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  • Chi Onwurah – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Chi Onwurah – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chi Onwurah on 2014-06-18.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, for what reason callers to NHS England’s EHIC renewal line are assumed to agree to data-sharing if they do not hang up, whilst other government departments require legal data-sharing gateways.

    Jane Ellison

    The NHS Business Services Authority (NHS BSA) administers the EHIC (European Health Insurance Card) application system and telephone line.

    Applicants for EHIC cards are asked to agree to share their application details for the purpose of validating EHIC applications and claims (for which information is shared with the Department for Work and Pensions and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs) and in order to prevent and detect fraud and errors (for which information may be shared with NHS Protect and the Department of Health – International Division). The agreement of customers to share their data is sufficient under the Data Protection Act. No personal medical or clinical data is shared as part of this process.

    Callers to the EHIC telephone service are assumed to agree to share their application details. We acknowledge that the current telephone message advising callers about data sharing could be clearer. The NHS BSA has undertaken that they will not share any further EHIC data which is gathered through the telephone service, until the message has been updated.

  • Iain Wright – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Iain Wright – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Iain Wright on 2014-06-18.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will provide additional funding for Cleveland Police to assist in (a) retaining and (b) increasing the number of police officers in operation in Hartlepool constituency.

    Damian Green

    Like all parts of the public sector the police must play their part in
    reducing the deficit and the vast majority of forces are rising to the
    challenge of reducing costs, maintaining services and cutting crime.
    Ultimately what matters is how officers are deployed, not how many of them
    there are and, in Cleveland, police recorded crime has fallen by 14 per cent
    since 2010.

  • Bob Ainsworth – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Bob Ainsworth – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Bob Ainsworth on 2014-06-18.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many police community support officers there were in (a) Coventry, (b) Coventry North East constituency, (c) the West Midlands and (d) England in each of the last five years.

    Damian Green

    The following table contains the requested data for police community support
    officers in:
    (a) Coventry Basic Command Unit, from 31 March 2009 to 31 March 2011. Figures
    at basic command unit level ceased to be collected from then to reduce the
    administratvie burden on the police.
    (b) figures for Coventry North East constituency are not collected by the Home
    Office.
    (c) (d) the West Midlands police force, the West Midlands region and England,
    from 31 March 2009 to 30 September 2013.

  • Virendra Sharma – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Virendra Sharma – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Virendra Sharma on 2014-06-18.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of take-home naloxone in reducing the number of opiate-related deaths across the UK in conjunction with the training and educational programmes within the prison services.

    Jane Ellison

    From July 2009 to February 2010, the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse (now part of Public Health England (PHE)) ran a trial at 16 pilot sites around England in which carers and relations of opiate misusers were trained to respond to overdoses and use the antidote naloxone and basic life support techniques.

    A report[1] on the trial was published in 2011, and it was clear that naloxone appeared to help save lives. The report said that there were 18 overdoses where carers used naloxone and two where they applied basic life support. All the drug users survived the overdose. The trial included people who were about to leave prisons, and the report covers some of the issues around this.

    There is currently a trial running on the effectiveness of giving prisoners naloxone when they leave prison, which has yet to report.

    Some prisons currently supply prisons with take-home naloxone as part of their post-release support. PHE does not hold the data centrally.

    The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs has recommended that naloxone be made more widely available, and the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency has undertaken a consultation with the field on implementing this recommendation. There will be no further policy announcements on naloxone until the report on this consultation is published.

    [1] Full report available at http://www.nta.nhs.uk/uploads/naloxonereport2011.pdf

  • Gregory Campbell – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Gregory Campbell – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gregory Campbell on 2014-06-18.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people who were convicted of a sexual offence have been prosecuted for having failed to notify their personal details to the police in the last 10 years.

    Norman Baker

    Figures for the number of registered sex offenders who were either cautioned or convicted for breaches of their notification requirement in England and Wales are contained in the Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA) Annual Report, published by the Ministry of Justice. The MAPPA reports for 2009-2013 may be found on the GOV.uk website. Reports published prior to 2009 may be found on the national archives website.

    Management of sex offenders is a devolved matter, so the figures do not include Northern Ireland.

  • Virendra Sharma – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Virendra Sharma – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Virendra Sharma on 2014-06-18.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to reduce the incidence of opiate-related overdoses among people recently released from prison.

    Jane Ellison

    People who have recently been released from prison are at a greater risk of overdose. A 2005 report on drug-related mortality among newly released offenders (1998-2000) showed that male prisoners in the study were about 29 times more likely to die than males in the general population.

    The Department of Health and Ministry of Justice have funded a joint initiative to improve the “through the gate” provision for prisoners who are dependent on drugs and alcohol. Ten prisons in the North West are currently piloting a range of innovative interventions to provide more intensive support and supervision for people leaving custody which include the use of peer mentors, recovery housing services and take-home naloxone as they return to the community.

    Public Health England has also published a checklist to support local authorities with commissioning services and interventions that help to prevent overdose, as part of a wider treatment and harm reduction system.

    The Integrated Drug Treatment System (IDTS) programme, implemented in prisons between 2006 and 2010, sought to improve the standard and quality of drug treatment in prisons. One of the key drivers for this programme was the need to reduce drug-related deaths among people who had been recently released from prison.

    Through IDTS, prisoners could get access to evidence-based opioid substitution treatment in prison, which they could continue in the community after release. The extent in which this was successful in reducing drug-related overdose deaths will be one of the themes in the IDTS evaluation, which will be published next year.

    The principles of IDTS continue to be adopted by local partners responsible for commissioning health services.

  • Bob Ainsworth – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Bob Ainsworth – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Bob Ainsworth on 2014-06-18.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what funding under which categories of expenditure her Department has allocated to domestic and sexual violence support services in each of the last five years.

    Norman Baker

    Domestic and sexual violence are devastating crimes and are not acceptable
    within our society. The Coalition Government’s continued approach to tackling
    such violence and abuse is set out in our Violence against Women and Girls
    Action Plan, updated in March 2014.

    Supporting victims is at the heart of this approach, which includes giving
    victims more confidence to report, and it is encouraging that police recorded
    crime figures show more victims are having the confidence to come forward.

    The Government has ring-fenced nearly £40 million of stable funding from 2010
    up to 2015 for specialist local domestic and sexual violence support services,
    rape crisis centres, the national domestic violence helplines and stalking
    helpline.

    Over the spending review period the Home Office funding of £28 million provides
    for:
    144 Independent Domestic Violence Advisers, 87 dedicated Independent
    Sexual Violence Advisers, 54 Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conference
    Co-ordinators, and funding to Coordinated Action Against Domestic Abuse
    to provide support and advice to MARACs, as well as running a programme
    of quality assurance and £1.2 million for three years from 2012 to improve
    services for young people suffering sexual violence in major urban areas.
    £900,000 a year is used towards the running costs of national helplines for
    victims of domestic violence and stalking.

    In 2013, the Home Secretary commissioned Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of
    Constabulary to undertake a comprehensive review on how the police deal with
    domestic violence and abuse. HMIC’s report exposed significant failings. In
    response to the Review, the Home Secretary has established a National
    Oversight Group, which she is chairing, and on which I sit, to ensure HMIC’s
    recommendations are acted upon. The Group met for the first time on 10 June.

    The Home Secretary has also written to chief constables making it clear that
    every police force must have an action plan in place by September 2014, to
    improve their response to domestic violence and abuse.

  • Bob Ainsworth – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Bob Ainsworth – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Bob Ainsworth on 2014-06-18.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department has taken to tackle domestic violence and sexual abuse since 2010.

    Norman Baker

    Domestic and sexual violence are devastating crimes and are not acceptable
    within our society. The Coalition Government’s continued approach to tackling
    such violence and abuse is set out in our Violence against Women and Girls
    Action Plan, updated in March 2014.

    Supporting victims is at the heart of this approach, which includes giving
    victims more confidence to report, and it is encouraging that police recorded
    crime figures show more victims are having the confidence to come forward.

    The Government has ring-fenced nearly £40 million of stable funding from 2010
    up to 2015 for specialist local domestic and sexual violence support services,
    rape crisis centres, the national domestic violence helplines and stalking
    helpline.

    Over the spending review period the Home Office funding of £28 million provides
    for:
    144 Independent Domestic Violence Advisers, 87 dedicated Independent
    Sexual Violence Advisers, 54 Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conference
    Co-ordinators, and funding to Coordinated Action Against Domestic Abuse
    to provide support and advice to MARACs, as well as running a programme
    of quality assurance and £1.2 million for three years from 2012 to improve
    services for young people suffering sexual violence in major urban areas.
    £900,000 a year is used towards the running costs of national helplines for
    victims of domestic violence and stalking.

    In 2013, the Home Secretary commissioned Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of
    Constabulary to undertake a comprehensive review on how the police deal with
    domestic violence and abuse. HMIC’s report exposed significant failings. In
    response to the Review, the Home Secretary has established a National
    Oversight Group, which she is chairing, and on which I sit, to ensure HMIC’s
    recommendations are acted upon. The Group met for the first time on 10 June.

    The Home Secretary has also written to chief constables making it clear that
    every police force must have an action plan in place by September 2014, to
    improve their response to domestic violence and abuse.

  • Bob Ainsworth – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Bob Ainsworth – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Bob Ainsworth on 2014-06-18.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to increase the reporting of domestic and sexual violence offences by victims.

    Norman Baker

    Domestic and sexual violence are devastating crimes and are not acceptable
    within our society. The Coalition Government’s continued approach to tackling
    such violence and abuse is set out in our Violence against Women and Girls
    Action Plan, updated in March 2014.

    Supporting victims is at the heart of this approach, which includes giving
    victims more confidence to report, and it is encouraging that police recorded
    crime figures show more victims are having the confidence to come forward.

    The Government has ring-fenced nearly £40 million of stable funding from 2010
    up to 2015 for specialist local domestic and sexual violence support services,
    rape crisis centres, the national domestic violence helplines and stalking
    helpline.

    Over the spending review period the Home Office funding of £28 million provides
    for:
    144 Independent Domestic Violence Advisers, 87 dedicated Independent
    Sexual Violence Advisers, 54 Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conference
    Co-ordinators, and funding to Coordinated Action Against Domestic Abuse
    to provide support and advice to MARACs, as well as running a programme
    of quality assurance and £1.2 million for three years from 2012 to improve
    services for young people suffering sexual violence in major urban areas.
    £900,000 a year is used towards the running costs of national helplines for
    victims of domestic violence and stalking.

    In 2013, the Home Secretary commissioned Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of
    Constabulary to undertake a comprehensive review on how the police deal with
    domestic violence and abuse. HMIC’s report exposed significant failings. In
    response to the Review, the Home Secretary has established a National
    Oversight Group, which she is chairing, and on which I sit, to ensure HMIC’s
    recommendations are acted upon. The Group met for the first time on 10 June.

    The Home Secretary has also written to chief constables making it clear that
    every police force must have an action plan in place by September 2014, to
    improve their response to domestic violence and abuse.

  • David Hanson – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    David Hanson – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Hanson on 2014-06-18.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, which completed reports from the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration have been submitted for publication but had not yet been published on 17 June 2014; and what the (a) date of submission and (b) date she expects to publish the report is in each case.

    Karen Bradley

    The Home Secretary laid two reports before Parliament on 19 June 2014,
    that had been supplied by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and
    Immigration pursuant to sections 50 (2) and 50 (3) of the UK Borders Act 2007:

    – An unannounced inspection of the service provided by Glasgow Public Enquiry
    Office, ID 13061402 06/14.

    – The rights of European Citizens and their spouses to come to the UK:
    inspecting the application process and the tackling of abuse, ID 2634429 04/14.

    Four further reports have been supplied by the Chief Inspector that will be
    published shortly.