Tag: Justin Madders

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Madders on 2016-03-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what proportion of gross domestic product (GDP) has been spent on health care in (a) England and (b) the UK in each year since 1997; and what estimate he has made of the proportion of GDP that will be spent on health care over the next five years.

Alistair Burt

Spend as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) is usually reported on a United Kingdom basis. HM Treasury publishes UK health spend figures as a percentage of GDP which are shown below. Note this excludes private health expenditure.

Spend on health in UK as % of GDP –

1996/97 – 5.0%

1997/98 – 5.0%

1998/99 – 5.0%

1999/00 – 5.0%

2000/01 – 5.2%

2001/02 – 5.6%

2002/03 – 5.8%

2003/04 – 6.2%

2004/05 – 6.5%

2005/06 – 6.7%

2006/07 – 6.6%

2007/08 – 6.7%

2008/09 – 7.2%

2009/10 – 7.8%

2010/11 – 7.6%

2011/12 – 7.4%

2012/13 – 7.5%

2013/14 – 7.5%

2014/15 – 7.4%

Source: Table 4.4 HMT, Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses 2015.

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 Department has not therefore made forecasts for health spending as a share of GDP for future years.

GDP figures are calculated on an economy wide basis, so GDP figures for England are not available to calculate spend on health care in England as a share of English GDP.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Madders on 2016-04-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether the posts of NHS Sustainability and Transformation Plan Footprints Leaders are remunerated; and how long appointments to those posts are for.

George Freeman

Being a Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP) leader is a voluntary, non-statutory role. As far as NHS England is aware, in the overwhelming majority of cases, leaders are not being paid over and above the remuneration they receive for their existing roles.

The role of the STP leaders is to support the development of STPs which are expected to be submitted in July 2016.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Madders on 2016-04-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what level of funding was allocated for Healthcare Cadet apprenticeships in (a) 2013-14, (b) 2014-15 and (c) 2015-16; and what the forecast level of funding for such apprenticeships is in 2016-17.

Ben Gummer

Health Education England (HEE) is committed to supporting a range of vocational based learning programmes, including the healthcare cadet apprenticeships in the North West.

Health Education England North West make approximately 400 places available through the programme every year. HEE undertook an extensive consultation with National Health Service trusts and dental practices, about the Healthcare Cadet Scheme. On the basis of the feedback received, HEE decided to close the programme and have developed a new model for vocational training to start in April 2017.

Healthcare cadetships are available in other areas. No data is collected centrally on these.

There are several Healthcare Cadet apprenticeship schemes in operation across England. No data is available on national spending on these schemes. No national assessment has been made on the effectiveness of Healthcare Cadet schemes.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Madders on 2016-05-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, which NHS (a) trusts and (b) foundation trusts have reported that their planned agency nursing spend (i) will and (ii) will not exceed the ceiling trajectory set by Monitor.

Alistair Burt

Last year the Government introduced a series of tough financial controls to help the National Health Service tackle overspending on expensive agency staff. Although, it is not possible to provide the information requested by individual NHS trust or foundation trust, NHS Improvement has confirmed that a total of £3.64 billion was spent on agency and contract staff in 2015-16. This represents a saving of £300 million to the NHS, which had been on course to spend up to £4 billion prior to the controls being put in place.

NHS Improvement has also set each NHS trust and foundation trust an annual expenditure ceiling on the total amount that can be spent on agency staff in 2016-17. Again, it is not possible to provide the information requested by individual NHS trust or foundation trust; however all trusts have been allocated ceilings for 2016-17 and these will be monitored by NHS Improvement on a monthly basis going forwards.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Madders on 2016-05-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the average time was for processing driving licence renewal applications for people over 70 years old in the latest period for which figures are available.

Andrew Jones

In 2015/16, the average time taken to process straightforward applications to renew a driving licence from customers aged 70 and over was three days. Applications that require medical investigations can take longer to process if there is a need to seek further information.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Madders on 2016-06-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 6 June 2016 to Question 38478, what the current average time taken is to process driving licence renewal applications for people over 70 years old where medical investigations are required.

Andrew Jones

The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) deals with more than 600,000 medical driver licensing applications annually. The length of time taken to deal with an individual application depends on the medical condition and whether further information is required from medical professionals.

For the period April 2015 to March 2016, the average time for an assessment and a licensing decision to be made was 53 working days, irrespective of age. Between April 2014 and March 2015, the figure was 58 working days.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Madders on 2016-09-05.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the performance of Capita in delivering primary care support.

David Mowat

NHS England recognises that there have been transition issues following the transfer of primary care support services to Capita. NHS England is working together with Capita to resolve these issues.

NHS England has established a dedicated service management team, and regular monthly oversight and management processes to oversee Capita’s operational performance and the transformational changes to the service. These include monthly Board meetings, chaired by a National Director, to review and hold Capita to account for operational performance and their transformation plans.

NHS England’s scrutiny of Capita is underpinned by a number of robust contractual mechanisms designed to ensure that primary care support services are delivered in line with expectations. These include financial service credits where agreed performance targets across the service are not achieved. There are also mechanisms to monitor and ensure compliance with information governance requirements, a six-monthly user satisfaction survey, and an annual external audit of the services.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Madders on 2016-10-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, who is responsible for approving sustainability and transformation plans.

David Mowat

The Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs) are being developed by local areas. National Health Service providers, commissioners, local authorities, and other health and care services are coming together to propose how they, at local level, can close the health and wellbeing, care and quality and financial gaps. These plans are locally owned, but will be shared with the national health and care bodies, chiefly NHS England and NHS Improvement, so the national bodies can best develop support to enable footprints to deliver their plans. The National bodies have also published guidance on the STP process.

NHS England and NHS Improvement will continue to work closely with STP areas to provide them with support and expertise to develop robust plans which will meet the objectives set out in the Mandate. STPs will form the basis for operational planning for 2017/18 and 2018/19, which will be subject to NHS Improvement and NHS England assurance processes.

The local organisations will also be leading public engagement processes on their STP plans, in line with the engagement guidance.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Madders on 2016-10-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to mitigate the effect of planned increases to the national minimum wage on the ability of childcare providers to recruit staff.

Caroline Dinenage

We are investing £1 billion more per year in the early years to fund our commitments on the entitlements. This includes £300 million per year from 2017-18 for a significant increase to the rate paid for the two, three and four year old entitlements.

To inform the size of the funding rates increase, the government conducted a six-month long review of the cost of providing childcare and published its findings in November 2015. It looked at both the current costs of provision and the implications of future cost pressures facing the sector, including the introduction of the National Living Wage.

We have committed to developing a workforce strategy to help employers attract, retain and develop staff to deliver high quality provision.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Madders on 2016-10-14.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average time taken to process a Security Industry Authority licence application has been in the last year.

Brandon Lewis

The average time taken to process applications is unavailable in the format requested. The SIA’s new IT system (introduced in July 2016) enables more detailed performance analysis. The system shows that the average number of days for processing applications (including renewals) was 38 days in July and 30 days in August. Once fully embedded, the SIA expect that the processing time for applications will be quicker than under the old system. The Security Industry Authority (SIA) have an annual performance target to process 80% of applications (including renewals) within 25 working days. The SIA met this annual target in the 2015/16 financial year. Performance for 2016/2017 to date is included in the table below.

	Applications	Percentage within 25 working days
Sep-15	11618	89%
Oct-15	10799	85%
Nov-15	10499	83%
Dec-15	8589	76%
Jan-16	9905	80%
Feb-16	10597	83%
Mar-16	10352	85%
Apr-16	9951	86%
May-16	9889	81%
Jun-16	9277	80%
Jul-16	6305	46%
Aug-16	9208	72%