Tag: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 2016-02-22.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government by what authority the chief executive of NHS Improvement is able to instruct NHS Foundation Trusts to enforce the junior doctors’ contract consistently.

Lord Prior of Brampton

The Chief Executive did not instruct National Health Service foundation trusts to enforce the new national junior contract. On 15 February he wrote to NHS foundation trust and NHS trust Chief Executive Officers and Chairs and said that: “We must all now work together, across all professional groups, to help the service implement the contract consistently and address the concerns raised by junior doctor colleagues”.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 2016-03-07.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of how many new school places will be required over the next ten years.

Lord Nash

Pupil forecasts based on Office for National Statistics population projections have been published to 2024 and they suggest that pupil numbers are due to rise significantly over that period. Local authorities are responsible for ensuring that there are sufficient school places to meet that need, and for determining precisely how many new places are needed in their area.

We allocate funding for new school places to local authorities three years in advance in order to balance the need for robust forecasts with the need to ensure certainty for local authorities over their future funding allocations. Supporting local authorities to create additional school places is one of the Government’s top priorities. This is signalled by this Government’s commitment to investing £23 billion by 2021 to create 600,000 new school places, open 500 new free schools and address essential maintenance needs.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 2016-03-21.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the report by the Health Service Journal that the number of patients waiting for treatment for more than a year is over 50 per cent higher than official NHS Executive data.

Lord Prior of Brampton

Consultant-led referral to treatment waiting time statistics are designated as National Statistics. This means that the statistics are produced according to sound methods, and are managed impartially and objectively in the public interest.

From time to time, for example when there are serious problems with patient administration systems, National Health Service trusts do need to temporarily suspend submissions of data for inclusion in the publication of National Statistics for reasons of data quality and completeness. Nine acute trusts did not submit data on referral to treatment waiting times for January 2016. For this reason, the published data on the number of patients waiting more than a year to start consultant-led treatment for non-urgent conditions may be understated. NHS Improvement is working intensively with these trusts so that they can begin submitting data again as quickly as possible.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 2016-04-13.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether, in the review of the Staffordshire Transforming End of Life Care procurement, the patient consent and information governance aspects will be considered, including the transfer of information about patients on the End of Life Care Registers to private companies, even if the patients themselves do not know they are on such a register.

Lord Prior of Brampton

This is a matter for NHS England, which is reviewing the cancer and end of life service procurement in Staffordshire in the light of its review of the termination of the contract between Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and UnitingCare Partnership (UCP).

NHS England advises that issues around information governance and patient consent were not included within the scope of the original review into the termination of the UCP contract with Cambridgeshire and Peterborough CCG and currently are not included within the scope of any follow-up investigations.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 2016-04-18.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the comments by the President of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists that hundreds of patients are going blind because hospitals cannot meet the demand for appointments.

Lord Prior of Brampton

Given the size of England, and the diversity of the health needs of different communities, we believe commissioning needs to be owned and managed locally.

Therefore, there are no plans to develop a national strategy for eye care.

Clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) are responsible for commissioning hospital eye services and for holding their providers to account in terms of contract performance. CCGs are also able to commission eye care services from community optometrists where they judge them to be needed in their areas over and above the sight tests commissioned by NHS England. Such services could include post cataract surgery reviews, glaucoma monitoring and low vision services which may reduce pressure on hospital eye departments, reduce waiting times and make patient care pathways more accessible in the community.

There is scope for further work to be done by community optometrists and the Clinical Council for eye health commissioning is working with commissioners to develop commissioning guidelines in this area.

CCGs have the ability to develop alternatives to hospital care. We would expect patients who require further planned stages of treatment in line with their agreed care plan, to receive this treatment without undue delay and in line with when it is clinically appropriate.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 2016-05-04.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what form of delegation from Clinical Commissioning Groups is being made to ensure appropriate governance in relation to Sustainability and Transformation Plans.

Lord Prior of Brampton

Clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) remain accountable for securing high-quality healthcare services for their local populations. In some areas, CCGs have established or are planning to establish collaborative commissioning arrangements across a number of CCGs and/or with local authorities, where they consider that this will help them improve quality and outcomes for their local population.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 2016-05-18.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to ensure that NICE guidance is followed in the use of faecal microbiota transplants in the treatment of recurrent Clostridium difficile.

Lord Prior of Brampton

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has produced guidance on faecal microbiota transplant for recurrent Clostridium difficile infection under the interventional procedure programme. This programme makes recommendations about the safety of the procedures and how well they work. However the guidance does not constitute a direction to National Health Service trusts to provide the interventions. Decisions about whether to provide a treatment are taken locally.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 2016-06-06.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to make Personal Health Budgets available for the provision of wheelchairs; what arrangements they plan to put in place for wheelchair users; and whether the funding stream will be managed centrally and independently from local wheelchair service budgets.

Lord Prior of Brampton

In May 2016, Simon Stevens announced that NHS England would be developing a personal health budgets model for the provision of wheelchairs. This work is in the early stages of development.

The intention is to introduce personal wheelchair budgets from April 2017, to cover everyone who accesses the current wheelchair voucher scheme. This includes those with both low level and complex wheelchair requirements.

Personal health budgets are not about new money but about using existing budgets differently. Therefore the budget will continue to be held at a local level.

NHS England is working with a number of clinical commissioning group clusters to develop guidance on the delivery model. This work will cover care planning, information support and advice for wheelchair users, budget setting (using learning from the development of the Wheelchair Tariff where appropriate) and review. The guidance will be available in advance of the start of roll out in April 2017.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 2016-09-05.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many patients were treated for hepatitis C and what were the actual or estimated costs of such treatment in each of the years 2014–15, 2015–16, and 2016–17.

Lord Prior of Brampton

Comprehensive data on all hepatitis C treatment in the United Kingdom is presented in the Public Health England annual report on Hepatitis C in the UK. The latest version published in July 2016 is called Hepatitis C in the UK 2016 report: Working towards its elimination as a major public health threat, and reported that treatment rates increased by around 40% in the calendar year 2015, up to 8,970 from an average of 6,400 in previous years. A copy of the report is attached. The report also presented preliminary figures to show that deaths in the UK from hepatitis C-related end stage liver disease and liver cancer fell for the first time in 2015, suggesting that access to new oral treatment via the early access schemes for patients with decompensated cirrhosis and cirrhosis may be having a positive impact.

In April 2014, NHS England announced an interim commissioning policy to make these new highly effective oral treatments available to patients with liver failure. In June 2014, NHS England implemented a second Interim Commissioning Policy, extending access to patients with cirrhosis.

Hepatitis C drugs are subject to commercially confidential discounts and rebate agreements. Releasing estimated or actual spend data includes the impact of these confidential prices which if released would inhibit the ability of companies to do business with the Department in the future. The Department has a duty to ensure that they adhere to the terms of confidentiality agreements when considering the release of information under the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme or other Commercial Medicines Unit drug framework agreements.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 2016-10-21.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they plan to ask the competition authorities and the Care Quality Commission to review the Age UK report on self-funders in care homes published on 20 October.

Lord Prior of Brampton

Care and support is arranged on an open market where prices and fee rates are negotiated locally by commissioners for state funded clients, whilst individuals and their families do so for those who self-fund. The Government has no say in these individual negotiations.

Under the Care Act, councils are under a duty to promote their overall local provider market to ensure it remains sustainable and delivers high-quality services for all local people. Prices and fee rates paid by commissioners to provider organisations must reflect these new duties.

The Department published the Care and Support statutory guidance setting out how councils should meet these new duties when commissioning, including the consideration of the actual costs of care and support when negotiating fee levels. This guidance is an online-only resource, subject to updates.

The Department is aware of the Age UK report Behind the headlines: ‘stuck in the middle’ – self-funders in care homes. There are many reasons why individuals who self-fund may pay more than local authorities, including premium accommodation and services, and discounts that may be available to authorities for bulk purchasing and lower transaction costs.

The Government has no plans to ask the competition authorities or the Care Quality Commission to review the Age UK report, though we maintain a continuing dialogue across government and with the sector to encourage good practice and fairness to consumers.