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 what assessment they have made of the impact on the quality and experience of inspectors of the decision by the Care Quality Commission to outsource services to Remploy.

Lord Prior of Brampton

Experts by Experience provide an important role in the Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) inspections programme, working alongside the CQC’s professional inspectors. Experts by Experience provide valuable insights and judgements, talking to people who use the service and observing the environment and the quality of care hospitals and care homes provide.

In December 2015, the CQC announced the successful winners of the new contracts to provide Experts by Experience, Choice Support and Remploy Ltd. The Experts by Experience service has been an outsourced service since its inception. The CQC’s professional inspectors are not outsourced and are unaffected by these contracts.

The delivery of these services from 1 February 2016 by Remploy is as a result of a compliant procurement of these services. The procurement process included a rigorous evaluation of each of the tendering organisations response to delivering the service requirements against quality standards for service delivery.

The CQC’s decision to award these new contracts focussed on expanding the numbers of Experts by Experience involved in the CQC’s inspections, ensuring that the high quality contribution Experts by Experience have provided to date is maintained and delivering value for money.

The CQC is the independent regulator for health and adult social care in England. It is responsible for its own staffing requirements, including any decisions on contracts around the supplying of Experts by Experience for its inspections of providers. In line with Cabinet Office approvals processes, the Department:

– gave approval for the CQC to invite tenders for the Experts by Experience programme; and

– reviewed and approved the CQC’s business case, to enable the CQC to proceed with finalising new contracts for Experts by Experience.

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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what discussion they have had with universities in order to encourage them to raise awareness of the NHS Low Income Scheme.

Lord Prior of Brampton

There have been no discussions with universities or student representative bodies to encourage them to raise awareness of the NHS Low Income Scheme. However, information is made available to the public, including students, about the Help with Health Costs arrangements, which includes the NHS Low Income Scheme. This information is provided in various ways, including through the NHS Choices website and long-standing arrangements to make leaflets available to all the NHS service access points, for example general practitioner surgeries and NHS dental practices. The NHS Business Services Authority, which manages the Help with Health Costs system, also uses social media to raise awareness of the Help with Health Costs arrangements, such as through the Student Bursaries Facebook and Twitter accounts.

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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government why figures for the Barking, Havering and Redbridge NHS University Hospitals Trust were not included in the official figures of the number of patients waiting for treatment for more than a year.

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 2016-04-14.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what changes they propose to make in the new contract for doctors in training in the light of the equality analysis undertaken under section 149 of the Equality Act 2010.

Lord Prior of Brampton

The contract published on 31 March is a huge step forward for achieving fairness for all trainee doctors. For the first time junior doctors will be paid and rewarded solely on the basis of their own hard work and achievement and pay progression will be linked to level of training rather than arbitrarily to time served.

All junior doctors should have the same terms and conditions – a level playing field – which is ultimately what employers and the British Medical Association (BMA) want and everyone deserves.

When the Secretary of State published the Equality Analysis on the new contract for doctors and dentists in training in the NHS (“Doctors”) on the 31 March 2016 on the GOV.UK website he made it clear that, as a result of considering the Equality Analysis, in accordance with his duties and obligations, he had asked for a number of changes to the draft contract to address specific issues for certain groups with protected characteristics. This has been done and the contract has been duly amended. These changes included changes that benefited staff who work part time. The new contract is not discriminatory it ensures that all junior doctors receive equal pay for work of equal value. The BMA’s own lawyers have advised that nothing in the new contract is discriminatory. Nevertheless the equality duty is an ongoing duty and it is intended that monitoring will continue after the introduction of the new contract in accordance with the public sector equality duty in the Equality Act 2010.

A copy of the Equality Analysis is attached.

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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government on what basis the equality analysis undertaken under section 149 of the Equality Act 2010, which showed that certain features of the new contract for doctors in training will disproportionately impact on women, would not amount to indirect discrimination as those impacts can be comfortably justified.

Lord Prior of Brampton

The Equality Assessment refers to a number of important objectives the new contract pursues and explains how it delivers fairness for all junior doctors. The Government considers that the new contract is entirely consistent with the Equality Act 2010.

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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what formal public consultation will need to take place when Sustainability and Transformation Plans are given approval by NHS England.

Lord Prior of Brampton

Where Sustainability and Transformation plans envisage changes to the way that NHS services are commissioned or delivered, it will be the responsibility of the relevant clinical commissioning groups to involve patients and the public in considering and making decisions on those proposals, in line with their duties under the National Health Service Act 2006.

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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the rate of uptake by the NHS of faecal microbiota transplants in the treatment of recurrent Clostridium difficile infections.

Lord Prior of Brampton

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has produced guidance on faecal microbiota transplant for recurrent Clostridium difficile infection. NICE has recommended that the procedure is safe enough for use in the National Health Service, but no assessment of its cost effectiveness has been made by NICE.

Data on the uptake by the NHS of faecal microbiota transplants in the treatment of recurrent Clostridium difficile is not collected centrally.

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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what financial support has been offered to the Wheelchair Leadership Alliance in addition to the support given over the Right Chair, Right Time, Right Now campaign and charter.

Lord Prior of Brampton

The Minister for Community and Social Care (Alistair Burt), together with the Minister for Disabled People (Justin Tomlinson) recently met with Baroness Grey-Thompson, Chair of the Wheelchair Leadership Alliance, and NHS England to discuss what action could be taken to improve wheelchair services. This includes NHS England discussing the focus and content of a model service specification for wheelchairs with the Alliance.

NHS England made available a further £10,000 to the Wheelchair Leadership Alliance for support during 2015/16.

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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of whether the Basildon and Brentwood Clinical Commissioning Group has diverted finance intended for mental health services to reduce financial shortfalls in the acute sector.

Lord Prior of Brampton

No such assessment has been made. NHS England allocates funding to clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) to commission health services, including mental health services, to meet the needs of local communities. CCGs are responsible for decisions about how their allocation is used, taking account of local priorities, and are committed to increasing spending on mental health each year in line with the increases in overall National Health Service funding allocations. NHS England advises that, in line with Basildon and Brentwood CCG’s move towards parity of esteem, the CCG has increased investment into mental health services in 2016/17.

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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what discussions they have held with other EU member states about whether the Recognition of Professional Qualifications Directive provides sufficient safeguards to allow regulators to assure themselves that migrant healthcare professionals have kept their skills and competence up-to-date.

Lord Prior of Brampton

The revised Directive was negotiated between Member States including the United Kingdom over a number of years before its publication in the Official Journal in 2013. A copy of the Directive is attached.

The main aim of the Directive is to increase freedom of movement of professions across the European Union by providing a framework for the regulatory bodies to consider a professional’s qualification. If a professional’s qualifications are of the standard recognised across Europe they are deemed to be of sufficient quality. Ifhowever a professional’s qualification does not meet the minimum standards set out across Europe the regulator can require them to undertake further training to improve their skills and competence before being permitted to practise in the UK.

Individual employers also have a responsibility to ensure that the people they employ or contract with have the required knowledge and skills and qualifications for the posts for which they are applying.

Once a professional has been registered with the regulatory body they must adhere to the same requirements as UK registrants including continuing professional development and revalidation (for doctors and nurses) to ensure that they remain fit to practice.