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  • Justin Madders – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Justin Madders – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Madders on 2016-03-08.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what proportion of gross domestic product (GDP) has been spent on health care in (a) England and (b) the UK in each year since 1997; and what estimate he has made of the proportion of GDP that will be spent on health care over the next five years.

    Alistair Burt

    Spend as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) is usually reported on a United Kingdom basis. HM Treasury publishes UK health spend figures as a percentage of GDP which are shown below. Note this excludes private health expenditure.

    Spend on health in UK as % of GDP –

    1996/97 – 5.0%

    1997/98 – 5.0%

    1998/99 – 5.0%

    1999/00 – 5.0%

    2000/01 – 5.2%

    2001/02 – 5.6%

    2002/03 – 5.8%

    2003/04 – 6.2%

    2004/05 – 6.5%

    2005/06 – 6.7%

    2006/07 – 6.6%

    2007/08 – 6.7%

    2008/09 – 7.2%

    2009/10 – 7.8%

    2010/11 – 7.6%

    2011/12 – 7.4%

    2012/13 – 7.5%

    2013/14 – 7.5%

    2014/15 – 7.4%

    Source: Table 4.4 HMT, Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses 2015.

    The Spending Review settlement, delivered by the Chancellor on 25 November, set the Department’s overall budget for the remaining years of the parliament and the level of funding that will be available to the National Health Service. It set absolute spending totals, not spending as a percentage of GDP, providing certainty for financial planning over the period. The Department has not therefore made forecasts for health spending as a share of GDP for future years.

    GDP figures are calculated on an economy wide basis, so GDP figures for England are not available to calculate spend on health care in England as a share of English GDP.

  • Julian Sturdy – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Julian Sturdy – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Julian Sturdy on 2016-03-08.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will implement a treatment pathway for people who suffer from lipoedema to allow such people to receive liposuction on the NHS.

    Jane Ellison

    There are several different treatments available for the management of lipoedema such as compression therapy, exercise and massage. There is limited evidence on the efficacy of liposuction for the treatment of lipoedema, and it is not routinely available on the National Health Service.

  • David Anderson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    David Anderson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Anderson on 2016-03-08.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the effect on cost and on bed capacity of delayed hospital discharge at the Lane Fox Respiratory Unit at St Thomas’ Hospital, London; and if he will make a statement.

    Alistair Burt

    The information is not collected centrally and no estimate has been made.

  • Royston Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Royston Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Royston Smith on 2016-03-08.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he plans to take to ensure that seven-day GP services are provided in Southampton.

    Alistair Burt

    The Southampton City Primary Care Hub scheme supports 269,875 patients from 33 general practitioner (GP) practices, providing them with access to improved services across Southampton via six hubs. The first of these six hubs opened in June 2015 and offers GP and Healthcare Assistant appointments from 6:30pm-8:00pm in the evenings and 8:00am-8:00pm at the weekends. Two further hubs went live in September and a further two early January 2016 as part of a phased rollout.

    Information technology offerings from the hubs will feature e-Consultations and e-Feedback for patients which will be phased across the hubs in 2016. Since September 2015, the scheme has also been offering patients a physiotherapy service delivering primary care physio in the evenings and at weekends, alongside a pathway redesign to support GPs as first contact for patients with musculoskeletal problems.

  • Nicholas Soames – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Nicholas Soames – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nicholas Soames on 2016-03-08.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, for what reasons St George’s Medical School is capped at 259 student doctors each year.

    Ben Gummer

    Health Education England (HEE) is responsible for advising the Government on the total number of medical school places and for commissioning postgraduate medical education. This aims to ensure that we have a National Health Service workforce in the right numbers, with the right skills, values and behaviour to respond to the current and future needs of patients. It takes around 5 years of medical school (undergraduate) and a year of training to become a registered doctor and a further 4 to 11 years of training to specialise in General Practice or hospital specialities.

    There are currently over 50,000 doctors in training in England according to Health Education England’s Workforce Plan (2015/16) for England.

    The latest monthly workforce statistics for November 2015 published by the Health and Social Care Information Centre show that there are 106,124 full-time equivalent doctors currently employed in the NHS in England which is an increase of 10,703 (11.2%) since May 2010.

    The Department and the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) share responsibility for determining the medical and dental school undergraduate intakes in England. The Department (via HEE) is responsible for determining overall numbers, and HEFCE has responsibility for the individual distribution to medical and dental schools. Historically places have broadly ben allocated for each institution the same as the previous year, so as to keep stability in recruitment, to help institutions to plan for their intake and in order to meet the national target.

  • Nicholas Soames – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Nicholas Soames – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nicholas Soames on 2016-03-08.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the gap is between the number of available and required trained doctors.

    Ben Gummer

    Health Education England (HEE) is responsible for advising the Government on the total number of medical school places and for commissioning postgraduate medical education. This aims to ensure that we have a National Health Service workforce in the right numbers, with the right skills, values and behaviour to respond to the current and future needs of patients. It takes around 5 years of medical school (undergraduate) and a year of training to become a registered doctor and a further 4 to 11 years of training to specialise in General Practice or hospital specialities.

    There are currently over 50,000 doctors in training in England according to Health Education England’s Workforce Plan (2015/16) for England.

    The latest monthly workforce statistics for November 2015 published by the Health and Social Care Information Centre show that there are 106,124 full-time equivalent doctors currently employed in the NHS in England which is an increase of 10,703 (11.2%) since May 2010.

    The Department and the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) share responsibility for determining the medical and dental school undergraduate intakes in England. The Department (via HEE) is responsible for determining overall numbers, and HEFCE has responsibility for the individual distribution to medical and dental schools. Historically places have broadly ben allocated for each institution the same as the previous year, so as to keep stability in recruitment, to help institutions to plan for their intake and in order to meet the national target.

  • Luciana Berger – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Luciana Berger – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-03-08.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many co-commissioning pilots aimed at improving clear access routes between schools and specialist mental health services have been launched in each (a) year since 2010 and (b) month of 2015-16 to date.

    Alistair Burt

    On 3 December 2015 the Education Secretary announced 22 pilot areas across the country would develop better joint working arrangements to support timely and appropriate referrals to services and implement a joint training programme for named contacts in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services and schools.

    To take forward these actions, the Department and NHS England are working together to test the named lead approach and to trial a joint training programme for them. The training workshops element of the pilot began in November 2015 and it is expected that all of the workshops will be delivered by the middle of March 2016.

  • Heidi Alexander – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Heidi Alexander – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Heidi Alexander on 2016-03-08.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to ensure hospital trusts routinely collect and submit data on secondary breast cancer.

    Jane Ellison

    Public Health England (PHE) is responsible for collecting cancer data to support national cancer registration in England and recognises the importance of collecting data on recurrent breast cancer.

    At present pilot work in acute trusts has improved the reporting for breast cancer recurrence and metastasis to the National Cancer Registration Service but the uptake has been slow and the data is not complete. Further work is being scoped by NHS England and PHE based on the recommendation in the recent Independent Cancer Taskforce report to establish robust surveillance systems to collect this data on all cancers.

    Data on the number of people diagnosed with secondary breast cancer is not currently available.

  • Heidi Alexander – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Heidi Alexander – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Heidi Alexander on 2016-03-08.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many cancer clinical nurse specialists were working in the NHS in the latest period for which figures are available.

    Ben Gummer

    The number of cancer clinical nurse specialists working in the National Health Service is not collected centrally.

    It is for local NHS organisations with their knowledge of the healthcare needs of their local population to invest in training for specialist skills and to deploy specialist nurses.

  • Heidi Alexander – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Heidi Alexander – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Heidi Alexander on 2016-03-08.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to ensure that secondary breast cancer patients have access to a clinical nurse specialist as part of their care.

    Jane Ellison

    The independent Cancer Taskforce published its report, Achieving World-Class Cancer Outcomes, in July last year, recognising the importance of access to clinical nurse specialists or other key workers for patients with all types of cancer.

    NHS England is currently working with partners across the health system to determine how best to implement the recommendations of the Cancer Taskforce and has appointed Cally Palmer CBE (Chief Executive of the Royal Marsden) as National Cancer Director to lead on implementation, as well as new cancer vanguards to redesign care and patient experience. She has set up a new Cancer Transformation Board to implement the strategy, which met for the first time on 25 January. There will also be a Cancer Advisory Group, chaired by Sir Harpal Kumar, to oversee and scrutinise the work of the Transformation Board.