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  • 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 2016-02-24.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to paragraph 3 on page 5 of the Five Year Forward View Mental Health Task Force report, published on 15 February 2016, if he will make it his policy to provide equal funding for mental health services.

    Alistair Burt

    We are committed to achieving parity of esteem between mental health and physical health. The Mental Health Taskforce estimates that the priority recommendations for the National Health Service set out in their report will cost an additional £1 billion annually by the year 2020/21. By the end of this Parliament we will make the Taskforce’s recommendations a reality.

    This builds on the £1.4 billion over this Parliament that has been previously announced for transforming children and young people’s mental health and improving support for eating disorders.

    All of the Taskforce report recommendations are funded from within the overall envelope agreed in the Spending Review. All of the £1 billion announced with the Taskforce report represents additional investment over and above what was allocated to the NHS in 2015/16.

    We are already spending more money on mental health than ever before – an estimated £11.7 billion last year. This shows our commitment to achieving an equal status between mental and physical health services. We have been clear that commissioners must continue to increase investment in mental health services each year at a level which at least matches their overall expenditure increase.

    We will monitor this closely to ensure this happens and know that clinical commissioning group spend is on track to increase as expected.

  • 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 2016-02-24.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of in which type of healthcare there is greatest geographical disparity of treatment (a) availability, (b) choice and (c) outcomes across England.

    Jane Ellison

    No such assessment has been made. However, the Right Care programme actively uses variation between clinical commissioning groups to help identify those diseases or conditions that have the potential for greatest improvement. Indicators used include prevalence, treatment and outcomes.

    The NHS Atlas of Variation, Commissioning for Value Packs and indicators in the National Health Service Outcomes Framework and Public Health Outcomes Framework provide publicly accessible resources to compare geographical areas and highlight health inequalities and other variation across a wide variety of indicators.

  • 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 2016-02-24.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many and what proportion of (a) all children and (b) children with mental health conditions aged five to 16 have conduct disorder.

    Alistair Burt

    Data on the number and proportion of children aged 5–16 years diagnosed with a conduct disorder is not routinely collected centrally. The most recent survey, Mental health of children and young people in Great Britain, 2004, published by the Office for National Statistics in 2005, showed that 5.8% of children aged five to 16 had conduct disorders. This represents 60.4% of the 9.6% of children with any mental health disorder at that time.

    However, the Department is commissioning a new national prevalence survey of children and young people’s mental health – the first since 2004. The survey will estimate the extent of mental ill health in the 2-19 year old population. Final publication of findings is expected in 2018.

  • 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 2016-02-24.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many people with severe and long-term mental health issues and whose care is coordinated through the Care Programme Approach in each year since 2010 had had a formal meeting to review their care in the previous 12 months.

    Alistair Burt

    Information on the number of people using National Health Service funded adult secondary mental health services, including those who spent time on the Care Programme Approach (CPA), is shown in the following table.

    England

    2010/11

    2011/12

    2012/13

    2013/14

    2014/15

    Total People

    1,287,730

    1,607,153

    1,590,332

    1,746,698

    1,835,996

    People on CPA

    263,935

    407,370

    359,368

    357,732

    335,727

    These figures includes people who have been on CPA for a number of months or years as well as people who had only recently been assigned to CPA. These figures count each individual once, regardless of the number of times they accessed services in the year.

    Because of major changes to the Mental Health Minimum Dataset and submission process, figures for these years are not directly comparable. The scope was expanded to include independent sector providers in 2011/12 and learning disability services in 2014/15. Major changes to the submission process between 2010/11 and 2011/12 also contributed to an overall increase in numbers.

    A snapshot count of people on CPA at the end of 2014/15 who had been on CPA for at least 12 months and the number and proportion of these who had received a CPA review within the last 12 months is shown in the following table. It has not been possible to provide data for earlier years.

    England

    March 2015

    People on CPA at the end of the month who had been on CPA for 12 months

    126,679

    People on CPA for 12 months with a review in the previous 12 months

    101,592

    Percentage of people on CPA for 12 months with a review

    80.2%

    The process of the CPA recognises that reviews should be held at least every year. However, where an individual’s needs are sufficiently complicated to require more complex care co-ordination, the frequency of review meetings will be increased.

  • Wendy Morton – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Wendy Morton – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Wendy Morton on 2016-02-24.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what his Department’s spending was on Overseas Development Aid in (a) 2013-14, (b) 2014-15 and (c) the first 10 months of 2015-16; and what the recipient countries of that aid were.

    Alistair Burt

    In 2013-14 the Department spent £11.66 million on Official Development Assistance. In 2014-15 the Department spent £11.5 million on Official Development Assistance.

    The Department’s Official Development Assistance in 2013-14 and 2014-15 is a proportion of the Department’s assessed contribution or subscription, to the World Health Organization (WHO). The subscription funds our contribution to all the functions of the WHO. The WHO provides the leadership and co-ordination role in global health for all its 194 member countries. As part of this role it provides technical support and assistance on the ground.

    WHO is able to use the assessed contribution flexibly to fund its priorities as agreed by the United Kingdom and other member countries. We do not therefore have specific data of individual countries supported through our assessed contribution. However, more specific information on WHO funding flows to regions, individual countries and programmes can be found on WHO’s web portal at:

    http://extranet.who.int/programmebudget/Biennium2014/Financing

    The 2015 Official Development Assistance figures have not yet been finalised. The Department for International Development will release the 2015 figures in the National Statistics publication on 1 April 2016.

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

    Andrew Percy – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Percy on 2016-02-24.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he has taken to support the British Heart Foundations’ Wear It Beat It campaign.

    Jane Ellison

    We congratulate the British Heart Foundation (BHF) on its Wear It Beat It campaign, which aims to raise funds for research into heart disease.

    Heart disease is a vital area of research. The Department’s National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) funds a wide range of research relating to these conditions, spending £49 million on cardiovascular disease research in 2014/15. The NIHR works in partnership with the BHF and other medical research charities.

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

    Andrew Percy – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Percy on 2016-02-24.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what representations he has received on the proposals contained in the report, Surrogacy in the UK: Myth Busting and Reform, published in November 2015.

    Jane Ellison

    A search of the Department’s central correspondence system shows that the Department received 22 representations that made direct or indirect reference to the report `Surrogacy in the UK: Myth Busting and Reform’ since it was published in November 2015.

    The Government has no current plans to change the legislation in respect of surrogacy arrangements.

  • Graham Allen – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Graham Allen – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Graham Allen on 2016-02-24.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to reduce the proportion of five-year olds eligible for free school meals with severe or extensive tooth decay.

    Jane Ellison

    Public Health England (PHE) has produced guidance to support local authorities in their responsibility to improve dental health and reduce inequalities among children in their area. PHE has also developed guidance for dental teams on preventing dental disease in their patients. Advice has recently been published by the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence.

    The Department will be launching the Childhood Obesity Strategy in the summer. It will look at everything that contributes to a child becoming overweight and obese, including sugar which is a cause of tooth decay.

    Overall, children’s access to National Health Service dentistry remains consistently high, with the number of children seen in the 24 months to December 2015 by an NHS dentist standing at 8.1 million or 69.5% of the population. 104,000 more children saw an NHS dentist in England in the 24 month period ending 31 December 2015, compared with the same period ending 31 December 2014.

  • Tristram Hunt – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Tristram Hunt – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tristram Hunt on 2016-02-24.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what progress his Department has made on developing a national measure of child development at age two to two-and-a-half as part of the public health framework; and when he expects that measure to be introduced.

    Jane Ellison

    The Department is leading work to develop an indicator of child development at age 2-2½ to be included in the Public Health Outcomes Framework (PHOF) from 2017. The population measure will give a national picture of child development at age 2 and will also help local areas to assess the impact of services for 0-2 year olds and inform local commissioning.

    Since April 2015, the Department has asked all health visiting teams in England to use the evidence based Ages and Stages Questionnaires (ASQ-3) as part of children’s health and development reviews at age 2-2½ to generate data for the indicator. The Department has worked with Health Education England to develop e-learning materials to support health professionals using ASQ-3 as part of the two year review.

    From October 2015, health visiting providers were asked to report ASQ-3 scores to the Children and Young People’s Health Services dataset, which is being developed by the Health and Social Care Information Centre. The dataset is expected to publish its first report in April 2016.

    Public Health England will draw on ASQ-3 data from the children’s dataset to report the PHOF outcome measure of child development at age 2-2½, reporting on a yearly basis the percentage of children with a positive outcome across all five domains of development in ASQ-3 at age 2-2½. The first reporting of the outcome measure is planned for inclusion in the PHOF in spring 2017.

  • Sheryll Murray – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Sheryll Murray – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sheryll Murray on 2016-02-24.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimates he has made of the additional resources needed and the cost of providing additional dialysis capacity for those patients who will no longer be suitable for a kidney transplant and for those patients whose transplant graft fails due as a result of restrictions in the range of immunosuppressant agents that will be introduced if the recommendations of the NICE review of TA 85 [ID456] are upheld at appeal.

    George Freeman

    We have made no such assessment.

    The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has not yet published its final updated guidance on the use of immunosuppressive therapy for kidney transplant in adults (review of TA85) or on the use of immunosuppressive therapy for kidney transplant in children and young people (review of TA99). NICE is developing resource impact reports to support implementation of its guidance which will be published alongside its final technology appraisal guidance.