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  • Louise Haigh – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Louise Haigh – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Louise Haigh on 2015-11-03.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what average time her Department took to respond to freedom of information requests in each year since 2005.

    Karen Bradley

    The information requested could only be provided at disproportionate cost. The available statistics on the timeliness of FOI requests received by the Home Office up to the second quarter of 2015 are published on the Ministry of Justice website at:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/government-foi-statistics.

  • Seema Malhotra – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Seema Malhotra – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Seema Malhotra on 2015-11-03.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent estimate she has made of the average cost to a police authority of employing a (a) police officer and (b) police community support officer; and what estimate she has made of that cost in each year from 2016-17 to 2019-20.

    Mike Penning

    Police authorities were abolished in 2012. Police and Crime Commissioners are now responsible for local priorities. The Home Office has estimated the costs of police officers and police community support officers based on average full time equivalent costs and predicted cost increases. The costs include the employers’ portion of National Insurance and pension contributions.

    £

    2015/16

    2016/17

    2017/18

    2018/19

    2019/20

    Average Officer

    47,800

    50,000

    50,800

    51,500

    52,400

    Average PSCO

    32,300

    33,400

    33,800

    34,200

    34,700

  • Paul Blomfield – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Paul Blomfield – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Blomfield on 2015-11-03.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to page 8 of the consultation document Tackling Exploitation in the Labour Market, published in October 2015, if she will publish research conducted by her Department that shows that there has been a shift from abuses of employment regulation towards increasingly organised criminal activity engaged in labour market exploitation over the last 10 years.

    Karen Bradley

    Operational information, which is not publically discloseable, received from the Gangmasters’ Licensing Authority indicates that, since the Authority began operations in 2006, it has seen an increase in the number of vulnerable people being exploited by organised criminals and criminal networks for profit in the sectors it regulates.

    Further information about the role of organised criminal activity would come from the proposed new role of the Director of Labour Market Enforcement who will have a role to gather information on worker exploitation and publish a strategic approach to tackling it.

  • Heidi Alexander – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Heidi Alexander – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Heidi Alexander on 2015-11-03.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the number and proportion of junior doctors currently not working weekends.

    Ben Gummer

    This information is not held centrally.

    Data gathered by NHS Employers for the purposes of developing proposals on junior doctors’ contract reform (and published in evidence to the Review Body on Doctors and Dentists Remuneration) suggested that junior doctors are rostered to work an average of 63% fewer total hours on a weekend day compared to a week day.

  • Barbara Keeley – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Barbara Keeley – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barbara Keeley on 2015-11-03.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much his Department has spent on health and social care for people aged over 65 in each year since 2009-10.

    Alistair Burt

    The table below shows the current expenditure on healthcare for people aged over 65 since 2009/10. This covers total spend on secondary healthcare, primary medical services and prescribing services. Data for 2013/14 and 2014/15 is not available in the format requested.

    Gross Current Expenditure on health care for people aged 65 and over (£000s)

    2009/10

    78,414,543

    2010/11

    82,091,832

    2011/12

    84,768,874

    2012/13

    85,821,639

    Expenditure on social care for people aged over 65 since 2009/10 from local government funding sources is available on the Health and Social Care Information Centre(HSCIC) (in full) website at the following link. In addition, the National Health Service transferred almost £3.5 billion to local authorities for expenditure on social care, including a transfer worth £1.1 billion in 2014/15. Data is not collected to show how much of this spend is for the elderly compared to working age adults with social care needs.

    http://www.hscic.gov.uk/searchcatalogue?topics=2/Social+care/Social+care+expenditure/Personal+Social+Services+expenditure&sort=Most+recent&size=10&page=1#top

    For 2014/15 HSCIC published provisional data for social care expenditure on 16 September 2015. This can be found at the following link. This is not comparable to previous years because of a change in reporting requirements.

    http://www.hscic.gov.uk/pubs/pssexpcosts1415

  • Barry Sheerman – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Barry Sheerman – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2015-11-03.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, when his Department plans to release estimates of NHS expenditure on mental health services for financial year 2013-14; and if he will make a statement.

    Alistair Burt

    NHS England has published clinical commissioning group (CCG) level expenditure on mental health for 2013/14, which was estimated to be £8.1 billion. CCGs are currently in the process of preparing estimates of expenditure for mental health services in 2014/15.

    We continue to take mental health as seriously as physical health and to hold the National Health Service to account for achieving the objectives set out in the NHS Mandate. In the planning requirements for 2015/16, CCGs were required to invest additionally in mental health in line with their increase in allocation. The total planned additional spend is £376 million, an increase of 4.5%.

  • 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 2015-11-03.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of how many people prescribed drugs funded from the Cancer Drugs Fund are likely to be affected by the planned ending of funding for that fund in March 2016; and if he will make a statement.

    George Freeman

    The Government remains committed to the Cancer Drugs Fund and is working with NHS England and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence on the future arrangements for the Fund.

  • Seema Malhotra – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Seema Malhotra – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Seema Malhotra on 2015-11-03.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent estimate he has made of the average cost to the NHS of employing a (a) nurse, (b) midwife and (c) doctor; and what forecast he has made of that cost in each year from 2016-17 to 2019-20.

    Alistair Burt

    Information is available for 2014/15 and is set out in the following table:

    Estimated Average Cost per Full-Time Equivalent

    Qualified nurses, midwives and health visitors

    £42,100

    Midwives

    £45,900

    All hospital and community health services doctors

    £96,200

    Notes:

    Separate figures for qualified nurses are not available. Costs include employer national insurance and pension contributions but not other costs such as recruitment and training (which is not collected centrally).

    Source: Department of Health’s Headline HCHS Pay bill Metrics, which are based primarily on earnings statistics published by the Health and Social Care Information Centre, supplemented by employer pension and national insurance contributions estimates informed by unpublished and unvalidated data from the Electronic Staff Record Data Warehouse.

    Future costs will depend on the outcome of the Spending Review and pay recommendations of the independent Pay Review Bodies.

  • Louise Ellman – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Louise Ellman – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Louise Ellman on 2015-11-03.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what his assessment is of the effect of his contractual proposals for junior doctors on the number of hours worked by such doctors in Liverpool.

    Ben Gummer

    Our proposals include stronger limits on the hours worked by junior doctors, including to reduce the number of excessive hours junior doctors work each week; and strong contractual safeguards, with external scrutiny, to ensure that employers must address any variations from planned work schedules, to ensure safe working.

  • Jim Shannon – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Jim Shannon – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2015-11-03.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what representations he has made to manufacturers on minimising increases in the price of insulin for treating type 1 diabetes.

    George Freeman

    There have been no such representations or discussions. The prices of branded medicines are controlled by the 2014 Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme or under the statutory scheme established under the Health Service Branded Medicines (Control of Prices and Supply of Information) (No.2) Regulations 2008 and the Health Service Medicines (Information Relating to Sales of Branded Medicines etc.) Regulations 2007.