Tag: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath

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.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 2015-11-09.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they will consult with local authorities and Academy sponsors on what role local authorities should play as strategic commissioners when all schools in an area have become Academies.

Lord Nash

At present there are no local authorities where all schools have become academies and therefore the issue has not arisen.

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 whether NHS England’s audit of conflict of interest is sufficiently comprehensive to govern circumstances in which 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 has commissioned an independent audit of conflicts of interest management in 10 primary care co-commissioning arrangements. The audit fieldwork commenced in September 2015, with the final report due to be shared in January 2016. It is therefore too early to make an assessment of their findings.

The audit has been asked to examine and evaluate:

– arrangements to manage conflicts of interest;

– audit compliance with the statutory guidance on managing conflicts of interest and identify any areas of the guidance which need to be strengthened;

– identify and share good practices in managing conflicts of interest;

– identify future improvement opportunities; and

– share learning with commissioners in support of their development.

Each audit includes 360 degree interviews with representatives from:

– the clinical commissioning group (including the Chair of the primary care commissioning committee, Audit Chair, Accountable Officer, Finance Director, Clinical Chair/GP member of the primary care commissioning committee);

– NHS England (including the Director of Commissioning Operations, Head of Primary care and a Primary care commissioning manager for the locality);

– local Healthwatch;

– local Medical Committees (LMCs);

– Local Authorities; and

– Local Pharmaceutical Committees (LPCs).

The audit also comprises a detailed review of key governance documentation including:

– registers of interest, declarations of interest and registers of procurement decisions;

– co-commissioning governance arrangements;

– commissioning contracts that were entered into since 1 April 2015;

– guidance for CCG employees on managing COIs;

– guidance on dealing with breaches and details of any breaches; and

– minutes of primary care commissioning committee meetings since 1 April 2015 etc.

Each audit site will receive an individual report, detailing the findings for their specific arrangement. In addition, NHS England will receive a consolidated report, highlighting key themes, examples of good practice and recommendations to assist in the management of conflicts of interest.

Key learning from the audit will be shared with commissioners in January 2016 in support of their development and the findings will help inform the refresh of the statutory guidance on managing conflicts of interest.

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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the performance of the West London Mental Health NHS Trust in combatting bullying in that organisation.

Lord Prior of Brampton

We are advised by the NHS Trust Development Agency (NHS TDA) that the West London Mental Health NHS Trust is aware of long standing concerns relating to staff engagement and bullying within the organisation. These concerns were highlighted in recent inspections of the Trust by the Care Quality Commission.

We are assured by the NHS TDA that the trust has put in place a comprehensive staff engagement programme aimed at improving working culture and staff morale. The Trust has also introduced a number of additional staff support mechanisms to enable staff to raise any concerns they may have around bullying and harassment.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 2015-12-14.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what percentage of (1) all multi-academy trusts, and (2) multi-academy trusts with at least five schools, achieve above average value added.

Earl of Courtown

Value added scores are routinely published for individual schools as part of the department’s performance tables, which include the functionality to filter results by an academy sponsor.

The department does not publish a summary of value added scores for each academy chain or multi-academy trust. Simple aggregations of performance measures can lead to misleading conclusions about performance within a chain since they will often reflect the type of schools that have entered into the chain relationship.

Earlier this year, the department published a statistical working paper to consider how these issues may be addressed and invited comments from users. This can be found in the attachment to this answer.