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  • Roger Godsiff – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Roger Godsiff – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Roger Godsiff on 2015-02-20.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the total value of contracts his Department has with private sector providers was in each of the last five years for which records are available.

    Dr Daniel Poulter

    Information held by the Department shows the total value of contracts with private sector providers was for each of the financial years for which we have records available at a proportionate cost:

    Financial Year

    Value of Contract

    2011/12

    £365,621,061

    2012/13

    £428,405,616

    2013/14

    £245,882,759

    2014/15

    £156,256,479

    The above figures include all spend that either currently is or was previously under contract with the third party commercial providers of the Department.

    Information for 2010/11, whilst being available, is not in a format to answer the question without the Department incurring disproportionate costs.

  • David Ward – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    David Ward – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Ward on 2015-02-20.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department has taken to ensure that local authorities commission adult social care services at an hourly rate which provides for staff to receive the national minimum wage and includes travel time between clients.

    Norman Lamb

    High quality, compassionate care for the most vulnerable in society can only be delivered by a well-trained, motivated and appropriately remunerated workforce. The Government recognises that pay can be a particular concern for those with the responsibility for delivering those services.

    Care providers are legally obliged to pay their workers at least the national minimum wage – relevant time spent travelling between care appointments should be treated as working time for national minimum wage purposes in accordance with HM Revenue and Custom (HMRC) guidance. This is the least that care workers deserve and should expect.

    Responsibility for enforcement of the national minimum wage rests with HMRC rather than local authorities. However, the Care Act places duties on local authorities to have regard to fostering an effective workforce able to deliver high quality services.

    The Government has recently published statutory guidance to support the implementation of the Care Act that describes how local authorities must meet these new duties when commissioning, which directs that local authorities should have evidence that care providers they contract with are paying at least the national minimum wage, including factoring into those calculations any time spent travelling between care appointments and that those providers found to be recently in breach of the law, should be excluded from the contract tendering process.

    The Government has also worked with the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services and the Local Government Association to co-produce a set of commissioning standards that were launched in October 2014. These standards amplify the good practice set out in the statutory guidance in regards to fostering an effective workforce.

  • Frank Field – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Frank Field – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Frank Field on 2015-02-20.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to improve patient care for people with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.

    Jane Ellison

    In 2013, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) published a clinical guideline on idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), providing evidence based advice to support clinicians in diagnosing and managing people with IPF which it expects to review in June 2015. Since then, it has published a quality standard for IPF in January 2015. This sets out the markers of high quality in the care of people with IPF and is designed to drive up standards and to reduce inequalities and variation. NICE has also recommended pirfenidone (Esbriet) as a possible treatment for some people with IPF through its technology appraisal programme.

    NHS England commissions some services for patients with IPF as part of its specialised services remit. Its respiratory interstitial lung disease (adult) service specification, which includes IPF, sets out what it expects to be in place so that providers can offer evidence based safe and effective services. This specification is currently being updated to ensure it includes the most up to date guidance on IPF including the recently published NICE quality standards. Commissioning of rehabilitation, oxygen services and acute admissions for exacerbations are covered by local commissioning arrangements.

  • Andrew Gwynne – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Andrew Gwynne – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Gwynne on 2015-02-20.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many registered nurses (a) left and (b) joined NHS employment in each of the last five years.

    Dr Daniel Poulter

    There are now over 7,000 more nurses, midwives and health visitors working in the National Health Service than in May 2010.

    The attached table shows the number of registered nurses that have left and joined employment in each of the last five years.

  • Roger Godsiff – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Roger Godsiff – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Roger Godsiff on 2015-02-20.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to the oral evidence to the Health Committee of Dame Fiona Caldicott, 21 January 2015 to Question 705, what assessment he has made of whether patients who opt out of the care.data scheme will be excluded from NHS services such as bowel screening and e-referrals.

    Dr Daniel Poulter

    The process for objecting (‘opting out’) will be communicated during the care.data pathfinder stage and will apply to the use of identifiable general practitioner data for purposes beyond direct care. The care.data Programme team is working closely with clinical commissioning group pathfinder practices to ensure that it is understood that the opt-out should not impact upon the sharing of information for direct care.

    The care.data Programme team is working closely with the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC), NHS England and the Department in relation to ‘type 2 objections’. Appropriate communications will be agreed before starting communication activity in pathfinder areas.

    For those people who have made an existing ‘type 2 objection’, the HSCIC is committed to ensuring no patient suffers any adverse impact on their direct care through an inappropriate implementation of an objection. This means that information flows to support services such as cancer screening, electronic prescriptions and e-referrals are currently flowing and will continue to do so.

  • Andrew Gwynne – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Andrew Gwynne – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Gwynne on 2015-02-20.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what proportion of income received by commissioning support units from clinical commissioning groups is spent supporting clinical commissioning groups in outsourcing NHS services.

    Jane Ellison

    This information is not collected centrally.

  • Greg Mulholland – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Greg Mulholland – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Mulholland on 2015-02-20.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to ensure that patients deemed to have critical need are not affected by the time taken by NHS England to draft a new commissioning policy for ultra-rare treatments.

    Jane Ellison

    NHS England has responsibility for the commissioning of specialised services and is currently consulting on changes to the principles and processes by which it makes decisions on prioritising investment in specialised services.

    NHS England has provided assurance that any prioritisation which is urgent on clinical grounds will continue to be dealt with quickly through their existing procedures. The route for individual funding requests remains in place.

    The consultation can be found at:

    www.engage.england.nhs.uk/consultation/investing-in-specialised-commissioning

    “

  • Rushanara Ali – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Rushanara Ali – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Rushanara Ali on 2015-02-20.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what public health grant was awarded to Tower Hamlets in each year from 2005-06 to 2013-14.

    Jane Ellison

    Tower Hamlets, in line with other local authorities, has only been in receipt of a public health ring fenced grant since 1 April 2013. In 2013/14 Tower Hamlets received a grant of £31,382,000.

  • Rushanara Ali – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Rushanara Ali – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Rushanara Ali on 2015-02-20.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much Barts’ Trust has paid for locum staff in each of the last five years.

    Dr Daniel Poulter

    The information is not available in the format requested. Total earnings for locum doctors, at Barts Health NHS Trust for the period April 2012 to October 2014 are shown in the following table.

    April 2012 to October 2012

    November 2012 to October 2013

    November 2013 to October 2014

    All locum doctors

    £3,808,133

    £4,810,950

    £4,037,180

    Source: Health and Social Care Information Centre, Provisional NHS Staff Earnings Estimates.

    Notes:

    Data prior to April 2012, when the present merged Barts Health NHS Trust opened, are not available.

    These figures represent payments made using the Electronic Staff Record system to National Health Service staff who are employed and directly paid by NHS organisations.

  • Wayne David – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Wayne David – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Wayne David on 2015-02-20.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to improve diagnosis of hepatic encephalopathy.

    Jane Ellison

    Hepatic encephalopathy is an important end stage complication of liver disease. Monitoring at a national level is difficult because there is no specific code in the 10th edition of the International Classification of Diseases system (ICD10). The ICD10 guide recommends that patients with hepatic encephalopathy are classified as K72.9; hepatic failure, un-specified. Public Health England is working on raising the profile of hepatic encephalopathy with the Lancet Commission.