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Andy Slaughter – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andy Slaughter on 2016-05-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prison officers for what reasons have taken long-term sick leave in each of the last five years.

Andrew Selous

Long-term sick leave is defined within the Civil service as periods of absence of more than 28 calendar days. The number of Band 3-5 prison officers to have taken at least one period of long-term sick leave in each of the last five years for which information is available is shown in the table below.

Table: Number of Band 3-5 Officers who had an incidence of sick leave of 28 or more days, by type of sickness, 2010/11 to 2014/15

Type of Sickness	2010-11	2011-12	2012-13	2013-14	2014-15
Blood and Blood-Forming Organs	~	~	~	10	10
Circulatory System	120	130	120	120	110
Digestive System	150	140	140	110	90
Ear and Mastoid Process	20	10	20	10	10
Endocrine, Nutritional and Metabolic Diseases	10	20	20	20	~
Eye and Adnexa	20	20	20	10	20
Genitourinary System	60	60	50	70	60
Infective and Parasitic Diseases	50	40	50	40	50
Injury and Poisoning	300	310	300	380	380
Mental and Behavioural Disorders	840	850	850	960	920
Musculoskeletal System	920	800	730	610	550
Neoplasms	40	40	40	40	40
Nervous System and Sense Organs	60	70	70	60	50
Pregnancy Complications	50	40	40	30	30
Respiratory System	50	50	60	40	40
Skin and Subcutaneous Tissue	20	20	30	20	10
Symptoms Ill-Defined	670	750	790	790	680
Not Recorded	80	80	90	80	160
Grand Total	3490	3430	3410	3390	3200

Where an officer has more than one period of long-term absence within a year for the same reason, they are counted once. Where multiple absences were for different reasons they are counted more than once.

All figures are rounded to the nearest 10, with numbers ending in 5 rounded to the nearest multiple of 20 to prevent systematic bias. As with all HR databases, extracts are taken at a fixed point in time, to ensure consistency of reporting. However the database itself is dynamic, and where updates to the database are made late, subsequent to the taking of the extract, these updates will not be reflected in figures produced by the extract. For this reason, HR data are unlikely to be precisely accurate, and to present unrounded figures would be to overstate the accuracy of the figures. Rounding to 10 accurately depicts the level of certainty that is held with these figures.

Totals are formed from unrounded parts prior to rounding. For this reason, rounded totals may not equal the sum of their rounded parts.

~ denotes suppressed values of 5 or fewer. Low numbers are suppressed, in conjunction with the rounding policy to prevent disclosure in accordance with the Data Protection Act, 1998.

01/01/2023

Diane Abbott – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Diane Abbott on 2016-05-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what the implications are of the findings of the report from the Independent Commission for Aid Impact, entitled DFID’s efforts to eliminate violence against women and girls, published on 17 May 2016, for her Department’s work on strengthening women’s rights organisations and networks in the developing world.

Justine Greening

I welcome ICAI’s recent review, which awarded my Department their highest rating, a green review score, for our work on tackling violence against women and girls. The review highlights the important contribution UK Aid makes to the lives of women and girls around the world and recognises the significant achievements of DFID to date on this vtial issue. My Department will provide a formal response to the ICAI findings in due course.

01/01/2023
David Lammy – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Lammy on 2016-05-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what plans she has to extend the terms of reference of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse to investigate the abuse of children in mainstream schools.

Karen Bradley

The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse already has wide-ranging terms of reference to examine the extent to which public and other bodies in England and Wales have failed in their duty to protect children from sexual abuse. Decisions around what it investigates, and the specific terms and scope of the investigations, are a matter for the Independent Inquiry. There are no plans to extend the terms of reference further.

01/01/2023
Steve McCabe – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Steve McCabe on 2016-05-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the Answer of 19 April 2016 to Question 34024, whether the matter of family ties to the UK being considered only after substantive interview is in compliance with the Dublin Regulations.

James Brokenshire

Following an application for asylum in the UK, the first stage in the asylum process is the Screening process, which includes collection of fingerprints and bio data, travel history, health, summary of claim, security checks and family background. If at this first stage evidence emerges that an applicant’s asylum application should be more correctly dealt with by another European state in accordance with the Dublin Regulation, then, we would seek to transfer the applicant to the member state responsible for deciding the application.

It is, however, possible that evidence concerning responsibility of another state emerges after the screening process, in which case a request to another state to take responsibility under the Dublin Regulation can be made, providing that the Regulation’s time limits for making requests are met. In cases involving family unity Article 17(2) of the Regulation make special provision for requests to take responsibility to be made at any time before a first decision is made on the substance of the asylum claim.

For individuals who claim asylum in another EU member stage and who seek to rely on family connections to the UK as part of their application, application and compliance with the Dublin Regulation would be a matter for the individual state concerned.

01/01/2023
Gloria De Piero – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gloria De Piero on 2016-05-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to ensure an acceptable level of care for patients in Ashfield constituency following changes to the provision of urgent out-of-hours GP and care home support services provided by Central Nottinghamshire Clinical Services.

Ben Gummer

This is a matter for the National Health Service locally. Mansfield and Ashfield Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) advises that the needs of people in Ashfield are now being met by Nottingham Emergency Medical Services, which is providing urgent and
out-of-hours care, and by Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust’s care home support service.

The CCG advises that it took all necessary action as soon as it knew that Central Nottinghamshire Clinical Services (CNCS) was no longer in a position to continue providing services. Despite very short notice of the extent of CNCS’s difficulties, the CCG states that it has safely executed a smooth handover of services. It has rigorously monitored the quality of the caretaker providers’ performance during the handover, and will continue to do so.

The CCG will now review procurement options for the long-term delivery of local out-of-hours and urgent care services.

01/01/2023
Gloria De Piero – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gloria De Piero on 2016-05-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust will receive further funding from the Government to provide any extra A&E care required as a result of Central Nottinghamshire Clinical Services no longer providing such care.

Ben Gummer

Additional funding for Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (SFHFT) would be a matter for the local clinical commissioning groups.

NHS England advises that SFHFT has neither requested nor received additional funding as a result of the new caretaker arrangements. Nottingham Emergency Medical Services, the new caretaker provider of out of hours urgent care services at King’s Mill and Newark hospitals, has met the needs of the patients.

We are advised by NHS England that in the period since the handover took place there has been no material impact on the performance of either SFHFT or the mid Nottinghamshire health and social care system against the national four-hour accident and emergency standard.

01/01/2023
Joan Ryan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Joan Ryan on 2016-05-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent representations he has received from (a) Healthwatch England, (b) Healthwatch Enfield and (c) other patient groups on the decision by NHS Royal Free Foundation Trust to grant Google DeepMind access to NHS patient records.

George Freeman

The Department has received no representations from patient groups on this subject.

01/01/2023
Nick Clegg – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nick Clegg on 2016-05-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment his Department has made of the contribution of community pharmacies to (a) local minor ailments services, (b) needle exchanges and (c) local commissioned services; and what assessment he has made of the potential effect of the closure of such pharmacies on (i) such services, (ii) patient care, (iii) GP practices and (iv) hospitals.

Alistair Burt

The Department has not made a specific assessment of the contribution of community pharmacies to local minor ailment services, needle and syringe exchange services and other locally commissioned services. However, information available from the Health and Social Care Information Centre shows that during 2014/15, 1,863 community pharmacies were commissioned to provide local minor ailment services and 29 were commissioned to provide needle and syringe exchange services, as National Health Service pharmaceutical services. Clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) and local authorities are, however, able to commission local services and it is very likely that local authorities commission needle and syringe exchange services from community pharmacies and CCGs commission minor ailment services. However, this information is not available nationally.

Community pharmacy is a vital part of the NHS and can play an important role in delivering services such as management of minor ailments locally, needle and syringe exchange services and other locally commissioned services. The Government’s vision is for a more efficient, modern system that will free up pharmacists to spend more time delivering high quality clinical and public health services to the benefit of patients and the public.

In the Spending Review the Government re-affirmed the need for the NHS to deliver £22 billion in efficiency savings by 2020/21 as set out in the NHS’s own plan, the Five Year Forward View. Community pharmacy is a core part of NHS primary care and has an important contribution to make as the NHS rises to these challenges. The Government believes efficiencies can be made without compromising the quality of services or public access to them. Our aim is to ensure that those community pharmacies upon which people depend continue to thrive and so we are consulting on the introduction of a Pharmacy Access Scheme, which will provide more NHS funds to certain pharmacies compared to others, considering factors such as location and the health needs of the local population.

Our proposals are about improving services for patients and the public and securing efficiencies and savings. A consequence may be the closure of some pharmacies but that is not our aim. The community pharmacy proposals for 2016/17 and beyond, on which we have consulted, are being considered in respect to the public sector equality duty, the family test and relevant duties of the Secretary of State under the NHS Act 2006. An impact assessment will be completed to inform final decisions and published in due course.

Local commissioning and funding of services from community pharmacies will be unaffected by these proposals.

NHS England has taken account of the potential impact of a pharmacy minor ailments service on general practitioner services and other parts of the NHS. The findings of the Minor Ailment study (‘MINA’ study), conducted by the University of Aberdeen, in collaboration with NHS Grampian and the University of East Anglia, on behalf of Pharmacy Research UK in 2014, were considered. In addition, evaluations of local minor ailments schemes have continued to inform decision-making about local commissioning of such schemes.

01/01/2023
Nick Clegg – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nick Clegg on 2016-05-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment his Department has made of the potential effect of planned budget reductions for community pharmacy on patient and health services in (a) Sheffield and (b) Yorkshire and the Humber.

Alistair Burt

We are consulting the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee, other pharmacy bodies and patient and public representatives on our proposals. An impact assessment will be completed to inform final decisions and published in due course.

NHS England has a statutory duty to ensure the adequate provision of National Health Service pharmaceutical services across England and will ensure that duty continues to be met in Sheffield.

Community pharmacy is a vital part of the NHS and can play an even greater role. In the Spending Review, the Government re-affirmed the need for the NHS to deliver £22 billion in efficiency savings by 2020-21 as set out in the NHS’s own plan, the Five Year Forward View. Community pharmacy is a core part of NHS primary care and has an important contribution to make as the NHS rises to these challenges. The Government believes efficiencies can be made without compromising the quality of services or public access to them. Our aim is to ensure that those community pharmacies upon which people depend continue to thrive and so we are consulting on the introduction of a Pharmacy Access Scheme, which will provide more NHS funds to certain pharmacies compared to others, considering factors such as location and the health needs of the local population.

The Government’s vision is for a more efficient, modern system that will free up pharmacists to spend more time delivering clinical and public health services to the benefit of patients and the public.

01/01/2023
Gloria De Piero – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gloria De Piero on 2016-05-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the implications are for his policy on private NHS contractors carrying out healthcare services of the failure of Central Nottinghamshire Clinical Services to be able to continue to provide such services; what steps his Department is taking to ensure that other such contractors continue to provide the services for which they are contracted; and if he will make a statement.

George Freeman

Clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) are responsible for securing the provision of services to meet the needs of their population. The Department expects CCGs to hold providers to account in a way which works effectively in their area.

CCGs are free to commission services from the provider that they feel offers the best services for the local population in line with the legislative framework. We do not anticipate that the failure of Central Nottinghamshire Clinical Services will affect this policy.

01/01/2023