Tag: Justin Madders

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Madders on 2015-12-03.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether hospitals will incur financial penalties if they breach performance standards as a result of the suspended industrial action on 1 December 2015.

Ben Gummer

In the normal course of events, a hospital which misses a key national standard (such as the 18-week referral to treatment waiting time standard or the six-week diagnostic wait standard) will incur a mandatory financial sanction applied by its commissioners, as set out in the NHS Standard Contract.

However, the Contract also includes a ‘Force Majeure’ clause (General Condition 28) which would, in principle, apply to planned industrial action. Under this clause, a provider is able to claim relief from its liabilities under the Contract, to the extent that an event outside of its reasonable control has directly caused it to fail to meet its contractual obligations.

Therefore, if a hospital were to breach an operational standard for the month, but could demonstrate to the commissioner that:

* this was solely and directly due to the action it had reasonably taken in anticipation of the industrial action proceeding; and

* it had done everything reasonable to mitigate the impact of its actions on achievement of the standard in that month

then the commissioner could set aside the sanction for that month.

If the breach of the standard was only partly due to the impact of the planned industrial action, only the relevant proportion of the sanction would be set aside.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Madders on 2016-01-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 26 October 2015 to Question 12819, what progress he has made on introducing independent medical examiners to the death certification process.

Ben Gummer

We remain committed to the principle of medical examiners and will be setting out further information in due course.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Madders on 2016-02-01.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many cases of sepsis there were in each region of England in each of the last five years.

Ben Gummer

Data for finished discharge episodes (FDEs) with a primary or secondary diagnosis of sepsis for patients in each government office region of residence in England, in each year from 2010-11 to 2014-15 are provided below.

These figures relate only to hospital admissions and do not include those patients who were diagnosed in a primary care setting, or those who attended hospital as an Outpatient.

This is not a count of patients as the same patient may have had more than one episode of care within the same year.

Count of FDEs¹ with a primary or secondary diagnosis² of sepsis³ for patients in each government office region of residence for 2010-11 to 2014-15^4. Activity in English National Health Service Hospitals and English NHS commissioned activity in the independent sector

Government office region	2010-11	2011-12	2012-13	2013-14	2014-15
North East	4,798	5,074	5,655	6,275	7,388
North West	13,258	13,109	14,708	17,221	20,922
Yorkshire and The Humber	9,182	9,189	10,146	11,338	12,857
East Midlands	7,316	8,115	9,831	10,863	12,998
West Midlands	7,772	7,915	10,518	12,297	13,812
East of England	10,380	10,432	11,647	13,108	16,029
London	14,894	15,223	15,580	17,860	19,723
South East	13,945	15,344	16,604	19,239	21,378
South West	8,013	8,292	9,805	10,967	12,722
England – Not Otherwise Specified	48	83	75	84	102
Unknown/Non-England	2,275	8,239	9,716	3,570	3,841
Total	91,881	101,015	114,285	122,822	141,772

Source: Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), Health and Social Care Information Centre

The increasing incidence of sepsis is likely to be due to people living longer and more medical and surgical interventions being performed. People with series co-morbidities are more likely to survive their illness, and for a longer period of time than in previous decades, which leads to much of the hospital-acquired sepsis that now occurs.

Notes:

¹Finished Discharge Episode (FDE) – A discharge episode is the last episode during a hospital stay (a spell), where the patient is discharged from the hospital or transferred to another hospital. Discharges do not represent the number of patients, as a person may have more than one discharge from hospital within the period.

²Number of episodes in which the patient had a primary or secondary diagnosis – The number of episodes where this diagnosis was recorded in any of the 20 (14 from 2002-03 to 2006-07 and 7 prior to 2002-03) primary and secondary diagnosis fields in a Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) record. Each episode is only counted once, even if the diagnosis is recorded in more than one diagnosis field of the record.

³ICD-10 codes for Sepsis – A02.1 Salmonella sepsis, A20.7 Septicaemic plague, A21.7 Generalized tularaemia, A22.7 Anthrax sepsis, A26.7 Erysipelothrix sepsis, A28.0 Pasteurellosis, A28.2 Extraintestinal yersiniosis, A32.7 Listerial sepsis, A39.2 Acute meningococcaemia, A39.3 Chronic meningococcaemia, A39.4 Meningococcaemia, unspecified, A40.- Streptococcal sepsis, A41.- Other sepsis, A42.7 Actinomycotic sepsis, B37.7 Candidal sepsis, O85.X Puerperal sepsis, P36.- Bacterial sepsis of newborn
The following pair of codes is a dagger/asterisk code pair (D and A) which must be present together:
A39.1 Waterhouse-Friderichsen syndrome; E35.1 Disorders of adrenal glands in diseases classified elsewhere

⁴Assessing growth through time (Admitted patient care) – HES figures are available from 1989-90 onwards. Changes to the figures over time need to be interpreted in the context of improvements in data quality and coverage (particularly in earlier years), improvements in coverage of independent sector activity (particularly from 2006-07) and changes in NHS practice. For example, apparent reductions in activity may be due to a number of procedures which may now be undertaken in outpatient settings and so no longer include in admitted patient HES data. Conversely, apparent increases in activity may be due to improved recording of diagnosis or procedure information.

Note that HES include activity ending in the year in question and run from April to March, e.g. 2012-13 includes activity ending between 1st April 2012 and 31st March 2013.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Madders on 2016-02-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the (a) scale of the difficulty experienced by trusts in recruiting to consultant posts and (b) effect of that difficulty on numbers of occupied consultant posts in cellular pathology.

Ben Gummer

Individual healthcare providers are responsible for ensuring that they have the right level of staffing to provide high quality care to their patients.

The following table taken from the monthly workforce statistics published by the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) shows the total consultant figures for May 2010, November 2010 and for November 2015 working in the National Health Service in England. The data for November 2015 is the latest available. The HSCIC statistics do not show cellular pathology, but data is provided for those working in the pathology group.

England full-time equivalent

	May 2010	November 2010	November 2015
All Consultants	35,174	36,010	42,423
Consultants in Pathology group	2,426	2,486	2,597

Source: Health and Social Care Information Centre NHS monthly workforce statistics

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Madders on 2016-03-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to encourage GPs to undertake out-of-hours shifts in primary care.

Alistair Burt

The Department and NHS England are committed to addressing the issue of increasing medical indemnity costs for general practitioners (GPs), including those working out of hours.

Increasing costs of indemnity cover associated with out of hours work may discourage GPs from undertaking out-of-hours shifts in primary care.

The Department was represented at a roundtable event held by NHS England on 17 November 2015 to develop a shared understanding of how to address rising medical indemnity costs. A range of stakeholders, including the British Medical Association and Medical Defence Organisations (MDOs), also attended.

On 9 December 2015, NHS England announced a winter indemnity scheme to offset the additional indemnity premium for GPs who wish to work additional sessions for their out-of-hours providers. In addition they have negotiated changes to the products offered by MDOs to bring down costs of indemnity for extended access.

Discussions are ongoing between the Department and NHS England on a long-term solution.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Madders on 2016-04-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many non-combat deaths of service personnel have occurred (a) in total, (b) in the UK and (c) overseas in each of the last 20 years for which figures are available.

Mark Lancaster

The information requested is provided in the attached table.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Madders on 2016-04-21.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many public consultations his Department has conducted on the subject of mayors in Cheshire and Warrington since 2010.

James Wharton

Devolution deals, including commitments for mayoral governance, are negotiated and agreed with those democratically elected to represent their area, and who are accountable to their local electorate.

This Department has not undertaken direct public consultations on this matter in Cheshire and Warrington.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Madders on 2016-05-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the proportion of GDP spent on health in 2020-21.

Alistair Burt

Spend as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is stated on United Kingdom public expenditure figures and is produced by HM Treasury. The Department is responsible for reporting on health spend in England and is not in a position to provide equivalent spend figures for health by the devolved administrations in future years.

The Spending Review settlement, delivered by the Chancellor on 25 November, set the Department’s overall budget for the remaining years of the parliament and the level of funding that will be available to the National Health Service. It set absolute spending totals, not spending as a percentage of GDP, providing certainty for financial planning over the period.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Madders on 2016-06-06.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what level of funding was allocated to Department for Transport Incident Support Units serving the M56 between junctions 12 and 14 in each of the last 10 years for which figures are available.

Andrew Jones

There is no available data on the historical level of funding allocated specifically to the Incident Support Unit service in the geographical operational area for trunk roads motorways in the North West, where the M56 Motorway is located.

This Incident Support Unit was provided to Highways England’s predecessor organisation, the Highways Agency, by a contractor until 2012. There was a lump sum payment for various duties and it is not possible to disaggregate the cost of the Incident Support Unit service from the overall payments.

A new Asset Support Contract replaced the previous approach in November 2012, and this no longer requires the contractor to provide a dedicated Incident Support Unit team. Incident response is now handled by the trained operatives in the general workforce, who are already working on the road network. This has proved to be a more flexible and cost-effective way of managing incidents.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Madders on 2016-06-14.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of ending the NHS bursary system on the Capital Nurse project in London.

Ben Gummer

We are advised by NHS England that it is working closely with Health Education England to deliver the Capital Nurse programme.

Impact on programmes such as the Capital Nurse programme, will be considered by NHS England once the outcome of the bursary consultation, which closes on 30 June 2016, has been published.