The below Parliamentary question was asked by Michelle Donelan on 2016-02-29.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the cost to the NHS of (a) furniture, (b) crutches and (c) other equipment given to people with short-term need was in each of the last three years.
Alistair Burt
This information is not collected centrally. It is for National Health Service trusts to ensure they make the best use of the resources available to them.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Percy on 2016-03-24.
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what reports he has received of Hamas fighters joining ISIS in Syria.
Mr Tobias Ellwood
We have not received any reports of Hamas fighters joining Daesh in Syria.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tulip Siddiq on 2016-05-04.
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, which developing countries will be able to access data on the beneficial ownership of companies incorporated in (a) other EU countries and (b) British Overseas Territories.
Mr David Gauke
Countries can request company beneficial ownership information from foreign jurisdictions through Mutual Legal Assistance and other information sharing arrangements such as the Egmont Group of Financial Intelligence Units. Furthermore, more than 30 countries have now joined the initiative to automatically share beneficial ownership information among participants. The statement setting out which countries have so far joined the initiative can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/520459/statement_on_the_initiative_for_exchange_of_beneficial_ownership_information.pdf.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Heidi Alexander on 2016-06-09.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the (a) standard and (b) higher rate for NHS-funded nursing care is for 2016-17.
Alistair Burt
Following a recent review of the rate of NHS-funded Nursing Care (NHS FNC) in England, the Department has not yet announced the standard and higher rates of NHS FNC for 2016-17. We will make an announcement in due course.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2016-09-06.
To ask the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, what estimate he has made of the budget of his Department in each of the next three years; and if he will make a statement.
Mr David Jones
The new Department for Exiting the European Union is properly resourced. Detailed work is underway to establish the final budget required to fulfil the Department’s set-up and responsibilities. The budget of the Department will be set out to the House and approved as part of the supplementary estimates in the new year, as is standard practice.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Cheryl Gillan on 2016-10-21.
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans her Department has to implement the Guidelines for Selection of Biological SSSIs, revised in 2014, on extending the protection for the rarest and most vulnerable lowland grasslands to all sites that meet the criteria.
Dr Thérèse Coffey
Selection and notification of sites of special scientific interest (SSSIs) is a matter for Natural England. Natural England has published its current designations programme on GOV.UK (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/natural-england-designations-programme-for-areas-sites-and-trails) and this includes several areas that host lowland grassland habitats. Natural England will continue to implement the Guidelines for the selection of biological SSSIs, as appropriate.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Storey on 2016-01-13.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether there are legal implications for a business that advertises on the internet to write a student’s essay or dissertation, which the student then pays for and submits as their own work for academic accreditation.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
The Government strongly condemns any form of cheating. All publicly funded providers of higher education courses are expected to comply with the UK Quality Code for Higher Education, published by the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA). One of the requirements of the Code is to ensure that students do not obtain awards through any form of unacceptable academic practice relating to assessment, including plagiarism.
There is no centrally held set of data on the number of recorded plagiarism cases in UK Higher Education – responsibility for tackling plagiarism lies with the HE providers themselves, as autonomous organisations.
Institutions have a variety of mechanisms to address cheating by both international and EEA/UK students, including strong policies and specialist software. Between 2012 and 2015, the QAA carried out approximately 650 reviews of institutions. Of these, it only had to make recommendations to 30 individual universities and colleges on the need to improve systems and information related to plagiarism.
The QAA are discussing the legality of essay mills with the Consumer and Markets Authority.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Anne Main on 2016-02-08.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department’s agreement with the Department of Health to secure the Harperbury Free School site included a provision that the Department of Health would meet the costs of relocating Harperbury Bowls Club elsewhere on the Harperbury site.
Edward Timpson
The negotiation for land for the site of Harperbury Free School was part of a wider land sale for new homes which was being negotiated by the Department of Health. Heads of Terms for the sale were agreed in September 2014 and subsequently revised in October 2015.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Norman Lamb on 2016-02-29.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what overlap there is between the £1.4 billion funding for improving children and young people’s mental health services referenced in the Answer of 10 February 2016 to Question 25482, the £600 million funding for mental health services referenced in paragraph 1.99 of the Autumn Statement and Spending Review 2015, the almost £1 billion funding to enhance mental health services made in the announcement by the Prime Minister, Prime Minister pledges a revolution in mental health treatment, published on 11 January 2016, and the commitment to spend an extra £1 billion by 2020-21 to improve access to mental health services made in response to the report of the Mental Health Taskforce, 23 February 2016, Official Report, column 153.
Alistair Burt
The £1.4 billion funding for improving children and young people’s mental health services was announced by the previous Coalition Government and consists of £30 million per year for five years announced in the 2014 Autumn Statement to develop community-based eating disorder services and £1.25 billion over five years announced by the then Deputy Prime Minister on 14 March 2015 and included in the Spring Budget for 2015.
The subsequent announcements of funding represent additional money on top of that £1.4 billion.
All of the Taskforce recommendations are funded from the overall envelope agreed in the Spending Review.
The £600 million set out by the Chancellor set the foundation for the Taskforce by establishing the minimum amount of additional new money that would need to be spent to transform mental health services. This was underpinned by an understanding that improving mental health services will improve how the wider NHS functions and generate savings that can be reinvested into services.
The Prime Minister announced investment for mental health on 11 January comprising:
― £290 million to provide specialist care to mothers before and after having their babies;
― £247 million for mental health services in hospital emergency departments; and
― over £400 million to enable 24/7 treatment in communities as a safe and effective alternative to hospital.
The figures in the Prime Minister’s announcement represent the total amount that we anticipate will be invested in these three priority areas over the five-year period from 2016/17 to 2020/21.
The £1 billion in 2020/21 announced on 23 February 2016 will fund all of the priority recommendations for the National Health Service set out in the Mental Health Taskforce report. It includes the anticipated costs in the year 2020/21 of the three priority areas that the Prime Minister announced.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Percy on 2016-03-24.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether his Department plans to use the inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) registry to get an accurate number of people living with IBD.
Jane Ellison
The IBD (inflammatory bowel disease) Registry provides a United Kingdom-wide repository of anonymised IBD adult and paediatric patient data for prospective audit and research purposes. Patients must consent for their data to be added to the registry. The Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP) has allocated transitional funding this year to incorporate IBD audit data collection into the IBD Registry, providing an enhanced system for data capture and quality improvement that will be available to every hospital in the UK. This will allow the entry of data locally and support service improvement. Initially the focus will be for IBD patients receiving biologic treatments, but the system will address other key aspects of IBD care in the future.
The second step of data collection will be to focus on new patients with IBD to begin to understand the incidence of IBD in the UK. This picture will build up over a number of years and be dependent on the engagement of clinicians.
No specific assessment of the potential effects on healthcare due to the introduction of a registry of patients with IBD in England has been made. However, the data provided through the register can support National Health Service services in areas such as the assessment of local IBD populations as well as in measuring incidence and outcomes with services in other parts of the UK.
Although there is no direct Department funding, HQIP have given £290,000 for a year’s transition funding to join the audit data with the registry.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommends faecal calprotectin testing as an option to help doctors distinguish between inflammatory bowel diseases, such as Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, and non-inflammatory bowel diseases, such as irritable bowel syndrome.
The NICE IBD Quality Standard states that general practitioners (GP) and GP practices should ensure that testing is offered and clinical commissioning groups should ensure the diagnostic services are in place to support this.