Tag: Lord Ouseley

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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether additional resources allocated for mental health services are ring-fenced in order to prevent any of those resources being used for alternative services in order to offset any NHS spending constraints.

Lord Prior of Brampton

NHS England is responsible for allocating funding resources for health services including mental health. The Government has committed to an additional £1 billion by 2020/21 to support the implementation of the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health. This is in addition to the £1.4 billion over five years to improve children and young people’s mental health announced in 2014/15. We are holding NHS England to account through the NHS Mandate to ensure this investment delivers improvements in mental health.

We will continue to work with NHS England and other arm’s length bodies to monitor and track progress against the mental health commitments of the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health and Future in Mind.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ouseley on 2015-11-02.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of whether children from low socioeconomic status backgrounds with lower 11-plus test scores are more or less likely to be offered grammar school places than children from higher socioeconomic status backgrounds; and what steps they are taking to achieve equality of opportunity in education.

Lord Nash

The Department does not collect data on the selection test scores of prospective applicants to grammar schools.

We are committed to ensuring that every child, regardless of their background, has the opportunity to fulfil their potential. The recent report by the Public Accounts Committee on ‘Funding for disadvantaged pupils’ stated that, since the introduction of the pupil premium, the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers has closed by 4.7 percentage points in primary schools and by 1.6 percentage points in secondary schools.

We continue to invest in our academies and free schools programme, which is already raising standards in areas serving some of our most disadvantaged young people.

We are also putting high expectations at the heart of our school system, with a rigorous new curriculum, world-class exams, and a new accountability system that rewards schools that encourage every child to achieve their best.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ouseley on 2016-02-01.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the implications for the quality of social care and support systems, including independent living of the elderly and disabled people, of not providing extra funding for the Better Care Fund in 2016–17

Lord Prior of Brampton

The Government’s decision to introduce the adult social care precept from 2016/17 and additional Better Care Fund funding from 2018/19 reflected consideration of social care cost pressures as part of the Spending Review process.

Under the Care Act councils are obliged to ensure that any person in its area wishing to access services in the market has a variety of high quality services to choose from.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ouseley on 2016-05-03.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to tackle persistent staff segregation by gender at some independent faith schools, as recently identified by the Chief Inspector of Schools.

Lord Nash

Independent schools have to meet the standards set in regulations. If segregation results in disadvantage for pupils of one gender, either directly or through inappropriate modelling of gender roles through staff segregation visible to pupils, then it is likely that the standards have not been met and regulatory action by this Department will follow. If there is a possibility that staff segregation disadvantages staff of one gender and there may be a direct breach of the Equality Act 2010, we will not hesitate to make a referral to the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact on the protection of children in care and children in need of delays in the work undertaken by the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service.

Lord Keen of Elie

Data collected by the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass) shows that, since April 2012, the average time to complete care and supervision applications has reduced from 48 weeks to 30 weeks. These are the proceedings most commonly initiated by a local authority and Cafcass has played a key role in working with other parts of the family justice system to achieve that reduction.

Since April 2012, Cafcass has also exceeded its targets to allocate at least 97% of the open public law care workload to an appointed Children’s Guardian, and to allocate care applications to an appointed Children’s Guardian in no more than 3 working days.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ouseley on 2015-11-05.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answers by Lord Prior of Brampton on 2 November (HL2863 and HL2866), and in the light of the fact that data about the detention of different groups of mental health patients under different segregated regimes, and the number of police call-outs to mental patient wards to deal with incidents involving different groups of mental health patients, are not collected centrally, whether they have any plans to change the way in which they collect data about patients in mental health wards.

Lord Prior of Brampton

The Department of Health and Care Quality Commission (CQC) currently use a range of processes to monitor the quality of mental health services, including inspections, surveys, notification of the CQC by providers of certain events and analysis of national data collections. As part of this process the Health and Social Care Information Centre reviews of the content and frequency of data collection through the Mental Health and Learning Disability Minimums Data Set.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ouseley on 2016-02-01.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the levels of social cohesion in towns in Britain, such as Boston in Lincolnshire.

Baroness Williams of Trafford

Over generations, we in Britain have built a successful multi-racial, multi-faith democracy. According to the 2013/14 Community Life Survey, 85 per cent of people agreed that their local area is a place where people from different backgrounds get on well together. But the job of building a more cohesive country is never complete and we recognise the scale of the challenge in some communities. That is why the Prime Minister has charged Louise Casey to carry out a review of how to boost opportunity and integration in these communities and bring Britain together as one nation. We will use her interim report to inform our plans for funding a new wider Cohesive Communities Programme, focusing resources on improving integration and extending opportunity in those communities that most need it.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ouseley on 2016-05-03.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the effectiveness of policies and programmes aimed at tackling poverty, in the light of the study by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Destitution in the UK, which found that over a million people were destitute at some point in 2015.

Lord Freud

This Government has introduced a wide range of policies and programmes to transform lives, from the flagship reform of Universal Credit to the Troubled Families Programme and the Pupil Premium. The majority of these programmes are audited

We know that work is the best route out of poverty. Evidence shows that almost three-quarters of poor workless families who found full employment escaped poverty; and that the highest poverty exit rate of 75% was for children living in families that moved from part to full employment.

That is why this Government is committed to policies that provide people with the support they need at all stages to get into work, increase their earnings, and keeping more of what they earn.

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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of continuing care home closures, what plans are in place to meet the care needs of the growing elderly population.

Lord Prior of Brampton

The Department has not seen loss of capacity of social care provision. The Government recognises that the care sector is operating in a challenging financial environment and continues to engage with the care sector to understand their concerns about their financial viability and the sustainability of services.

The Care Quality Commission monitors the finances of the largest care businesses to identify likely insolvencies that would stop services. The Department continues to monitor the whole of the market of care providers, engage with the sector to better understand the challenges they face and support local authorities who purchase services.

The Department is working closely with the Local Government Association to consider targeted action to address the issues.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ouseley on 2015-11-18.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Prior of Brampton on 12 November (HL3373), what they intend to do to prevent discriminatory treatment of BME mental health patients, and what assessment they have made of the implications of discriminatory treatment for patients in mental health wards.

Lord Prior of Brampton

We are aware that people from black and minority ethnic (BME) groups often report poorer experiences of mental health services and there is some evidence of people from BME groups experiencing ethnic discrimination in how services are delivered by not ensuring equitable access or meeting diverse cultural needs.

The Human Rights Act 1998 and the Equality Act 2010 make it clear that people should not be discriminated against on the grounds of race or mental impairment. People with mental impairments are included within the groups of people with Protected Characteristics within the Equality Act 2010.

The Mental Health Act 1983 Code of Practice makes it clear that decisions relating to people detained under the Act should be lawful and in accordance with the requirements of the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Equality Act 2010.

The Department established the Mental Health Equalities Working Group (EWG) in 2013 to advise on equality and human rights issues, including BME issues.

The Joint Commissioning Panel published guidance in 2014, Guidance for commissioners of mental health services for people from black and minority ethnic communities, which set out 10 key messages for commissioners to improve services. A copy of the guidance is attached.

The Coalition Government published Closing the Gap: priorities for essential change in mental health in 2014, which included a specific action to tackle inequalities around access to mental health services and we continue to work to achieving that action. A copy of this document is attached.

The Department commissioned the Mental Health Providers’ Forum and the Race Equality Foundation to gather and review evidence of effective mental health services for BME groups, which was published this year. The report, Better practice in mental health for black and minority ethnic communities, found that organisations that were successful in providing mental health services that meet the needs of BME groups had developed local community-based approaches to service delivery which addressed cultural and linguistic differences and sought to actively engage hard to reach groups. A copy of this report is attached.

NHS England is also working with a number of BME groups and community leaders to raise awareness, reduce barriers and improve the uptake of Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) to all sections of the community. We are also working with the National Health Service and commissioners to disseminate guidance and good practice of what good mental health services for BME communities look like.