aim to tackle through the Major Conditions Strategy. The Strategy will set out the supporting and enabling interventions the centre can make to ensure that integrated care systems and the organisations within them maximise the opportunities to tackle clusters of disadvantage in their local areas where they exist. This will include addressing unwarranted variation in outcomes and the care people receive in the context of the recovery from the pandemic.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
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 adequacy of botulinum toxin treatments for stroke victims in west London.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
All National Health Service providers in North West London Integrated Care Board area, which includes the ‘west London’ area, use botulinum toxin treatments where appropriate and in line with clinical advice.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
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 improve treatment for individuals aged over 65 with low blood pressure.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The NHS Health Check, offered to eligible people aged between 40 and 74 years old every five years, aims to prevent heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and kidney disease, and some cases of dementia. People can also now have their blood pressure tested in many community pharmacies and over 7,500 pharmacies have delivered nearly two million blood pressure checks in just over two years and we are working with NHS England to expand this service by investing up to £50 million over this and next year. In both services people will be referred to their general practitioner for further assessment and clinical treatment if required, including those with low blood pressure.
No assessment of the adequacy of treatments or advice provided by the National Health Service to individuals with low blood pressure is planned.
Asked by: Ruth Cadbury (Labour - Brentford and Isleworth)
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 adequacy of (a) treatments and (b) advice provided by the NHS for individuals with low blood pressure.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The NHS Health Check, offered to eligible people aged between 40 and 74 years old every five years, aims to prevent heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and kidney disease, and some cases of dementia. People can also now have their blood pressure tested in many community pharmacies and over 7,500 pharmacies have delivered nearly two million blood pressure checks in just over two years and we are working with NHS England to expand this service by investing up to £50 million over this and next year. In both services people will be referred to their general practitioner for further assessment and clinical treatment if required, including those with low blood pressure.
No assessment of the adequacy of treatments or advice provided by the National Health Service to individuals with low blood pressure is planned.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to her Department's publication entitled Major conditions strategy: case for change and our strategic framework published on 21 August 2023, what steps she is taking to ensure NHS non-clinical staff employed through the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme have awareness of the six major health conditions in the strategy.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Major Conditions Strategy will focus on tackling the six major conditions groups – cancers, mental ill-health, cardiovascular disease (including stroke and diabetes), dementia, chronic respiratory diseases, and musculoskeletal disorders – that account for around 60% of ill-health and early death in England.
General practices are self-employed contractors to the National Health Service and it is largely up to employers to determine how best to staff their Primary Care Networks or GPs to best meet the needs of their population. The demands each patient places on their GPs are different and can be affected by many different factors, including rurality and patient demographics.
Individual employers are responsible for ensuring their staff are trained and competent to carry out their role, and for investing in the future of their staff through providing continuing professional development funding.
As part of the Delivery plan for recovering access to primary care, published in May 2023, we will invest in care navigation training to help teams direct patients to the right person.
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, what steps her Department is taking to support hospital trusts to adopt AI technologies to assist with (a) interventions for and (b) treatment of (i) cancers, (ii) strokes and (iii) heart conditions.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department is funding the AI in Health and Care Award which has provided £123 million to 86 artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. The Award was created to accelerate the testing and evaluation of some of the most promising AI technologies that can support clinicians. Through the Award, projects are being funded to support clinicians in diagnosing and treating cancers, strokes, and heart conditions. For example, as of December 2023, AI for use in stroke is deployed in 92% of stroke units in England, substantially lowering the time it takes for people to receive treatment.
In June 2023, the Department announced a £21 million AI diagnostics fund to support imaging networks in England to adopt AI technologies into the lung cancer pathway. Funding has been allocated to 11 imaging networks, covering 64 trusts. In addition, the Department is piloting an AI deployment platform to see if a centralised platform could facilitate the deployment of AI technologies for radiology.
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, what steps she is taking to raise awareness of early onset heart disease.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The NHS Health Check programme aims to prevent heart disease, stroke, diabetes and some cases of dementia and kidney disease among healthy adults aged between 40 and 74 years old. It does this through earlier awareness, assessment and management of six of the top risk factors for cardiovascular disease: blood pressure, cholesterol, physical activity, smoking, alcohol consumption and body mass index.
This includes the recent Government announcement as part of International Men’s Health Day 2023 to establish a men’s health task force that will look at ways to engage men in their health and increase uptake of the NHS Health Check.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she has taken to (a) raise awareness and (b) tackle disinformation on dementia in (i) Romford and (ii) England.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We want a society where there is less fear and stigma associated with dementia, and more understanding. The NHS Health Check for adults in England aged 45 to 74 years old is designed to identify early signs of stroke, kidney disease, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, or dementia. Since 2018, dementia risk reduction has been incorporated in the NHS Health Check to increase dementia awareness and motivate people to make positive changes to reduce their risks. In addition, those aged 65 years old and over are made aware of the signs and symptoms of dementia and guided to memory clinics.