Tag: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath

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.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 2016-03-16.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether people continue to have the right to drugs and treatments that have been recommended by NICE technology appraisals for use in the NHS if their doctor says they are clinically appropriate.

Lord Prior of Brampton

Yes. The NHS Constitution for England affirms, “You have the right to drugs and treatments that have been recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence for use in the NHS, if your doctor says they are clinically appropriate for you”.

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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many employees of (1) NHS England, and (2) Arden GEM Commissioning Support Unit, were seconded to the Special Projects Team in (a) 2014, and (b) 2015, and how many are currently seconded from each.

Lord Prior of Brampton

The Special Projects Team (SPT) is a service hosted by Arden and GEM Commissioning Support Unit (CSU). In 2014 and 2015 the team had two full-time employees, one employed by NHS England, and then seconded to the CSU to work directly on SPT issues, and one person employed by the CSU (through the NHS Business Services Authority) working directly on SPT matters. This position continues at present.

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 how many patients have lost their vision as a result of not receiving timely follow-up appointments to see an ophthalmic specialist.

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.