The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Madders on 2016-01-26.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the financial effect on local authorities of removal of the severe disability premium.
Priti Patel
The fact that the severe disability premium does not feature within the structure of Universal Credit (UC) has no financial effect on Local Authorities. Under UC, the most severely disabled claimants will receive more targeted support.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Madders on 2016-02-01.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department plans to take to ensure opportunities for diagnosis and intervention in sepsis are detected.
Ben Gummer
NHS England is undertaking a number of steps to improve diagnosis and treatment of sepsis, which have been coordinated through a cross-system programme board run by NHS England.
In April 2015 NHS England introduced a new national Commissioning for Quality and Innovation measure (financial incentive) to incentivise hospitals accepting emergency admissions to screen eligible patients for sepsis when they arrive, and to administer intravenous antibiotics within one hour for patients with severe sepsis or septic shock.
Additionally NHS England has made available a voluntary audit tool for general practitioners (GPs) enabling them to assess their care of children with a fever under five years old against the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines, which can be a pre-cursor to sepsis. Primary care IT suppliers have provided data entry templates for the tool which prompts GPs to enter the appropriate observations thereby improving the quality of the patient care record, as well as promoting the use of the NICE guidance.
NICE is currently consulting on a new Sepsis Clinical Guideline that will be published this year, which will make recommendations about the assessment, diagnosis and initial management of patients with sepsis.
The Government has mandated Health Education England (HEE) to provide national leadership on education, training and workforce development in the National Health Service in England.
It is the responsibility of the professional regulators to set the standards and outcomes for education and training and approve training curricular to ensure newly qualified healthcare professionals are equipped with the knowledge, skills and attitudes to provide high quality patient care.
HEE will work with bodies that set curricula such as the General Medical Council and the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) to seek to ensure training meets the needs of patients.
HEE is currently developing an awareness video that will target primary care staff on recognising sepsis in children. A separate piece of work involving the RCGP is focusing on an e-learning package on sepsis in primary care, to ensure that the primary care workforce is ably equipped to deal with sepsis in the general population, including children.
HEE is currently undertaking a scoping exercise on training available for health professionals to recognise and manage sepsis in all patient groups. This survey scoped HEE local offices, NHS organisations, Academic Health Science Network, Ambulance Trusts and Royal Colleges on the resources currently available, which are being reviewed, and recommendations will be made in March 2016.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Madders on 2016-02-22.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of the provisions of the Welfare Reform and Work Bill on social mobility.
Priti Patel
The Government has carefully considered the impact of the tax and benefit reforms introduced in the Summer Budget, including those in the Bill, and are committed to improving social mobility.
The Bill itself proposes a reform to the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission to ensure its focus on this important issue. The new provisions on life chances recognise the crucial role of education in this respect, and the objectives of our welfare reforms are to promote employment, ensure people have the skills and the opportunities they need, make sure that work always pays, and allow people to keep more of what they earn.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Madders on 2016-03-08.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the outcome was of his Department’s application of the Family Test to the decision to impose a new contract on junior doctors.
Ben Gummer
On the 11 February 2016 my Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State made an oral statement, Official Report, columns 1763-1765 in which he announced that he would proceed with the introduction of a new national contract for doctors in training, following advice that there was no realistic prospect of reaching agreement with the British Medical Association.
The Secretary of State will carefully consider the draft final terms of such a contract in light of any applicable duties and the Family Test.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Madders on 2016-04-11.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether appointments to the posts of NHS Sustainability and Transformation Plan Footprint Leaders were subject to open selection.
George Freeman
Sustainability and Transformation Plan areas have been determined by local health and care services coming together in ways that make sense for their local areas, in order to transform the way that health and care is planned and delivered for their populations.
Following local discussions about who is best placed to play the role of footprint leaders, together with discussions with national bodies, 41 of the 44 planning areas have identified and agreed leaders.
They are mostly a mix of trust chief executive officers, clinical commissioning group leaders and local government executives.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Madders on 2016-04-19.
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how much his Department provided in start-up costs for the Greater Manchester City Region Mayor.
Mr Mark Francois
We are not providing funding for start-up costs for the Greater Manchester Combined Authority mayor, with any such costs being met by the Combined Authority from the resources available to it.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Madders on 2016-05-19.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the (a) year-to-date and (b) forecast out-turn spend is in each NHS (i) trust and (ii) foundation trust on total agency nursing costs, excluding outsourced bank, in 2015-16.
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 2016-06-06.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 6 June 2016 to Question 38480, whether his Department is taking steps in response to use of the NHS logo by the Vote Leave Campaign.
George Freeman
Vote Leave is not authorised to use the National Health Service trademark, or an adaptation of it.
The Department has sought legal advice and has been in contact with the Vote Leave campaign about misuse of the NHS brand.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Madders on 2016-06-10.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many winter fuel payments were delayed by administrative problems in the last year for which figures are available.
Justin Tomlinson
The information is not available.
Where a customer holds an active relationship with DWP either through claiming a Winter Fuel Payment previously or being in receipt of a benefit, such as a state pension, their Winter Fuel Payment is made automatically.
Claims are required from those where DWP does not hold the data necessary to generate an automatic payment.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Madders on 2016-09-05.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many hospitals are forecast to (a) open and (b) close in each of the next five years for which figures are available.
Mr Philip Dunne
The reconfiguration of services, including the opening and closing of hospitals, is clinically led and a matter for the local National Health Service.