Tag: Barry Sheerman

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2014-05-02.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what guidance his Department provides to clinical commissioning groups about engagement with Local Safeguarding Children Boards.

Dr Daniel Poulter

Clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) are statutory members of Local Safeguarding Children Boards under section 13 of the Children Act 2004, as amended by the Health and Social Care Act 2012. The inter-agency statutory guidance Working Together to Safeguard Children, published by the Department for Education in 2013, describes the functions of Local Safeguarding Children Boards and the responsibilities of member organisations.

NHS England published its Safeguarding Vulnerable People in the Reformed NHS: Accountability and Assurance Framework in 2013 to complement the statutory guidance and support CCGs and other National Health Service organisations in fulfilling their safeguarding responsibilities.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2014-06-04.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department has taken to increase awareness of early screenings for prostate cancer for men at risk.

Jane Ellison

The Prostate Cancer Risk Management Programme (PCRMP) Scientific Reference Group (SRG) keeps the evidence on prostate cancer screening under review, and has not yet seen compelling evidence that screening should be offered to high risk groups.

The PCRMP is in place to ensure that men over 50 without symptoms of prostate cancer can have a prostate specific antigen (PSA) test free on the national health service after careful consideration of the advantages and disadvantages of the test and after a discussion with a general practitioner.

The patient information sheets on PSA testing make it clear that the risk of prostate cancer is greater for men with a familial history of prostate cancer and black-African and black-Caribbean men.

The National Cancer Action Team (NCAT) previously highlighted the increased risk of prostate cancer in black men through the ‘Cancer Does Not Discriminate’ campaign, including distributing over 200,000 health supplements and an editorial in The Voice newspaper.

In 2011, the Department, NCAT, North East London Cancer Network and Prostate Cancer UK worked with NHS Newham and Barts Health Care Trust to pilot the Newham Prostate Health Drop-in Clinic at the Newham African-Caribbean Resource Centre. 322 men had a consultation at the clinic, 59 were referred to secondary care and nine new diagnoses of early stage prostate cancer were made.

The learning gained from a formal evaluation of the pilot was shared widely with stakeholders within London and across England, including NHS England. The pilot won the in the 2013 Civil Service Diversity and Equality Award for Understanding and engaging with communities.

The Department is represented on the multi-disciplinary PCRMP SRG and the Prostate Cancer Advisory Group, along with representatives from clinicians, professional bodies, academics, the voluntary sector and patient groups.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2014-06-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether he expects High Speed 2 will require a separate ticket pricing structure from regular rail services.

Mr Robert Goodwill

The HS2 business case demonstrates that the project can deliver significant benefits for the country without any fares differential being required for journeys using the high speed line. It is too soon to know what fares will be set for travel on HS2 services. Government decisions about fares structures and regulation will be taken closer to the commencement of HS2 Phase One services in 2026.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2014-05-02.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will provide a breakdown of the transition costs in NHS England’s January finance report.

Dr Daniel Poulter

NHS England’s Financial Performance Report, which was included in the papers for its January Board meeting, gave a planned reserves/transition costs spend for 2013-14 of £110,600,000 in a table showing running costs at November 2013. NHS England has provided a breakdown shown in the following table.

Transition – Estates Void Costs	£35,000,000
Transition – Primary Care Services Restructuring	£35,000,000
Corporate Reserves and Contingency	£40,600,000
Total	£110,600,000

The forecast figure of £91,000,000 for reserves/transition costs shown in the report was arrived at due to an anticipated underspend against the Primary Care Services Restructuring budget, based on forecast information from business plans for the project.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2014-06-04.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he has taken to ensure that patients with prostate cancer receive the highest quality treatment.

Jane Ellison

Newly updated National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidance on how best to diagnose and treat prostate cancer will help doctors to ensure that men are given information about the treatment options available and help in choosing the best option to suit them. The updated guidance also aims to reduce the uncertainty and variations in practice that remain in some areas of prostate cancer diagnosis and management.

Since the original recommendations were published in 2008, a number of new treatments have been licensed for the management of hormone-relapsed metastatic prostate cancer. There is also more information now available on the best way to diagnose and identify the different stages of the disease in a hospital setting, as well as how best to manage the side effects of radical treatment. NHS England would expect providers to take account of best evidence and treatments in their delivery of services.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2014-06-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent estimate he has made of the number of school-age children living in areas where the only state schools within reasonable travelling distance are faith schools.

Mr David Laws

We have made no such estimate. Local authorities have responsibility for securing sufficient school places to meet the needs of their local communities and have the statutory duties and powers to support that. They must also ensure that the balance of different types of provision meets local demand and that they make suitable transport arrangements for eligible pupils.

The Government does recognise the need to ensure that new provision meets the needs of the whole community. New academies and free schools with a religious designation may only prioritise up to 50% of pupils on the basis of faith-related admissions criteria.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2014-05-02.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the cost is of redundancies made by NHS England since January 2013; and what proportion of total expenditure that figure represents.

Dr Daniel Poulter

The Secretary of State meets regularly with NHS England to discuss a wide variety of issues. The Department is clear on the need to ensure that redundancy payments are made only in circumstances where it is appropriate to do so and has been working with NHS England to ensure that payments are tightly controlled, whilst meeting contractual obligations.

Redundancies are subject to rigorous scrutiny and challenge before being approved. Additionally, any individual redundancy compensation payment in excess of £100,000 also requires Departmental approval. Where redundancies do occur, NHS England ensures that these are formally subject to national NHS provisions to claw back any redundancy payment received where an individual then goes on to be re-employed within the National Health Service, further ensuring better value for the tax payer.

NHS England takes seriously its responsibilities to ensure that redundancy is a last resort and has implemented a system to seek to re-deploy any staff affected by such change to retain knowledge, skills and capability within the organisation, where at all possible.

NHS England has a responsibility for ensuring that maximum value for money for taxpayers is delivered, whilst seeking to improve health outcomes for patients through effective commissioning arrangements. As a direct employer of 6,000 people, NHS England has a responsibility to continually improve the way it delivers both commissioning and the provision of the services for which it is directly accountable, which includes the regular review of its workforce arrangements.

NHS England has advised that its redundancy costs for 2012-13 were £54,000, which represented 0.1% of total expenditure. For 2013-14 the costs were £1,017,000, which represented 0.003% of total expenditure.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2014-06-04.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what discussions the Prime Minister has had with the US President and others on the release of the files held by Boston College relating to Northern Ireland.

Damian Green

Home Office Ministers and officials have meetings with a wide variety of
international partners, as well as organisations and individuals in the public
and private sectors, as part of the process of policy development and delivery.
Details of Ministerial meetings with external organisations and individuals are
passed to the Cabinet Office on a quarterly basis and are subsequently
published on the Cabinet Office website which is available here:
www.gov.uk/government/publications/home-office-ministers-gifts-and-hospitality-j
uly-to-september-2013.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2014-05-02.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to ensure that redundancies and constraints on spending in NHS England do not adversely affect the quality of services provided.

Dr Daniel Poulter

The Secretary of State meets regularly with NHS England to discuss a wide variety of issues. The Department is clear on the need to ensure that redundancy payments are made only in circumstances where it is appropriate to do so and has been working with NHS England to ensure that payments are tightly controlled, whilst meeting contractual obligations.

Redundancies are subject to rigorous scrutiny and challenge before being approved. Additionally, any individual redundancy compensation payment in excess of £100,000 also requires Departmental approval. Where redundancies do occur, NHS England ensures that these are formally subject to national NHS provisions to claw back any redundancy payment received where an individual then goes on to be re-employed within the National Health Service, further ensuring better value for the tax payer.

NHS England takes seriously its responsibilities to ensure that redundancy is a last resort and has implemented a system to seek to re-deploy any staff affected by such change to retain knowledge, skills and capability within the organisation, where at all possible.

NHS England has a responsibility for ensuring that maximum value for money for taxpayers is delivered, whilst seeking to improve health outcomes for patients through effective commissioning arrangements. As a direct employer of 6,000 people, NHS England has a responsibility to continually improve the way it delivers both commissioning and the provision of the services for which it is directly accountable, which includes the regular review of its workforce arrangements.

NHS England has advised that its redundancy costs for 2012-13 were £54,000, which represented 0.1% of total expenditure. For 2013-14 the costs were £1,017,000, which represented 0.003% of total expenditure.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2014-06-04.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent representations he has received from (a) the Tibetan government in exile and (b) human rights charities on human rights abuses in that country.

Mr Hugo Swire

Officials regularly meet with human rights non govermental-organistions (NGOs) to discuss the situation in Tibet. They last did so in May, following the UK-China Human Rights dialogue. I will be meeting with representatives from a number of Tibet NGOs later this month.

We also receive occasional updates from the Central Tibetan Administration, also known as the Tibetan government in exile. We believe that meaningful dialogue is the best way to address and resolve the underlying grievances of the Tibetan communities and we continue to urge all sides to restart talks.