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Tag: 2015

  • Steve McCabe – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Steve McCabe – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Steve McCabe on 2015-10-20.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to ensure that NHS hospital trusts are not placed in special measures.

    Ben Gummer

    The Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) rigorous inspection regime means that the full picture of services at a particular provider is known and published, and if required, the provider knows what it must do to improve.

    Importantly, if the Chief Inspector finds serious failures in quality of care and where there are concerns that existing leadership cannot make the necessary improvements without support, he can recommend that the trust be placed into Special Measures.

    Poor care should not be tolerated and Special Measures ensures trusts receive a tailored package of support to enable them to improve.

    The CQC uses a risk-assessment approach to inform the order in which providers are inspected. This means where there are concerns about a particular provider they are inspected as a priority, allowing action to be taken earlier.

    Early intervention is important and these inspections allow the CQC to get a much more detailed picture in hospitals. If the Chief Inspector concludes that the care needs to improve, he can recommend Monitor and the NHS Trust Development Authority take action.

    The NHS Trust Development Authority and Monitor oversee, manage performance and, in Monitor’s case for foundation trusts, regulate hospital trusts. Both organisations have a number of options at their disposal to support trusts if they have concerns about their performance before they reach the stage where Special Measures may be required.

    In establishing NHS Improvement, we are bringing these two organisations together meaning all NHS providers will be able to access the same support and be subject to the same types of intervention. NHS Improvement will foster, nurture and share best practice. It will help to drive and support both urgent operational improvement at the frontline and the long term sustainability of the healthcare system.

  • Luciana Berger – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Luciana Berger – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2015-10-20.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many perinatal mental health specialist (a) doctors and (b) nurses were in place in each year since 2009-10.

    Ben Gummer

    The information is not collected.

    Perinatal mental health specialist midwives, doctors and nurses are not identified separately in the Health and Social Care Information Centre’s workforce statistics. Mental health specialists work predominantly in psychiatric services but also across a range of settings and the independent sector.

  • 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 2015-10-20.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent steps he has taken to ensure that people diagnosed with cancer are (a) diagnosed early and (b) treated immediately.

    Jane Ellison

    The Independent Cancer Taskforce’s report recognised the importance of early, and faster, diagnosis to improve both patient outcomes and experience. The Taskforce particularly recommended the implementation of a new cancer waiting times standard that, by 2020, everyone referred with a suspicion of cancer would receive either a definitive diagnosis or the all-clear within four weeks. We have committed to implementing this, and NHS England is working with partners across the health system to consider how best to take this forward.

    NHS England has launched a major early diagnosis programme, Accelerate, Co-ordinate, Evaluate (ACE), working jointly with Cancer Research UK and Macmillan Cancer Support to test new innovative approaches to identifying cancer more quickly. Outputs from the first wave of test sites, which commenced in April 2015, will be delivered on a phased basis, with the majority falling between September 2015 and December 2016. A number of the Proactive Lung cluster projects are running for 2-3 years but is hoped that there will be sufficient data after one year to enable evaluation. It is expected that ACE Wave 1 evaluation will be complete by mid-2017.

    We welcome the very positive reaction we saw earlier this year to the publication of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence updated referral guidelines for suspected cancer. The new guideline focuses on key symptoms rather than which cancer a patient might have, to help make it easier to use and more applicable to the day-to-day experience of general practitioners and their patients.

  • Greg Mulholland – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Greg Mulholland – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Mulholland on 2015-10-20.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to tackle stone theft.

    Mike Penning

    We would encourage all victims of stone theft to report these crimes to the police so that they can be investigated and, where appropriate, taken through the courts and met with tough sentences.

    In addition, the police are working with Historic England and others to ensure that they have an up-to-date understanding of the nature of stone theft, in order to ensure a proportionate policing response.

  • Jim Cunningham – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Jim Cunningham – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2015-10-20.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate his Department has made of the level of public subsidy for train operators in the last 12 months; and if he will make a statement.

    Claire Perry

    Actual figures for public subsidy are published on the Office of Rail and Road’s (‘ORR’) website at http://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/browsereports/1.

    “

  • Lucy Frazer – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Lucy Frazer – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lucy Frazer on 2015-10-20.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps the Government is taking to improve science education.

    Nick Gibb

    Science is vital to our economy and science skills are in high demand. Our reforms to the curriculum and qualifications are designed to ensure young people acquire the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in a modern economy and to progress.

    Bursaries and scholarships of up to £30,000 are designed to attract the best science graduates into teaching. We have also announced £67m to train up to 17,500 new and existing maths and physics teachers by 2020.

    We also fund a range of programmes to provide high quality professional development for science teachers.

  • Baroness Lister of Burtersett – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Baroness Lister of Burtersett – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Lister of Burtersett on 2015-10-19.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government (1) how many, and (2) what proportion, of those affected by the cuts to tax credits due to take effect in 2016 are self-employed.

    Lord O’Neill of Gatley

    This information is not available.

    This Government is committed to moving from a high welfare, high tax, low wage economy to a lower welfare, lower tax, higher wage society. As the Chancellor has made clear, the Government will set out at Autumn Statement how we plan to achieve the same goal of reforming tax credits, saving the money we need to save to secure our economy, while at the same time helping in the transition.

  • Lord Condon – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Lord Condon – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Condon on 2015-10-19.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to encourage first aid training in secondary schools, and whether, in particular, they are taking steps to offer CPR training, which is offered free of charge by some volunteer organisations.

    Lord Nash

    All schools are required to teach a balanced and broadly based curriculum that promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils, and prepares them for adult life. The new national curriculum focuses on the essential knowledge so that teachers can design a wider school curriculum that best meets the needs of their pupils.

    Schools have the freedom to teach subjects or topics such as First Aid training beyond the prescribed curriculum to ensure that children receive a rounded education.

    The Government welcomes the work of expert organisations such as the British Red Cross, St John Ambulance and the British Heart Foundation to support schools in this aspect of teaching and are currently working with the sector to provide information to young people about first aid, CPR and how to deal with medical emergencies.

  • Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville on 2015-10-19.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many housing association tenants are expected to buy their home under the Right to Buy scheme by (1) 2020 and (2) 2025; and whether they will place research on this topic in the Library of the House.

    Baroness Williams of Trafford

    Working with the National Housing Federation, the Government has secured an agreement with housing associations to give their tenants the opportunity to buy their home with an equivalent discount to the Right to Buy. This will deliver the manifesto commitment to extend the benefits of Right to Buy to 1.3 million tenants.

    More details will be announced in due course.

  • Baroness Tonge – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Baroness Tonge – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Tonge on 2015-10-19.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what representations they have made to the government of Israel in the light of figures released by the Parliamentary Under Secretary, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which showed that the Israeli military have opened fire into the Gaza Access Restricted Area on at least 696 occasions since August 2014.

    Baroness Anelay of St Johns

    Officials from our Embassy in Tel Aviv regularly raise concerns over use of live fire by Israeli security authorities, most recently on 19 October when our Ambassador in Tel Aviv spoke to Israel’s Cabinet Minister, Avichai Mandleblit. The Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron), and the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond), also raised the use of live fire by the Israel Defence Forces with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu during his visit to the UK on 10 September.