Category: Speeches

Joan Ryan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Joan Ryan on 2016-06-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that the emergency department at North Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust is able to guarantee patient safety; and if he will make a statement.

Ben Gummer

NHS England is the responsible organisation for emergency planning and resilience in London. As such, it has well-established contingency plans in place which take effect in the event of emergency departments (EDs) having to temporarily reduce their scope of operations in order to ensure the best standards of patient care, our central concern.

As the Rt. hon. Member is aware, following an unannounced inspection by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) at North Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust, the CQC issued a Warning Notice. The Warning Notice, published on 6 June 2016, requires the trust to significantly improve the treatment of patients attending its emergency department.

The CQC is responsible for assessing whether the Trust is providing the right standard of care and ensuring that improvement plans meet the level of improvement required.

NHS Improvement is working alongside NHS England and the local health and care system to ensure that the Trust has the resources it needs to ensure that patients receive safe, high quality care.

We are informed by NHS Improvement that, in order to address the poor performance at the Trust’s ED, it has devised a plan titled Safer, Faster, Better. This is a whole system programme with the primary objective of improving performance, patient experience and outcomes for patients.

01/01/2023
Jon Trickett – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jon Trickett on 2016-09-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the Care Quality Commission report of December 2015, on Pinderfields Hospital; and if he will make a statement.

Mr Philip Dunne

These are matters for the local National Health Service. It is the responsibility of the Mid Yorkshire NHS Trust Board, its commissioners and regulators, and of the clinicians who work at the Trust, to ensure that the expected standards of care quality are being met.

Patients at Mid Yorkshire NHS Trust deserve the highest quality care and there is no excuse for services to fall short of the standards. The Trust must take the necessary steps to improve its safety and leadership with the support of NHS Improvement.

01/01/2023
Heidi Alexander – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Heidi Alexander on 2016-10-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether it is mandatory for NHS staff to report their nationality for NHS workforce data collection.

Mr Philip Dunne

The Department does not record or publish data on the nationality of staff working in the National Health Service. Data on nationality is published twice a year by NHS Digital and turnover data is published quarterly and available by nationality.

Nationality is a data item within the National Workforce Data set used with a range of other data items to support workforce planning, analysis of staff movement and equality monitoring. It is not mandatory, but self-declared.

In 2015 and 2016 requests for nationality data on NHS staff in England were published on the supplementary information part of the NHS Digital website, rather than as part of the routine Hospital and Community Health Services statistical publications. In 2016, following NHS Digital’s public consultation, NHS Digital now routinely publish tables showing the self-declared nationality of staff in staff groups and regions, bi-annually, together with quarterly turnover statistics which show the nationality of joiners and leavers to and from the NHS in England.

The latest nationality data was published in March 2016 and the next set will be published in December 2016 showing the position at September 2016.

The latest turnover data published in September 2016 covers the 12 month period to 30 June 2016.

01/01/2023
Lord Pendry – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Pendry on 2015-11-11.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they support the President of the International Association of Athletics Federations in his condemnation of alleged state-sponsored doping within Russian athletics.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe

This is a difficult time for the world of sport and Russian athletics, but it is essential that robust steps are taken to ensure athletics regains its integrity. Lord Coe has been clear that his priority is to rebuild trust in athletics.

01/01/2023
Lord Brabazon of Tara – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Brabazon of Tara on 2015-12-07.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many of the 31 safety recommendations made by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) in its report on the accident to Boeing 737-236 series 1, G-BGJC at Manchester International Airport on 22 August 1985 remain extant, or have been improved, within current UK or EU aircraft airworthiness requirements or operational procedures; and what specific procedures are in place consistently to monitor the implementation of all of those AAIB recommendations.

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

After detailed analysis of the 31 recommendations made by the AAIB to the CAA, 28 were implemented and another was partially implemented. The CAA’s initial response to the AAIB’s recommendations, including any resulting changes to requirements or operational procedures, were published in their publication CAP593 ‘Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) Recommendations: Progress Report 1990’.

Recommendations are not tracked once implemented as routine regulatory oversight arrangements will then apply.Changes to legal requirements or guidance introduced as a result of a recommendation may be superseded as aircraft design, technology and legislation develops.

01/01/2023
Lord Stoddart of Swindon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Stoddart of Swindon on 2016-01-18.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Williams of Trafford on 7 December 2015 (HL3817), what assessment they have made of the fact that, in relation to men and women under 35-years of age, the pay gap is in favour of women.

Baroness Williams of Trafford

This Government is committed to ending the gender pay gap. New figures released by the Office for National Statistics show that the gender pay gap in the UK remains the lowest on record. The pay gap for women under the age of 40, working full time, is particularly low. The gap is -0.8% for women working full-time aged 22-29 and 0.6% for women working full-time aged 30-39.

As well as revising statutory guidance for schools on careers to raise young women’s aspirations, we have established a new Careers and Enterprise Company to encourage greater collaboration between employers and schools to inspire young people and supported the ‘Your Life’ campaign to encourage more young people to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and maths.

01/01/2023
Luciana Berger – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-02-04.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what proportion of the funding for Improving Access to Psychological Therapies services since 2010 has been spent on training and development of people working in such services.

Alistair Burt

All National Health Service trusts are required take account of and involve patients and the public in the way they plan and provide services. Transforming Participation in Health and Care, published September 2013, sets out the legal duties on NHS Commissioners to both involve patients in their own care and to involve the public in the way they commission services. The Commissioning organisation should ensure that providers they commission to provide services have suitable arrangements in place to involve patient and the public.

In addition NHS foundation trusts have specific responsibilities to involve their members and local communities usually through the appointment of Governing Body members. Trusts have their own arrangements as to how they make arrangements to involve their patients, carers and communities. Details of the arrangements would usually be available on the trust website.

Health Education England (HEE) has responsibility for training new therapists and high intensity training. In 2015/16, the budget was £22.0 million to support 1,031 trainees. These trainees provide supervised practice alongside college attendance. There may also be some workforce development funding used to further develop people working in such services, however, HEE does not code its workforce development expenditure to the degree of detail to separately identify this.

Data is not collected centrally on the number of psychological therapists employed by the NHS who experienced workplace-related stress in each of the last five years.

01/01/2023
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town on 2016-03-01.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have any plans to amend the meaning of consultant lobbying to include communications with special advisers, as allowed for in section 2(5) of the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014.

Lord Bridges of Headley

The Register complements the existing government transparency regime whereby Ministers and Permanent Secretaries proactively publish quarterly details of their meetings with external organisations and individuals. The Government has no plans to increase the scope of the Register. It is usual practice to publish an updated Code of Conduct for Special Advisers after an election. The updated Code, published on 15 October, does not change the role and powers of special advisers.

01/01/2023
Madeleine Moon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Madeleine Moon on 2016-04-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, when he plans to consult on the proposals to reform attendance allowance that were referred to in the consultation on the provisional Local Government Finance Settlement 2016-17 and an offer to councils for future years, published in December 2015; whether that consultation will include an assessment of the potential effects of those proposals on older people; and if he will make a statement.

Mr Marcus Jones

In December, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government announced that the Government will be consulting on giving councils in England “more responsibility to support older people with care needs – including people who, under the current system, would be supported through Attendance Allowance”. We want to explore if there is a better way to provide support for older people with care needs through local integration and we intend to launch a consultation on this in due course. Any change would not affect those already receiving Attendance Allowance. The consultation will be an open process that will give everybody a voice in determining the nature of any reform and will inform the decision about whether and how to proceed with any reform.

01/01/2023

Tulip Siddiq – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tulip Siddiq on 2016-05-03.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, of the Consent Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) submitted to the National Crime Agency in each year since 2011-12, how many involved suspected contraventions of (a) the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and (b) Part 3 of the Terrorism Act 2000; and how many Consent SAR requests in each such category were permitted because they were not responded to within the seven-day time limit.

Mr John Hayes

The below table provides figures on the number of Suspicious Activity Reports received by the National Crime Agency (NCA) between October 2011 and September 2015 which requested consent under Part 7 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (POCA) and Part 3 of the Terrorism Act 2000 (TACT). The table also includes figures on the number of consent requests where the reporter received no reply from the NCA.

	POCA Total Consent Requests	POCA – No Reply within 7 Days	TACT Total Consent Requests	TACT – No Reply within 7 Days
Oct 2011 – Sept 2012	12915	10	75	Nil
Oct 2012 – Sept 2013	14103	8	77	Nil
Oct 2013 – Sept 2014	14155	7	102	Nil
Oct 2014 – Sept 2015	14672	110	198	Nil

01/01/2023