Tag: Lord Harrison

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Harrison on 2016-02-26.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what work they are doing to promote the UK’s insolvency regime to the European Commission as it develops its plans for an insolvency directive.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe

My officials have regular discussions with Commission officials on this matter. Insolvency experts have also had such discussions to ensure they are aware of the features and strengths of our insolvency regime. The Commission has announced its intention to publish a legislative initiative on corporate insolvency in late 2016. This is to be preceded by a consultation to be published this spring. The Government will be responding to the consultation.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Harrison on 2016-03-22.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that those in the reserves of the armed forces have opportunities to use and develop linguistic skills.

Earl Howe

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) recognises the valuable skill sets of our reservists, all of whom have full access to the MOD’s language schemes. We work to ensure that those reservists who already have a second language are able to use and develop that language. Any reservists employed in roles with direct requirements for language capability receive the same training as regular personnel.

The MOD maintains a pool of linguists through the Education and Training Services (Reserves), which provides additional language capability to exercises, operations and Defence Engagement tasks. A new training programme, which makes use of courses and bespoke training provided by the Defence Centre for Languages and Culture, has recently been introduced to develop the skills of linguists in the reserves.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Harrison on 2016-02-26.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the World Bank’s methodology for producing its Resolving Insolvency rankings.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe

It is not simple to compare different insolvency regimes. The World Bank methodology for ‘Resolving Insolvency’ uses principally an assessment of speed and amount of returns to creditors but also has introduced more subjective tests of the strength of the framework. In the World Bank’s 2016 Doing Business Report, the UK continues to be 7th in the world for returns to creditors, and is quicker and costs less than the US, Germany and France, but does somewhat less well on the subjective factors, which may understate the strengths of our regime. We keep the UK’s insolvency regime under review to ensure it remains at the forefront of best practice and that possible new features are properly considered.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Harrison on 2015-11-17.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to increase the number of people living with diabetes who receive structured education courses to help them self-manage their diabetes, in the light of recommendations by NICE.

Lord Prior of Brampton

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence Quality Standard for diabetes, attached, sets out that people with diabetes should receive a structured educational programme. NHS England is statutorily required to have regard to this.

There are a number of national and locally developed patient education programmes available including Dose Adjustment For Normal Eating (DAFNE) for Type 1 diabetes, and Diabetes Education and Self-management for Ongoing and Newly Diagnosed (DESMOND) for Type 2 diabetes.

While there is still much room for improvement, the proportion of people with diabetes being offered structured education is improving. 16% of people newly diagnosed with diabetes were offered structured education in 2012/13 compared to 8.4% of those diagnosed in 2009. In the same period the number of people newly diagnosed with diabetes offered or attending structured education rose from 11% to 18.4%.

No estimate has been made of the cost over a five-year period of providing group based education courses for all people living with diabetes.

The Department is developing plans to improve outcomes for those with diabetes. This will be announced in due course.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Harrison on 2016-02-26.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the main criteria for judging whether an insolvency regime is successful.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe

It is not simple to compare different insolvency regimes. The World Bank methodology for ‘Resolving Insolvency’ uses principally an assessment of speed and amount of returns to creditors but also has introduced more subjective tests of the strength of the framework. In the World Bank’s 2016 Doing Business Report, the UK continues to be 7th in the world for returns to creditors, and is quicker and costs less than the US, Germany and France, but does somewhat less well on the subjective factors, which may understate the strengths of our regime. We keep the UK’s insolvency regime under review to ensure it remains at the forefront of best practice and that possible new features are properly considered.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Harrison on 2015-11-17.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what estimate they have made of the cost over a five-year period of providing group-based education courses for all people living with diabetes.

Lord Prior of Brampton

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence Quality Standard for diabetes, attached, sets out that people with diabetes should receive a structured educational programme. NHS England is statutorily required to have regard to this.

There are a number of national and locally developed patient education programmes available including Dose Adjustment For Normal Eating (DAFNE) for Type 1 diabetes, and Diabetes Education and Self-management for Ongoing and Newly Diagnosed (DESMOND) for Type 2 diabetes.

While there is still much room for improvement, the proportion of people with diabetes being offered structured education is improving. 16% of people newly diagnosed with diabetes were offered structured education in 2012/13 compared to 8.4% of those diagnosed in 2009. In the same period the number of people newly diagnosed with diabetes offered or attending structured education rose from 11% to 18.4%.

No estimate has been made of the cost over a five-year period of providing group based education courses for all people living with diabetes.

The Department is developing plans to improve outcomes for those with diabetes. This will be announced in due course.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Harrison on 2016-02-26.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of which of the provisions of the European Commission’s 2014 Recommendation on a new approach to business failure and insolvency would (1) benefit, and (2) harm, the UK’s insolvency regime if introduced.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe

The UK’s flexible and effective restructuring and insolvency regime is very much in keeping with the general themes of the EU Recommendation. Following the European Commission’s 2014 Recommendation, the Government conducted a call for evidence seeking the views of stakeholders and submitted a response to the Commission’s survey on how Member States comply with the Recommendation. The Government published the UK’s response in August 2015. This can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/european-commission-recommendation-on-business-failure-and-insolvency-call-for-evidence

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Harrison on 2015-11-26.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they are changing the availability of podiatric services to diabetics, and if so, based on what criteria.

Lord Prior of Brampton

Podiatry services are commissioned locally by clinical commissioning groups working with local partners and based on the need of the local population, resources available and evidence based practice. These commissioning decisions are informed by the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment and the local Health and Wellbeing Strategy. Clinical networks provide opportunity to adopt and disseminate best practice.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Harrison on 2016-03-01.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what work NHS England and Monitor are undertaking to develop new payment and incentives mechanisms that drive integrated care for diabetes across primary and secondary care settings; and what is the time frame for any new proposals to be published.

Lord Prior of Brampton

NHS England and Monitor are working closely together to ensure that the payment system supports service developments in the vanguard sites (including those where integrated diabetes care is a focus) as well as monitoring local innovative approaches to supporting integrated care taken by some clinical commissioning groups (CCGs). This is to ensure that the payment system keeps abreast with the development of future service models and is not a barrier to the development of new models of care.

During 2016/17, NHS England will look at the current incentives and funding arrangements for diabetes to see how greater alignment could be achieved between the financial incentives for primary and secondary care.

Information on how much money the National Health Service invested in structured education for diabetes patients is not collected centrally.

Under the Health and Social Care Act (2012), NHS England has a statutory duty to conduct an annual assessment of every CCG. Since April 2013, CCGs have been assessed twice, for the period 2013/14 and for 2014/15.

For 2016/17, NHS England will introduce a new CCG Improvement and Assessment Framework (CCG IAF). This new framework will align with NHS England’s mandate and planning process, with the aim of driving improvements in a number of key areas including the management and care of people with diabetes.

NHS England has been working with Diabetes UK on including diabetes indicators in the CCG IAF. The proposed diabetes indicators are:

– the percentage of diabetes patients that have achieved all three of the National Institute for Heath and Care Excellence recommended treatment targets; and

– newly diagnosed diabetes patients referred to, or attending, a structured education course.

Under the proposals, diabetes will also be one of the six clinical priority areas in the CCG IAF that will be overseen by an independent group.

The CCG IAF proposals are subject to the outcome of an engagement process which closed for comments on February 26 2016. More information can be found at:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/commissioning/ccg-improvmnt/

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Harrison on 2015-11-30.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whose responsibility it is to ensure the safety of lifts at Euston railway station; and what information they have about when those lifts were last inspected; and whether they will publish a report about lift safety at that station.

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

Network Rail is the relevant safety duty holder with responsibility for ensuring that risks are controlled so far as reasonably practicable on its infrastructure and the stations it manages.

The Department does not hold information about when the lifts at Euston railway station were last inspected and operational issues such as these are a matter for Network Rail with oversight from the Office of Rail and Road in its role as the independent railway safety regulator.