Tag: Charlotte Leslie

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Charlotte Leslie on 2014-04-29.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the effect of the number of surgical care practitioners on the training of junior doctors in surgery.

Dr Daniel Poulter

The Government has mandated Health Education England (HEE) to provide national leadership on education, training and workforce development in the National Health Service.

HEE supports the delivery of excellent healthcare and health improvement to the patients and public of England, by ensuring that our workforce has the right numbers, skills, values and behaviours, at the right time and in the right place. A key part of that role is a continuing responsibility for ensuring the provision of an appropriate number of surgical trainees. Assurance of the quality of surgical training is the responsibility of the General Medical Council.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Charlotte Leslie on 2014-04-29.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what information patients are entitled to as to whether a medical operation will be undertaken by a fully surgically qualified member of staff.

Dr Daniel Poulter

It is the responsibility of the individual National Health Service trust or NHS foundation trusts to ensure that patients are treated by suitably qualified staff.

The Department encourages patients to make an informed decision before having medical operations. As part of this, patients can ask to have information on the clinical staff that will be conducting any medical operation and the Department would expect that the trust should provide this information to them.

The NHS Constitution sets out patients’ rights when using NHS services, these include:

– The right to be treated with a professional standard of care, by appropriately qualified and experienced staff, in a properly approved or registered organisation that meets required levels of safety and quality; and

– The right to be involved in discussions and decisions about your health and care, including your end of life care, and to be given information to enable you to do this. Where appropriate this right includes your family and carers.

One of the Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) core 16 quality and safety standards, is that providers must ensure that those carrying on a regulated activity, such as medical operations, must have the qualifications, skills and experience necessary for the work to be performed. The CQC can take action against healthcare providers if they are concerned about them employing inappropriately qualified staff.

In addition, the General Medical Council (GMC) holds the central registers of doctors’ qualifications. The medical register shows who is properly qualified to practice medicine, whilst the specialist register shows doctors who have completed specialist training, including surgical training. Patients may visit the GMC website to search the Medical Register online.

On patient consent, the GMC’s guidance, Consent: patients and doctors making decisions together states patients must be provided with the information they have requested on:

“the people who will be mainly responsible for and involved in their care, what their roles are, and to what extent students may be involved.”

This means that as part of the consent process, doctors are expected to give honest answers to any questions from patients, including questions about their qualifications to carry out the particular procedure in question. This is specifically expressed in the GMC’s document, Good Medical Practice, paragraph 66, where it says“You must always be honest about your experience, qualifications and current role.”

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Charlotte Leslie on 2014-04-29.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many surgical care practitioners have practised in the NHS in each year since 2005.

Dr Daniel Poulter

The information is not held centrally. The number of surgical care practitioners who have practised in the National Health Service in each year since 2005 are not identified separately in the annual NHS workforce census.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Charlotte Leslie on 2014-04-29.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department takes into account the differences in the positions of men and women in preparing for retirement when devising its policy on pensions.

Steve Webb

Yes. The Department for Work and Pensions is committed to fully meeting our legal obligations under the Public Sector Equality Duty, which is part of the Equality Act 2010. We have embedded equality analysis into the processes we use to develop, deliver and evaluate our policies, practices and services. This ensures that we continue to assess the likely and actual effects of what we do on people with protected characteristics to help inform our decision making processes.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Charlotte Leslie on 2014-04-28.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to support people with the rising cost of funerals.

Steve Webb

The Social Fund Funeral Payment scheme continues to provide help towards a simple, respectful, low-cost funeral. In 2012/13, over 35,000 awards were made worth £42.7 million, with an average award of £1,225.

Social Fund Budgeting Loans are also available to those on income related benefits to cover costs relating to funeral expenses.

In addition, any arrears of benefit which were due to the deceased at date of death are disregarded. This means that such arrears are no longer deducted from the funeral payment award.