Tag: Helen Jones

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Helen Jones on 2016-09-14.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, (a) when and (b) by whom the decision was taken to withdraw funding for the NHS retirement fellowship; and what evidence on the health benefits of fellowship activities was considered prior to that decision being made.

Mr Philip Dunne

Health Education England (HEE) has, for the last two years, provided funding on behalf of the system to the NHS Retirement Fellowship. The funding was provided in support of the work they do for former employees of the National Health Service, however, the funding was always intended to be transitional support and not a guaranteed grant year on year. Like all publicly funded bodies, HEE is having to review its financial commitments and in turn, has prioritised funding for the education and training of the future workforce.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Helen Jones on 2015-11-03.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate he has made of the amount which the proposed apprenticeship levy will raise in (a) Warrington and (b) the North-West.

Greg Hands

Apprenticeships are a cornerstone of our skills system. The levy will drive growth in quality and quantity in apprenticeships and further details will be set out at the Spending Review. Provisional information shows that there have been 6,470 apprenticeship starts in Warrington North since May 2010. There have been over 78,000 apprenticeship starts in the North West over the same period with a 51% increase in starts from 2009/10 to 2013/14. The levy will ensure we can build on that success over the next five years by putting the funding of apprenticeships in the hands of employers in the North West.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Helen Jones on 2016-01-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make it her policy to allocate two unique reference numbers to schools which have designated provision within the school for the purpose of differentiating results for that provision and the whole school.

Edward Timpson

We have no plans to allocate two unique reference numbers to schools which have designated provision within the school. Disaggregating the results of children in designation provision from the results of children in mainstream schooling in performance data would be at odds with the principle of inclusivity.

I refer the Right Honourable MP to my response to PQ 23155, submitted to Parliament on Friday 22 January 2016, in which I explained that disaggregating results in this way would create incentives to place children in designated provision regardless of whether or not that was in their best interest.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Helen Jones on 2016-02-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many pupils in the North West have received funding from the European Regional Development Fund; and what the total investment from that fund in that region has been in each year since 2000.

James Wharton

The European Regional Development Fund does not provide funding to pupils.

The total investment for the Fund 2000-06 programme period in the North West was equivalent to just under £1.5 billion.

The figures for the 2007-13 European Regional Developement Fund programme, where investment commenced in 2009, are as follows:

Year	Annual expenditure (£m)	Cumulative expenditure (£m)
2009	168.2	168.2
2010	56.3	224.5
2011	63.2	287.7
2012	60.8	348.5
2013	81.2	429.7
2014	123.8	553.5
2015	56.9	610.4

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Helen Jones on 2016-04-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the annual costs incurred in clinical negligence legislation due to the failure of the NHS Litigation Authority to (a) properly investigate claims early in the process and (b) offer a realistic settlement at the earliest possible time; and if he will make a statement.

Ben Gummer

The role of the National Health Service Litigation Authority (NHS LA) is to deal efficiently and effectively with clinical negligence cases against the NHS as set out in the framework agreement with the Department.

The NHS LA discharges its functions by:

― paying justified claims promptly and appropriately;

― defending claims without merit;

― undertaking appropriate and proportionate risk management activities with its members with a view to assisting them to minimise their claims and thus improve patient and staff safety; and

― ensuring that the lessons learned from claims and the other activities of the NHS LA are appropriately shared in order to help reduce adverse incidents in the future.

A review of NHS LA by the Department, published in July 2015, concluded that it is a well-led and efficient organisation.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Helen Jones on 2016-05-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what progress has been made on finalising the route for the second stage of High Speed 2; and when he expects to announce the decision on that route.

Mr Robert Goodwill

In November last year the Secretary of State confirmed plans for accelerating construction of Phase Two from the West Midlands to Crewe so that it opens in 2027, six years earlier than planned.

We are developing our plans for the rest of Phase Two and we intend to make a decision on the rest of the route in autumn 2016.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Helen Jones on 2016-10-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what representations he has received on behalf of local independent pharmacies in Warrington on their future funding.

David Mowat

We have received representations from individuals, including the hon. Member and from a number of organisations representing pharmacies, pharmacists and patients in Cheshire, on our proposals for community pharmacy in 2016/17 and beyond.

We have also received representations from the National Pharmacy Association and Pharmacy Voice, of which the Association is a member. These include written communications and official meetings.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Helen Jones on 2015-11-03.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will take steps to encourage more teachers with qualifications in English and mathematics to take up posts in further education colleges.

Nick Boles

Our Further Education Workforce Strategy[1] published in 2014 sets out the steps government has already taken to encourage more teachers with qualifications in English and Mathematics to take up posts in further education colleges.

Since 2013, bursaries of up to £25,000 have been available to attract new graduates with relevant degrees to teach English and Mathematics, and to specialise in teaching students with SEN within the FE sector. To date, over 950 bursaries have been provided to graduates. The government is committed to supporting the development of the teaching workforce in FE and has invested over £30m since 2013 to fund a range of programmes and incentives to improve the quality of leadership, teaching and support staff in the sector – with a priority on English and Maths.

Furthermore, 3,800 existing FE teachers have benefited from enhancement programmes designed to improve teacher confidence and knowledge of new GCSE English and Maths qualifications.

Further information on Further Education teacher training can be found in the ‘Get into Teaching’ website[2] and FE advice websites[3].

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/further-education-workforce-strategy

[2]https://getintoteaching.education.gov.uk/

[3] https://www.feadvice.org.uk/

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Helen Jones on 2016-01-26.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what representations he has received from (a) providers of supported housing and (b) organisations representing people with disabilities on the effect of a cap on housing benefit on the provision of supported housing.

Greg Hands

Treasury Ministers and officials have meetings with a wide variety of organisations in the public and private sectors as part of the process of policy development and delivery. Details of ministerial and permanent secretary meetings with external organisations on departmental business are published on a quarterly basis and are available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/hmt-ministers-meetings-hospitality-gifts-and-overseas-travel

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Helen Jones on 2016-02-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the average waiting time is from referral to the commencement of a talking therapy course in (a) the North West and (b) Warrington.

Alistair Burt

The information is not available in the format requested. Such information as is available is shown in the following table. The Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) dataset contains information on referrals to IAPT services which provide talking therapies. Information is provided both for Warrington Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and for all 33 North West CCGs combined for the year 2014/15.

Table: The number of referrals entering treatment¹ in the year, with mean and median waiting times to first treatment (days), for IAPT services in 2014/15. Data shown for NHS Warrington CCG and all North West CCGs combined².

	Total number of referrals entering treatment3	Average (mean) waiting time to first treatment appointment (days)4	Median5 waiting time to first treatment appointment (days)
Organisation name
NHS Warrington CCG	3,265	31	28
All North West CCGs combined	123,445	44	24

Notes:

¹In order to enter treatment a referral must have a first treatment appointment (an appointment with a therapy type recorded) in the year.

²CCG is based on GP Practice. Where GP Practice is not recorded, or cannot be assigned to a CCG, the referral is categorised as ‘Unknown’.

³In order to enter treatment a referral must have a first treatment appointment in the year. Referral received date not necessarily in the year.

⁴The mean was used as the average.

⁵Means and medians have been rounded to the nearest whole number.

Waiting time is measured by counting the number of days between a referral being received and the first treatment appointment. For 2014/15, the presence of a valid therapy type is used as an indicator of whether treatment was provided in the course of the appointment.

Entering treatment figures are rounded to the nearest 5

Please note: It is generally advised that the median is used as the more reliable measure of average waiting time, as this accounts better for any outliers in the data

Source: Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) Dataset