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  • Julie Elliott – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Julie Elliott – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Julie Elliott on 2016-09-02.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent assessment he has made of the effect of dehydration on the (a) safety and (b) health of elderly people living in care homes; and if he will make a statement.

    David Mowat

    In 2014 the Government updated the requirements of regulation with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to provide greater clarity about how the nutritional and hydration needs should be met. The new requirements are set out in Regulation 14 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014, which came into force on 1 April 2015. The CQC can prosecute for a breach of this regulation if a failure to meet the regulation results in avoidable harm to a person using the service, or a person using the service is exposed to significant risk of harm.

  • Richard Burden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Richard Burden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Richard Burden on 2016-09-02.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent steps his Department has taken to (a) improve access to and (b) decrease waiting times for services provided by GPs.

    David Mowat

    To implement the Government’s commitment to transform access to general practice (GP), £175 million has been invested in the GP Access Fund to test improved and innovative access to GP services. Across the two waves of the Access Fund, there are 57 schemes covering over 2,500 practices and 18 million patients – a third of the population – have benefited from improved access and transformational change at local level.

    This includes more appointments being made available, especially at times more convenient for patients, such as weekday evenings and weekends. It also includes different approaches like telephone consultations and better use of the wider primary care workforce (such as Advanced Nurse Practitioners, pharmacists, the voluntary sector, physiotherapists and paramedics) to deliver improved access to patients.

    These approaches have helped release local GP capacity, improve patient choice, and more appropriately matched the needs of patients with the most appropriate professional to care for them. In addition to Access Fund sites, clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) may offer local initiatives for improving access to GPs.

    Practices in the GP Access Fund are testing an automated appointment measuring interface (the GP Appointment Tool) to give them detailed information about their activity and how it varies over time. This will help practices match their supply of appointments more closely to demand. It will be available for every practice from 2017-18.

    The General Practice Forward View, published in April 2016, announced that an extra £2.4 billion a year will be invested in GP services by 2020-21. As part of overall investment in general practice, NHS England will provide over £500 million of recurrent funding by 2020-21, on top of current primary medical care allocations, to enable CCGs to commission and fund extra capacity across England. This is to ensure that by 2020, everyone has access to GP services, including sufficient routine appointments at evenings and weekends to meet locally determined demand, alongside effective access to out-of-hours and urgent care services.

  • Stuart Andrew – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Stuart Andrew – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stuart Andrew on 2016-09-02.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will provide seed funding to voluntary sector organisations to provide services to improve the transition between child and adult health services.

    David Mowat

    This Department with NHS England, Public Health England and representatives from the voluntary sector has been conducting the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) Investment Review, looking at investments in and partnerships with the voluntary sector at both a local and national level. As part of this, we considered the Voluntary Sector Investment Programme, consisting of the Innovation, Excellence and Strategic Development and Health and Social Care Volunteering Fund grant schemes and the Strategic Partner Programme. On 19 May the Department published Joint review of partnerships and investment in voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations in the health and care sector: Final report produced in partnership by representatives of the VCSE sector and the Department of Health, NHS England, and Public Health England.

    We are reshaping the programme to reflect the recommendations in the report and will announce our plans in due course.

    The Department has provided over £420,000 in grant funding, covering three years from 2013-14, to Together for Short Lives, the national organisation that represents children’s hospices. The grant supports the Transition Taskforce’s provision of guidance and training to enable good transitions locally between children’s and adult services for those with life-limiting conditions.

  • Deidre Brock – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Deidre Brock – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Deidre Brock on 2016-09-02.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential effect on anti-terrorism measures in the UK of a period of uncertainty as to the extent to which the Schengen Agreement will apply to the UK after it leaves the EU.

    Mr Robert Goodwill

    Cooperation with our European partners on counter-terrorism has not ceased since the result of the referendum was announced and we continue to work with other Member States, including continuing to participate in those parts of the Schengen Agreement that relate to law enforcement cooperation. Our key partners have confirmed their commitment to continue to work closely in an area where the UK has played a key role in advancing European capability. We are considering the full range of options to ensure effective counter-terrorism cooperation continues after the UK leaves the EU.

  • Siobhain McDonagh – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Siobhain McDonagh – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Siobhain McDonagh on 2016-09-02.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department takes to prevent people using a false identity being granted entry clearance to the UK.

    Mr Robert Goodwill

    The Home Office does not hold the specific information in relation to people from Pakistan using false identity, in the format requested. To obtain it would involve interrogating individual case records, at disproportionate cost.

    All out of country entry clearance applications are subject to an extensive range of mandatory and discretionary checks.

    These include, but are not limited to, identity, travel document verification, searches against national and international police records and against previous Immigration history.

  • Siobhain McDonagh – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Siobhain McDonagh – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Siobhain McDonagh on 2016-09-02.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department took to assess the grounds for granting a visa to Mufti Hanif Qureshi.

    Mr Robert Goodwill

    All visa applications are considered on their individual merits and in line with the Immigration Rules.

    In order to safeguard an individual’s personal information and comply with the Data Protection Act 1998 the Home Office is limited in what information it can provide when the request is made by someone who is not the applicant. The Home Office is therefore unable to provide the information requested.

  • John Pugh – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    John Pugh – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by John Pugh on 2016-09-02.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many murders have been committed by people in receipt of psychiatric treatment or deemed by a court at the time of trial to require psychiatric treatment for a clinical illness in England and Wales in each of the last five years.

    Brandon Lewis

    The available information for England and Wales from the Home Office Homicide Index is shown in the attached table and shows the numbers of homicide offences where the court decides that, acting on medical evidence, the suspect should be the subject of a hospital order.

    The data does not specifically identify those suspects requiring psychiatric treatment for a clinical illness.

    Data is based on the number of offenders whose court proceedings have been completed. Due to the time it can take for cases to pass through the criminal justice system, there is likely to be an increase in the number of people convicted of homicide and given a hospital order for recent years when updated figures are published in 2017.

    In addition, the National Confidential Inquiry, based at Manchester University, publishes an annual report on suicide and homicide of people with mental illness, using information from the Homicide Index and Hospital Trust records. The most recent report is available at:

    http://research.bmh.manchester.ac.uk/cmhs/research/centreforsuicideprevention/nci/reports/

  • Siobhain McDonagh – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Siobhain McDonagh – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Siobhain McDonagh on 2016-09-02.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many times her Department has been made aware of people from Pakistan using a false identity to obtain entry clearance to the UK in the last five years.

    Mr Robert Goodwill

    The Home Office does not hold the specific information in relation to people from Pakistan using false identity, in the format requested. To obtain it would involve interrogating individual case records, at disproportionate cost.

    All out of country entry clearance applications are subject to an extensive range of mandatory and discretionary checks.

    These include, but are not limited to, identity, travel document verification, searches against national and international police records and against previous Immigration history.

  • Alistair Carmichael – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Alistair Carmichael – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alistair Carmichael on 2016-09-02.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department plans to make an assessment of the potential merits of extending visa-free access to the UK to Ugandan citizens.

    Mr Robert Goodwill

    The UK keeps its visa system under regular review. There are currently no plans to change the visa requirements for Ugandan citizens.

  • Alistair Carmichael – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Alistair Carmichael – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alistair Carmichael on 2016-09-02.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with which countries the UK has a visa waiver agreement.

    Mr Robert Goodwill

    All non-EEA nationals coming to the UK for periods of longer than six months unless exempt from immigration control are expected to obtain a UK visa in advance of travel.

    Appendix 2 of Appendix V of the Immigration Rules lists those countries whose nationals or citizens are subject to immigration control and who additionally require a visa obtained in advance of travel as a visitor or for any purpose for less than six months. Appendix 2 also provides details of specified travel documents whose holders do not need a visa before they travel to the UK as a visitor:

    https://www.gov.uk/guidance/immigration-rules/immigration-rules-appendix-v-visitor-rules

    Nationals of countries not included on the visa national list who are visiting the UK for less than six months may travel without a visa obtained in advance but will still need to seek permission to enter on arrival. An exception to this for nationals of Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait intending a stay of less than six months allows them to apply for an Electronic Visa Waiver (EVW) in advance of travel.