The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Coussins on 2016-02-01.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they plan to take to ensure that treatment for bladder cancer under the NHS is accessible equally by all patients irrespective of home address.
Lord Prior of Brampton
NHS England is not aware of any general variation in access to bladder cancer treatment.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Coussins on 2016-02-01.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the BCG vaccine treatment of bladder cancer.
Lord Prior of Brampton
We have made no such assessment.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is the independent body responsible for providing best practice guidance for the National Health Service.
NICE published a clinical guideline in February 2015 on the diagnosis and management of bladder cancer which outlines the circumstances in which the Bacille Calmette‑Guérin (BCG) vaccine should be used to treat bladder cancer. A copy of the clinical guideline is attached.
A bladder cancer quality standard was also published by NICE in December 2015 which refers to BCG treatment for bladder cancer. A copy of the quality standard is attached.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Coussins on 2016-02-01.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what support they are giving to the campaign by Public Health England and various cancer charities to raise awareness of bladder cancer.
Lord Prior of Brampton
The “Blood in Pee” campaign focuses on early symptoms of bladder and kidney cancer. The campaign has run twice at a national level from 15 October to 20 November 2013 and 13 October to 23 November 2014, following successful local and regional pilots and will be re-running from 15 February to 31 March 2016. The campaign will use a wide range of media, including national television and radio advertising, to promote the key message “If you notice blood in your pee, even if it’s just the once, tell your doctor”.
Public Health England (PHE) works closely with the Department and NHS England to ensure that health care professionals are also targeted with campaign information to encourage earlier diagnoses and referrals. PHE also works closely with the devolved administrations to ensure consistency of messages on their own campaigns and initiatives.
The Department notifies key stakeholders including charities about forthcoming campaigns and has engaged with relevant charities to review the campaign leaflet and source case studies for the bladder and kidney campaign. A copy of the leaflet has been attached
Information for the general public will be available on NHS Choices. This is an online only resource.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Coussins on 2016-02-04.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will take steps to encourage the Higher Education Funding Council for England to continue supporting language study, in particular by maintaining the Year Abroad subsidy.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
The Government will be writing to the Higher Education Funding Council (HEFCE) shortly setting out its funding for the coming year. The HEFCE Board will make decisions on funding for universities and colleges in light of the Government’s letter. The Government continues to recognise the importance of language study and the value of studying abroad. Approximately 220,000 students have benefitted from the Erasmus Programme.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Coussins on 2016-02-29.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what consultations they have held, if any, about the rates of pay of interpreters contracted to work for the Home Office Interpreter Operations Unit, and what the outcome of those consultations has been.
Lord Bates
In November 2015 the Interpreter Operations Unit wrote to all interpreters registered to work on behalf of the Home Office informing them of plans to change their rates of pay from January 2016. Some discussions were held with interpreter representatives in December 2015. All proposed changes are currently on hold pending a further internal review of existing pay and conditions. This review will take place in 2016/17.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Coussins on 2016-02-29.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the announcement by the Home Office in January, whether a fundamental review of interpreter services has been commissioned, and if so, what are its terms of reference and timetable.
Lord Bates
An internal review of interpretation service provision is planned to commence during 2016/17. No specific actions have taken place thus far.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Coussins on 2016-03-22.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many (1) Afghan interpreters, and (2) members of their immediate families, have been relocated to the UK under (a) the ex-gratia redundancy scheme, and (b) the intimidation policy.
Lord Keen of Elie
Up to the end of February, 262 Afghan locally engaged civilians along with 356 members of their families have been relocated to the UK under the ex gratia redundancy scheme.
No locally engaged civilians have been relocated to the UK under the current intimidation policy. One former staff member has been relocated to the UK under a previous version of the policy.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Coussins on 2016-04-18.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what response they have made to the Language Trends Survey 2015–16, published by the British Council on 18 April.
Lord Nash
The Department welcomes the survey; in particular its findings on the steps primary schools are taking to improve the quality of language teaching since it became compulsory in maintained primary schools in September 2014. By introducing the EBacc, we have stopped the decline in modern foreign languages seen in the last decade, where 200,000 fewer GCSE students studied a modern language in 2010 than in 2002.
Last year’s results showed 20% more pupils are taking languages at GCSE than in 2010 while A level entries in modern languages have increased by nearly 4% since 2014.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Coussins on 2015-11-05.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many additional modern foreign language teachers they estimate will be needed in order to achieve the target of 90 per cent of mainstream pupils achieving the English Baccalaureate by 2020.
Lord Nash
The proposals in the English Baccalaureate consultation launched on 3 November imply an increase in the numbers of teachers of languages needed. The EBacc-related increase is over and above the additional teachers needed to keep up with the rise in the secondary school pupil population.
We will forecast the demand for additional Modern Foreign Language teachers following the conclusion of the consultation. This will give us a better understanding of how schools plan to respond to the resulting workforce requirements from 2017/18.
The Department does this, in part, by adding policy assumptions into the Teacher Supply Model (TSM), which informs the Initial Teacher Training (ITT) targets each year.
More details as to how the policy assumption process is managed within the TSM itself, along with some previous examples, can be found in both the 2016/17 TSM and the accompanying user guide.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Coussins on 2016-04-18.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress has been made in discussions with examination boards about retaining accreditation routes for lesser-taught languages at GCSE and A-level.
Lord Nash
Government action has resulted in GCSEs and A levels in a range of community languages being continued, to ensure young people can carry on studying a diverse range of foreign languages.
This follows a Government commitment in 2015 to protect a number of language GCSEs and A levels after the exam boards announced that from 2017 they would be withdrawing several courses.
Since then the Government has worked with Ofqual and the exam boards and we have been successful in securing most of the less-taught languages at GCSE and A level for future years. In addition to Chinese, Italian and Russian, the languages now secure are Arabic, Bengali, Biblical Hebrew, Modern Greek, Gujarati, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Panjabi, Polish, Portuguese, Turkish and Urdu.