Tag: Luciana Berger

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2015-12-14.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many and what proportion of clinical commissioning group transformation plans address the mental health needs of (a) children who have experienced abuse and (b) looked after children.

Alistair Burt

As part of improving transparency, all Local Transformation Plans must be published locally and made widely available.

NHS England’s guidance Local Transformation Plans for Children and Young People’s Mental Health and Wellbeing – Guidance and support for local areas is explicit about the need to promote equality and address health inequalities, and states that plans should ‘address the full spectrum of need including children and young people who have particular vulnerability to mental health problems for e.g. those with learning disabilities, looked after children and care leavers, those at risk or in contact with the Youth Justice System, or who have been sexually abused and/or exploited’.

The assurance process requires local areas to evidence how they are meeting the needs of vulnerable groups including looked after children and children who have experienced abuse.

An analysis of Local Transformation Plans has been commissioned and will include a thematic review of how the mental health needs of children and young people in vulnerable groups have been addressed.

As set out in the guidance for Local Transformation Plans an integral part of the locally developed Children and Young People’s Mental Health Transformation Plans includes a tracking template that sets out local progress milestones and financial spend. This tracker will be used as the basis for assurance assessment in 2015/16 and from 2016/17 onwards progress on local transformation will become part of the mainstream planning assurance process.

Local Transformation Plansrequire all key partners in a local area to agree how best to meet the mental health needs of children and young people in their local populations. 122 Local Transformation Planshave been developed that cover all 209 clinical commissioning groups.

The assurance process for Local Transformation Plans for Children and Young People’s Mental Health and Wellbeing was undertaken by NHS England regional teams and included assurance against each plan of standard self-assessment and tracker templates to enable a comparison of plans against objective success criteria.

NHS England have commissioned a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the Local Transformation Plans, in order to support policy makers, local commissioners and services to understand and use the data that is contained within the plans to drive further improvements. Local Transformation Plans will be reviewed from a narrative, analytical and financial perspective, with thematic reviews carried out in key focus areas that align with Future in mind principles.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-01-05.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what impact assessment he has made of the Government’s proposal to limit housing benefit for claimants in the social housing sector to local housing allowance rates from 2018.

Justin Tomlinson

This policy is still under development and full impact and equality impact assessments will be undertaken in due course.

This measure is not being introduced until April 2018 and only then where new tenancies have been taken out or existing tenancies renewed from 1 April 2016.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-01-11.

To ask the Prime Minister, how many mental health services he has visited since May 2010; and what the (a) date and (b) location was of each such visit.

Mr David Cameron

Details of my visits within the United Kingdom are published on the gov.uk website.

Most recently, on 11 January I visited Family Action in London where I announced £290 million of new investment over the next 5 years to provide mental healthcare for new mums, £247 million to invest in liaison mental health services in emergency departments, over £400 million to enable 24/7 treatment in communities as a safe and effective alternative to hospital and expanded services to help teenagers with eating disorders. This builds on previous government funding commitments for mental health over the last 12 months, including £150 million for young people with eating disorders and £1.25 billion for perinatal and children and young people’s mental health.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-01-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 11 January 2016 to Question 21142, if he will make it his policy to make mandatory the recording of the diagnosis code in the accident and emergency data set.

Jane Ellison

Following a review of the Accident and Emergency Commissioning Data Set in 2014, a specific project was established to support the development of an improved data set for urgent and emergency care. This is a collaborative project which includes wide-ranging membership across our key partners. The mandatory recording of primary diagnosis within accident and emergency departments is expected to be considered within the scope of this project, which will report in due course.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-01-27.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant the Answer of 18 December 2015 to Question 20074, on mental health services: children, when he expects that the thematic review will be (a) finished and (b) published.

Alistair Burt

NHS England aims to finalise and publish its thematic review of how the mental health needs of children and young people in vulnerable groups have been addressed as part of the overall Local Transformation Plan analysis by 30 April 2016. A number of thematic reviews have been commissioned as part of the overall analysis of the Local Transformation Plans. One of these thematic reviews focuses on vulnerable groups of children and young people, which will include children who have been abused.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-01-28.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 22 January 2016 to Question 23220, when he expects the project to which he referred to publish its recommendations.

Jane Ellison

We do not expect the recommendations to be available until early 2017.

The mandatory recording of primary diagnosis within accident and emergency departments is expected to be considered within the scope of the work to develop an improved data set for urgent and emergency care. Given the scale and complexity of the project, the final report is not expected before 2017.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-02-05.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 4 February 2016 to Question 25105, when he expects the new resource for businesses on addressing mental health issues to be available.

Alistair Burt

It is anticipated that the guidance will be published in spring 2016.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-02-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has received representations on requests by schools to parents and carers that children with autism spectrum disorder not attend school during Ofsted inspections in the last five years.

Edward Timpson

The Department is aware of a small number of cases in the last few years where parents and carers have complained about a school either asking a child with autism to stay at home on Ofsted inspection days, or diverting the child to other non-academic activities on those days.

Whenever such complaints have been received, we have been absolutely clear that any request for a child to stay at home during an Ofsted inspection would be an unlawful exclusion and that parents and carers should make a formal complaint to the school’s board of governors. Taking a child out of normal timetabled lessons during an inspection is unacceptable and should be drawn to the attention of the school’s board of governors.

Parents can also ask the Secretary of State to make a determination under Sections 496 and 497 of the Education Act 1996, which give her the power to direct a governing body where it has failed to discharge a statutory duty or has done so unreasonably. Any such direction would have to be expedient, in that there must be something the Secretary of State could direct the school to do which would put matters right.

Depending on the circumstances, parents and carers could also bring a claim of disability discrimination to the First-tier Tribunal (Special Educational Needs and Disability).

Ofsted’s school inspection framework requires inspectors to take account of schools’ use of exclusion. The Department would also pass to Ofsted any relevant evidence that falls within the inspectorate’s remit. If, during the course of an Ofsted inspection, inspectors become aware that a school has unlawfully excluded pupils for the period of the inspection, this will be taken into account in judging the effectiveness of the school and its leadership. If the evidence emerges after the inspection, the matter will be investigated by Ofsted and could lead to the school receiving an unannounced inspection visit.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-02-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to ensure NHS England is working with (a) clinical commissioning groups, (b) local authorities and (c) other partners to develop and trial a new model of acute in-patient care for young adults aged 16 to 25.

Alistair Burt

Trialling acute inpatient care models for 16-25 year olds was a specific recommendation from Five Year Forward View for Mental Health (FYFV for Mental Health), a report from the independent Mental Health Taskforce to the NHS in England, published in February 2016. NHS England has accepted in full the recommendations of the Taskforce and is considering how to take each of the recommendations forward.

The FYFV for Mental Health states:

“NHS England should work with CCGs, local authorities and other partners to develop and trial a new model of acute inpatient care for young adults aged 16–25 in 2016, working with Vanguard sites. This should evaluate: developmentally and age-appropriate inpatient services for this group; supporting young people in an environment that maximises opportunities for rehabilitation and return to education, training or employment; viewing the young person within their social context; and enlisting the support of families or carers. This should build on the existing trials of new models of ‘transitional’ services for those aged 0–25.”

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-02-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what representations his Department has made to the NHS England consultation on the future of mental health support for veterans of the armed forces.

Mark Lancaster

The Ministry of Defence takes the mental health of our veterans very seriously. The Department has made no representations in response to the NHS England consultation on the future of mental health support for veterans of the Armed Forces. The consultation is aimed at veterans who have used NHS veterans’ mental health services, their family members and carers, and staff and organisations that are providing mental health care, treatment and support for veterans and their families.

https://www.engage.england.nhs.uk/survey/veterans-mental-health-services