Tag: Lord Mawhinney

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Mawhinney on 2016-10-13.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether it is (1) their policy, or (2) the policy of NHS England, that primary care centres should be amalgamated into larger units.

Lord Prior of Brampton

As part of the New Care Models Programme, NHS England is supporting local health and care commissioners and providers to come together to improve the health and care they provide. This includes the development of population-based care models known as integrated Primary and Acute Care Systems and Multispecialty Community Providers (MCPs). Where and how to develop new care models are decisions taken by local partnerships, in response to local conditions. The Programme is not directing or requiring the amalgamation of primary care centres.

There are 14 MCP vanguards, with a single organisation accountable for joined-up General Practitioner (GP) and community services and some specialist care, mental health services, and social care for a defined population. The building blocks of a MCP are the ‘care hubs’ of integrated teams. Each typically serves a community of around 30,000-50,000 people. These hubs are the practical, operational level of any model of accountable care provision. The wider the scope of services included in the MCP, the more hubs you may need to connect together to create sufficient scale. All 14 MCP vanguards now serve a minimum population of around 100,000.

The majority of GP practices are already working in practice groups or federations. This provides opportunities to expand services, stabilise practice income and work at scale, which has benefits for patients, practices and the wider system. These include economies of scale, quality improvement, workforce development, enhanced care and new services, resilience and system partnerships.

A new voluntary MCP contract will be introduced from April 2017, to integrate general practice services with community services and wider healthcare services. Measures from the GP Access Fund and vanguard sites that are currently piloting this approach, will be learned from to support mainstreaming of proven service improvements across all practices, and funding will be provided for local collaborations to support practices to implement new ways of working.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Mawhinney on 2016-03-17.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how information is (1) collected, and (2) managed, to protect the dignity of patients who receive pharmacy services in retail outlets, under the Standards for registered pharmacies, Principle 1.

Lord Prior of Brampton

Pharmacy owners and superintendent pharmacists of bodies corporate are responsible for meeting the General Pharmaceutical Council’s standards for registered pharmacies and must decide how best to do so, including managing information to protect the privacy, dignity and confidentiality of patients and the public, within their pharmacies.

There are a number of different ways in which pharmacy professionals and the wider pharmacy team may receive patient information. Information is included on prescriptions, or may be shared by patients when seeking care from a pharmacy. In addition, information may be stored in patient medication records or other records.

Through its inspections, the General Pharmaceutical Council seeks assurance from the pharmacy team about how they maintain the confidentiality, privacy and dignity of patients and the public. These assurances can be provided through a number of different means, for example restricted password access to patient information, appropriate training of staff or making sure patients can have conversations with members of the pharmacy team in private.

All National Health service providers, including community pharmacies, also need to provide information governance assurances to the NHS on an annual basis.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Mawhinney on 2016-10-13.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what financial resources they transferred to local authorities in 2015–16 which were designated to be spent on personal social services care; and what is their estimate of how much was spent on the provision of such services.

Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth

Central government does not determine the level of resources spent by local authorities on adult social care. Each local authority will budget for what it expects to require in order to deliver the services required for their population, drawing on funding from local taxes, unhypothecated central government grant and income from fees and charges.

However recognising the pressures on local authorities, the Spending Review 2015 announced that for the rest of the current Parliament, local authorities responsible for adult social care (“ASC authorities”) would be allowed an additional 2 percent on their current council tax referendum threshold to be used entirely for adult social care. 144 of 152 eligible authorities made use of this precept in 2015-16, raising £382 million for social care.

My department publishes data (attached) from local authorities on their spending on all services. Provisional data for 2015-16 suggests that local authorities spent a net figure of £14.4 billion on adult social care in 2015-16.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/548114/RO_Provisional_Outturn_2015-16_Statistical_Release.pdf

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