Tag: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath

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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what surplus they forecast for the NHS Pension Scheme in 2015–16 and 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 whether they will take steps to investigate potential conflicts of interest when Clinical Commissioning Groups enter into contracts with companies in which one or more of their board members has a financial interest.

Lord Prior of Brampton

NHS England is responsible for ensuring that clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) are effective and well led, including ensuring that conflicts of interest are properly managed in such a way as to ensure they do not undermine the integrity of commissioning decisions.

To do this, NHS England has developed an assurance framework for CCGs. CCGs are now required to complete a quarterly self-certification, which askswhether:

– Any potential conflicts of interest have arisen during the last quarter;

– The public register has been updated; and

– There is a record in each case of how the conflict of interest has or is planned to be managed.

This certification then forms the basis of an assurance conversation between the CCG and NHS England.

Work is currently underway to develop the 2016/17 CCG assessment framework and this will maintain the focus on conflicts of interest.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 2015-11-24.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they propose to take to ensure that a proper distinction is made between the role of the contractor appointed by the local authority to enable local healthwatches to be established and run, and that of the local healthwatch organisation itself.

Lord Prior of Brampton

The Department currently has no plans to undertake an investigation in to the performance of local Healthwatch organisations. In March 2015 the Department published a report commissioned from the King’s Fund – Local Healthwatch: Progress and promise – which set out the progress that local Healthwatch have made since being established in 2013. Transparency about the performance of local Healthwatch organisations is provided through the annual reports which they are required to publish. Reports on how the local Healthwatch network as a whole is operating and the nature of the support needed to deliver their activities effectively are discussed at quarterly public meetings of the Healthwatch England Committee.

Arrangements for ensuring local Healthwatch statutory activities are delivered in each area are a matter for local authorities. The Local Government Association has published guidance to support local Healthwatch and local commissioners in putting in place good governance arrangements, which includes clarity about the roles of all parties involved.

Neither the Department nor Healthwatch England are aware of local Healthwatch contractors refusing to engage with the public in their area. Where Healthwatch England is made aware of concerns in relation to local Healthwatch around governance or local relationships with specific individuals or organisations, it seeks to provide support to resolve these where appropriate. Members of the public are able to raise concerns though the complaints process of the local Healthwatch or the commissioning local authority.

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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government why the training scheme to create a career ladder for care workers by developing the role of care practitioners has been cancelled.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe

The Government is spending significant sums this year (circa £130 million) to train and develop the adult social care workforce; this includes £12m for the Workforce Development Fund for training to develop the workforce.

Whilst pre-contract discussions had taken place, no formal financial commitment was made to this specific project by UK Commission for Employment and Skills and the project has been informed that funding is not available.

In order to prioritise funding on the adult skills participation budgets, savings are being made from supporting budgets such as the UKCES.

The Government is working closely with its delivery partners, Skills for Care and National Skills Academy Social Care to improve the level of skills of the adult social care workforce.

The adult social care workforce has a key role to play as service users experience of care depends heavily on the sensitivity and compassion of care workers. Better skills and training are an important part of raising standards overall.

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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the alternative processes for the NHS tariff price setting of dermatology specials, including the addition of NHS manufacturers’ costings in the tariff setting process.

Lord Prior of Brampton

The Drug Tariff sets out what National Health Service dispensing contractors will be paid for the products supplied as part of providing pharmaceutical services and the fees for providing those services in primary care.

The current arrangements in the Drug Tariff for paying for specials, including dermatological specials, were introduced in 2011. It is recognised that there can be variations in the price of some specials, which is why we are considering further possible improvements in the arrangements that govern the price the NHS pays. These include expanding the number of products covered by these arrangements and improving the data used to set the prices.

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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the review of the NHS Commissioning Board’s policy on the autonomy of Commissioning Support Units will impact those units’ options for becoming staff enterprises or staff mutuals.

Lord Prior of Brampton

NHS England’s Commissioning Committee will shortly be asked to review its current policy on Commissioning Support Unit (CSU) autonomy.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 2016-01-26.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of whether the School Direct programme is ensuring a sufficient supply of teachers for schools in England.

Lord Nash

Teaching continues to represent an attractive choice for top graduates and career changers – last year we recruited over 1,000 more secondary teachers than the previous year, and we exceeded our target for new primary teachers.

Our best schools have a crucial role to play in training the next generation of outstanding teachers. That is why we introduced the School Direct training programme, which gives schools the opportunity to recruit and select their own trainee teachers, and to play a central part in both the design and delivery of teacher training. School Direct is only one of a range of routes through which new teachers can choose to train.

We initially piloted the School Direct programme with a cohort of 351 trainees in the academic year 2012/13; thanks to its popularity with schools the scheme rapidly expanded to deliver 6,676 training places the following year. This has continued to rise each year, and provisional data show that 10,252 trainees have commenced School Direct programmes in the current academic year. This represents 39 per cent of all postgraduate teacher training places in the current year, and makes a significant contribution to the 51 per cent of all postgraduate training places that are now school-led.

We recognise that recruitment to teacher training is becoming increasingly challenging as the economy improves and the graduate labour market strengthens. That is why we are giving schools greater direct involvement in selecting and training the high-quality teachers they need.

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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what procurement process was followed to commission Bain and Company to support the vanguard programme in NHS England in deciding how to invest transformation funds; what is the value of that consultancy contract; and how value for money in that contract was established.

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 what steps they have taken to enforce better compliance with the School Admissions Code among religiously selective schools in the light of the findings of the report An Unholy Mess, published by the Fair Admissions Campaign and the British Humanist Association last year.

Lord Nash

The Government is giving careful consideration to the report of the Office of the Schools Adjudicator as part of our current review of the School Admissions Code, in addition to other research and publications.

We will be conducting a full public consultation in due course and will give careful consideration to all the views expressed in that consultation.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 2016-03-01.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they plan to consider restructuring the NHS Drug Tariff Part IX on wound dressings based on their clinical performance and intended use.

Lord Prior of Brampton

The scope of the Department’s clinical specifications project is to assess wound care products available via the NHS Supply Chain to secondary care organisations. There are no plans at this time to extend this scope to include wound care products listed in Part IX of the Drug Tariff, which can be prescribed in primary care at National Health Service expense.