Tag: John McDonnell

The below Parliamentary question was asked by John McDonnell on 2014-07-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what payments have been received by the NHS in return for the advertising of Optical Express services on the NHS Choices website.

Dr Daniel Poulter

NHS Choices does not advertise services on their website. Optical Express is included within the service directory published on NHS Choices on the basis that it is a provider of NHS services.

NHS Choices has neither sought nor received any payment from Optical Express in return for this inclusion.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by John McDonnell on 2014-07-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, for what reason the NHS logo appears on the Optical Express website; what the relationship between Optical Express and the NHS is; whether NHS funding (a) is and (b) has been provided to Optical Express in order to carry out procedures on NHS patients; and how many NHS patients were referred to Optical Express by the NHS in each of the last 10 years.

Dr Daniel Poulter

The current NHS identity guidelines only allow opticians to use the NHS logo on a poster in their premises. The guidelines are available at:

www.nhsidentity.nhs.uk/all-guidelines/guidelines/opticians/introduction

NHS England is due to take over responsibility for managing the NHS identity from the Department shortly, and we will be carrying out a thorough review of NHS identity guidelines during 2014-15.

Optical Express receives NHS funding from NHS England for providing NHS sight tests and optical vouchers to qualifying patients. The choice of optician is a matter for individual patients who are able to use any optician offering NHS sight tests and they can also choose where they have their glasses dispensed.

Other eye health services, over and above the NHS sight test, are commissioned by clinical commissioning groups, formerly primary care trusts. Neither the Department nor NHS England holds data on the number of patients who have received such services from Optical Express.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by John McDonnell on 2014-07-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to the advertising of Optical Express under the services section of the NHS choices website, for what reason his Department concluded that Optical Express does not fall under the excluded advertising categories set out in the NHS Choices terms and conditions for offering cosmetic surgery and procedures including Botox and sunbeds; and what assessment he has made of whether advertising Optical Express services is an appropriate use of NHS funding used to maintain the website.

Dr Daniel Poulter

NHS Choices does not advertise services on their website. Optical Express is included within the service directory published on NHS Choices on the basis that it is a provider of NHS services.

NHS Choices has neither sought nor received any payment from Optical Express in return for this inclusion.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by John McDonnell on 2014-07-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the capabilities are of the multi-purpose ankle tag; and what forms of surveillance and supervision it makes possible.

Andrew Selous

The multi-purpose ankle tags will support the monitoring of compliance with curfew, exclusion and inclusion zones, and subject location.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by John McDonnell on 2014-07-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, for what reasons the hardware and software providers in the new contract for electronic monitoring of offenders have been separated.

Andrew Selous

We divided the provision of electronic monitoring into discrete components, separating the supply of hardware and software, and competed these as separate lots because we consider this approach most likely to support the development and deployment of the best technology. This strategy also had the advantage of encouraging the participation of new entrants, SMEs and specialist companies, allowing them to bid for a particular component rather than the entire end-to-end service.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by John McDonnell on 2014-07-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what reasons were given to him by Buddi for its withdrawal from the new electronic contract in March 2014.

Andrew Selous

MoJ was unable to agree on certain technical and commercial aspects of the proposed contract with Buddi. We therefore took the decision to discontinue discussions with Buddi and recompete this part of the competition.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by John McDonnell on 2014-07-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what his policy is on fitting tags and trackers at court or prison.

Andrew Selous

Tags are not currently fitted at court or prisons. There is provision in the new contract for tagging at court and prison; we will explore the circumstances where this might be appropriate during the life of the contract.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by John McDonnell on 2014-07-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what his policy is on devolving responsibility for tagging contracts to police and crime commissioners.

Andrew Selous

On 15 July the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice announced that the Ministry of Justice will be awarding contracts to four companies for delivery of the next generation of electronic monitoring services.

These national contracts will be managed by the Ministry of Justice. Within the existing legislative framework, there are opportunities for Police and Crime Commissioners to make use of the capability within national contracts to support their local priorities in order to ensure that the taxpayers money is used efficiently. Police and Crime Commissioners may however make local arrangements depending on local priorities.

Separate to these national contracts, the Secretary of State has agreed to allow the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime to enter into arrangements to pilot the effectiveness of the Alcohol Abstinence Monitoring Requirement under the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012.