Tag: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 2016-10-13.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to ensure that Clinical Commissioning Groups do not arbitrarily restrict treatments for obese people and smokers.

Lord Prior of Brampton

Arbitrary restrictions on treatment by clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) are unacceptable. Treatment decisions should always be made by doctors based on a patient’s individual clinical needs. For instance, major surgery poses much higher risks for severely overweight patients and those who smoke. So, where it is clinically appropriate, local general practitioner-led CCGs are right to ensure these patients first get support to lose weight and try to stop smoking before their operation.

NHS England must ensure that CCGs are not breaching their statutory responsibility to provide services that meet the reasonable needs of the local population, including obese people and smokers. In doing so, CCGs need to ensure that the services they provide are fit for purpose, reflect the needs of the local population and are based on the available evidence and take into account national guidelines.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 2015-11-04.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what additional contribution in cash terms they expect the NHS to make to the NHS Pension Scheme in 2016–17.

Lord Prior of Brampton

The NHS Pension Scheme is a ‘pay as you go’ pension scheme without financial assets. The last valuation in 2012 identified a deficit of £10.3 billion in the notional fund which is met by contributions from employers.

No additional contribution is expected from the National Health Service in 2016-17. NHS employers will continue to pay the standard employer contribution rate of 14.3%.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 2015-11-17.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the finding by The Times and the British Medical Journal that the board of a Clinical Commissioning Group in Birmingham awarded a £1.7 million contract to a company in which a number of its board members were shareholders or held a senior position.

Lord Prior of Brampton

We are aware of the reports in The Times and The British Medical Journal.

Birmingham South Central CCG has provided assurances that it has robust and transparent governance arrangements in place that are in line with NHS England guidelines.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 2015-11-23.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the running costs of existing and future fluoridation schemes will continue to be funded when the ring-fenced public health grant is removed; and if so, how.

Lord Prior of Brampton

Since April 2013 Public Health England (PHE), on behalf of the Secretary of State, has recovered the operational costs of water fluoridation from local authorities served by these arrangements. The Secretary of State is required to meet the reasonable fluoridation capital and operating costs incurred by water undertakers in England and has the power to require local authorities to make payments to the Secretary of State to meet any such costs he has incurred. There are no proposed changes to the legislation affecting these arrangements.

Funding arrangements for the capital costs of new fluoridation schemes in England will need to be agreed between local authorities and PHE, on behalf of the Secretary of State, as part of the preparatory work before the scheme can commence.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 2015-12-15.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the current membership of the care.data Advisory Group.

Lord Prior of Brampton

The care.data Advisory Group met between March 2014 and October 2015 and has now been disbanded. The group was Chaired by Ciarán Devane, who at the time was a non-executive director of NHS England, and included representatives from the following organisations:

– Academy of Medical Royal Colleges;

– Association of Medical Research Charities;

– Big Brother Watch;

– British Heart Foundation;

– British Medical Association;

– HealthWatch England;

– Hurley Group;

– Kings College London;

– Kings Fund;

– medConfidential;

– MIND;

– National Institute for Health Research;

– National Voices;

– Patients4Data;

– Royal College of General Practitioners;

– Royal College of Psychiatrists;

– Clinical Commissioning Groups;

– UCL Partners; and

– Wellcome Trust.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 2015-12-21.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the risk of a conflict of interest when members of the Association of Pharmaceutical Specials Manufacturers both provide the reference prices from which to set the NHS tariff prices for specials in the primary care sector and supply those specials to community pharmacists.

Lord Prior of Brampton

Members of the Association of Pharmaceutical Specials Manufacturers do not provide the Department with reference price data for their products. Individual manufacturers provide data on their sales volumes and selling prices to the Department under a memorandum of understanding between manufacturers and the Department. This data is then used to set a reimbursement price which reflects the price at which community pharmacies purchased these products in the quarter before.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 2016-01-18.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether, as a result of the review of the NHS Commissioning Board’s policy on the autonomy of Commissioning Support Units (CSUs), CSUs that want to become staff enterprises or staff mutuals will have access to working capital on the same basis as other options open to CSUs.

Lord Prior of Brampton

It will be for NHS England’s Commissioning Committee to decide, in due course, whether to offer Clinical Support Units (CSUs) who apply to become autonomous, access to working capital and if so, on what terms.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 2016-01-25.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Prior of Brampton on 19 January (HL4840), why the independent review of the contract between Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Clinical Commissioning Group and UnitingCare Partnership will only focus on the commissioner perspective.

Lord Prior of Brampton

We are advised that NHS England’s review of the contract between Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Clinical Commissioning Group and UnitingCare Partnership will focus on the commissioner perspective. Monitor, as the sector regulator for health services in England, will also be conducting a review.

However, Monitor’s review will assess the contract from the perspective of the providers involved and consider how relevant issues might be mitigated in the future. Monitor and NHS England will share their respective findings with each other.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 2016-02-09.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the experience that Bain and Company has to assess evidence to support transformation and potential for replication in terms of health services in the NHS context.

Lord Prior of Brampton

The Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) commissioned Bain and Company to support vanguards as an extension to work previously commissioned from the company as part of a programme called Future Focused Finance, an initiative sponsored by the Department of Health and arm’s length bodies. This earlier work for the HFMA had focused on the design of a value-based decision effectiveness tool, piloted in Mid-Cheshire and Liverpool. The HFMA, in partnership with NHS England, commissioned the extension to this work so that the tool could be used to support value-based decision-making in the 2016-17 New Care Models programme.

Alternatives were not sought from competitors because the vanguard support built on the original Bain and Company work for the HFMA.

The value of the vanguard support contract is £650,000. Value for money was obtained by negotiation, having been benchmarked with other commissions made by the National Health Service to external health consultancies.

As part of the contract, Bain and Company will be handing over its approach to NHS England, so that NHS England can support other areas in implementing new care models.

Bain and Company has not been commissioned to assess evidence to support transformation and potential for replication of new care models in other areas. The company is commissioned to develop and implement a framework that appropriately experienced NHS staff can use to assess such evidence. Intellectual property rights in respect of the framework in the future are assigned to HFMA under the terms of the contract. The NHS is entitled to use the framework free of charge in perpetuity.

Bain and Company is involved in the development of the tool used to make the assessment, and in the implementation of the process to use that tool. The company is specifically commissioned to help vanguard sites to use the tool and to summarise the resulting value propositions to facilitate decision-making by NHS England.

No conflict of interest arises as decisions concerning funding allocations for individual vanguards are made by NHS England’s Executive Team and Investment Committee and not Bain and Company.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 2016-02-23.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, of all the schools that have had their admission arrangements objected to in (1) 2014, and (2) 2015, what percentage were found not to have violated the School Admissions Code at least once.

Lord Nash

In 2013/14, the percentage of objections referred to the adjudicator which were not upheld was 14%. In 2014/15, the percentage was 20%.