Tag: 2016

  • David Simpson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    David Simpson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Simpson on 2016-10-07.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department has taken to increase mental health support to UK students in the last 12 months.

    Nicola Blackwood

    The Department has responsibility for the health and wellbeing of people in England.

    Over the last 12 months progress has been made on many of the key ambitions set out in Future in Mind, which sets out the five-year vision of major system-wide transformation to improve access to high-quality mental health support across England for all children and young people. Future in Mind acknowledged that in particular university students may experience difficulty in transitioning between adolescent and adult mental health services due to geographical relocation and transience of residence.

    The core delivery mechanism in making this ambitious programme of transformation happen is the system-wide publicly available Local Transformation Plans (LTPs) that should cover the full spectrum of need for children and young people who have existing or emerging mental health problems. In developing the LTPs, local areas were asked to work with their key partners – including education – to agree locally how best to meet the mental health needs of children and young people in their local populations and this included effective transitions between services.

    To support this transformation, an additional £1.4 billion funding has been made available over the course of this Parliament that will enable the expansion and extension of the Children and Young People’s Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme so that high quality and evidence-based interventions can be accessed wherever they live.

  • Lord Dholakia – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Lord Dholakia – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Dholakia on 2016-01-26.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many prisoners have been tested for (1) hepatitis B, (2) hepatitis C, and (3) HIV, in each of the last three years.

    Lord Prior of Brampton

    Public Health England (PHE) collects data on people in prison tested for blood-borne viruses (BBVs) via the Sentinel Surveillance Study. This system does not currently receive reports from all prisons in England where testing occurs. Currently 28 prisons report data representing approximately 30% of the standing prison population in England so this data does not represent the total amount of testing currently happening in the prison estate.

    Table 1 shows data from this system on the total number of prisoners tested for BBVs in the calendar years 2012-2014. Similar information from this study for the year 2015 will not be available until mid-year 2016. NHS England also collects data on levels of testing for BBVs in prisons via the Health & Justice Indicators of Performance (HJIPs). The numbers of tests for BBVs in these data are presented in Table 2. The higher number is due to the greater coverage of prisons by this dataset. NHS England data is not used for 2012, 2013 and 2014 is not available because HJIPs were only introduced last year.


  • Lord Jones of Cheltenham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Lord Jones of Cheltenham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Jones of Cheltenham on 2016-02-23.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many people living in each of the Overseas Territories are in receipt of a UK state pension which is (1) frozen, or (2) uprated annually.

    Baroness Altmann

    The Government has a clear position, which has remained consistent for around 70 years: UK state pensions are payable worldwide and uprated abroad where we have a legal requirement to do so for example in the European Economic Area or countries where we have a reciprocal agreement that allows for uprating. There are no plans to change this.

    Details of the numbers of people in receipt of the state pension, and whether they live in countries where the state pension is frozen or uprated, is included at Annex A. Countries where the UK state pension is up-rated are identified by an asterisk by the name of the country.

    The Government’s view is that the UK will be stronger, safer and better off in a reformed EU. Of course there is uncertainty about how a vote to leave the EU could impact on access to pensioner benefits for UK pensioners living in other parts of Europe. These questions would need to be answered as part of the process of negotiating the UK’s exit if there is a vote to leave. We could only consider the detail of access to pensions and benefits for people in receipt of UK state pensions who are resident in Europe as part of the process for leaving the EU.

  • Henry Bellingham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    Henry Bellingham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Henry Bellingham on 2016-03-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what expenses were claimed by the five most senior people at the Environment Agency during the last financial year.

    George Eustice

    The expenses claimed by the five most senior people at the Environment Agency in the last financial year can be found at:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/environment-agency-executive-directors-and-board-members-expenses

    “

  • Tom Brake – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    Tom Brake – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Brake on 2016-04-15.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what estimate he has made of the number of airstrikes that have been conducted by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen.

    Penny Mordaunt

    The UK has a small number of military personnel serving as liaison officers to Saudi headquarters to provide insight into Saudi operations. The UK is not a member of the coalition and the release of operational data is a matter for the coalition.

  • Andrew Gwynne – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Andrew Gwynne – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Gwynne on 2016-05-24.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent guidance his Department published to commissioners on meeting excess treatment costs for clinical trials.

    George Freeman

    In November 2015, NHS England published new guidance to help clarify the rules and expectations on the funding of excess treatment costs incurred during a non-commercial research study. The guidance is provided for clinical commissioning groups and commissioners of specialised services.

  • Lord Freyberg – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Lord Freyberg – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Freyberg on 2016-07-11.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to Written Answer by Lord Prior of Brampton on 7 July (HL829), why Genomic England cannot supply data without delay on the number of patients in the cancer programme who have subsequently died, in the light of the fact that the Office of National Statistics states that the information is available within two months of death from the cancer registry.

    Lord Prior of Brampton

    The arrangements for Genomics England to access patient data are different from the routine data supplied by the Office of National Statistics or other centralised patient data services. The wider patient dataset (including mortality data) will be imported and linked when the genome data is made available to researchers.

  • Danny Kinahan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Danny Kinahan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Danny Kinahan on 2016-10-07.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent changes have been implemented on internal UK flight security checks; and what plans he has to change those security checks in the future.

    Mr John Hayes

    Flights departing from UK airports fall under the same EU and UK aviation security regulation, regardless of whether they are to a domestic or international destination.

    We keep our aviation security measures under constant review.

  • Lord Roberts of Llandudno – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Lord Roberts of Llandudno – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Roberts of Llandudno on 2016-01-26.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the measures that are in place to ensure that asylum seekers in refugee camps in Calais have access to the Family Reunification system.

    Lord Bates

    All migrants, including families and children, in Calais who wish to seek asylum should do so in France and provide information to the French asylum authorities about any family members in other Member States, including the UK. We will consider any request made to us by the French asylum authorities to take responsibility for an asylum applicant in France because they have close family who are legally in the UK in accordance with the terms of the Dublin Regulation concerning the principle of family unity and the best interests of the child.

    If not claiming asylum, individual migrants in France, as in any other country, are entitled to apply under the Family Reunion provisions to join relatives in the UK by making the appropriate visa application.

    Under the UK-France Joint Declaration of 20 August 2015, the UK has increased the frequency of communications campaigns involving British officials, French authorities and NGOs speaking to migrants in Calais to inform migrants of the reality of life in the UK, and their rights to claim asylum in France. The UK is also helping to fund dedicated facilities away from Calais to allow migrants to reflect on next steps and to consider an asylum claim.

  • Baroness McIntosh of Pickering – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Baroness McIntosh of Pickering – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness McIntosh of Pickering on 2016-02-23.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the proportion of agency doctors and nurses on duty in hospitals (1) during the week, and (2) at the weekend.

    Lord Prior of Brampton

    This information is not collected centrally.