Tag: Luciana Berger

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-03-01.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to the foreword of the NHS Mental Health Taskforce report, The Five Year Forward View for Mental Health, published in February 2016, what steps he is taking to ensure that tackling poverty and inequalities are a core part of his Department’s mental health strategy.

Alistair Burt

We welcome the publication of the independent Mental Health Taskforce report and we will work with NHS England and other health bodies to embed the recommendations into our work programmes. We recognise the inequalities that may be experienced by people from lower socio-economic groups both in terms of exposure to risk factors for poor mental health and accessing mental health services and their experiences of mental health services when they do access care.

We will be working with stakeholders to ensure we are addressing inequalities issues including those identified in the Mental Health Taskforce report.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-03-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many designated health places of safety for under-18s there are in each clinical commissioning group.

Alistair Burt

The Department does not hold information on how many designated health places of safety for under-18s there are in each clinical commissioning group.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has produced a map of the location of designated health-based places of safety in England for people detained under section 136 of the Mental Health Act. The CQC has also published a table that breaks this information down by local authority. This information can be found at the following CQC website:

http://www.cqc.org.uk/content/map-health-based-places-safety-0#howto

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-03-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department has taken to ensure the availability of sufficient long-term funding for the delivery of the commitments in NHS England’s Transforming Care programme.

Alistair Burt

In the national service model and Building the right support published in October 2015 NHS England, the Local Government Association and the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services set out how areas would be supported to deliver lasting change to people with a learning disability and/or autism who display behaviour that challenges.

To develop community capacity, clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), local authorities and NHS England’s specialised commissioners have formed 48 transforming care partnerships (TCPs) to plan for the future. TCPs have been asked to use the total sum of money they spend as a whole system on people with a learning disability and/or autism to deliver care in a different way to achieve better results. This includes shifting money from some services (such as inpatient care) into others (such as community health services including mental health services or individual packages of support). The costs of the future model of care will therefore be met from the total current envelope of spend on health and social care services for people with a learning disability and/or autism.

During a phase of transition, commissioners will need to invest in new community support before closing inpatient provision. To support them to do this NHS England will make available up to £30 million of transformation funding over three years, to be matched by CCGs, and £15 million in capital funding. This funding is in addition to the £10 million made available to six fast track areas in 2015/16.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-03-22.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to point three on page six of Public mental health leadership and workforce development framework: executive summary, published in March 2015, what specific action Public Health England has taken to inform the review of the UK Public Health Skills and Knowledge Framework.

Jane Ellison

Public Health England has used its Public Mental Health Leadership and Workforce Development Framework to inform its review of the Public Health Skills and Knowledge Framework. This has involved consideration of public mental health competencies, combined with further feedback from stakeholders through a consultation process with input from local authorities and partner organisations.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-03-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to implement recommendation 12 in the executive summary of Public Health England’s March 2015 report entitled, Public mental health leadership and workforce development framework, on supporting increased access to a range of mental health promotion training for frontline public health practitioners.

Alistair Burt

Public Health England (PHE) has been collating practice examples of mental health promotion training available for frontline public health practitioners. Information will help inform the commissioning of training locally. PHE is working with the Royal Society for Public Health and other partners to identify gaps in mental health promotion training provision and opportunities to fill these gaps, such as developing e-learning training modules.

At a local level, PHE centres are working with Health Education England (HEE) colleagues to identify and co-ordinate provision of training to practitioners and identify needs and training opportunities.

PHE contributed to the Mental Health Task Force report and has integrated the priority of increasing the training within the Taskforce’s recommendations. Work will be led by HEE, supported by PHE.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-04-14.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will estimate the number of businesses which have a mental health workplace policy.

Alistair Burt

The information is not collected centrally.

Public Health England endorses the Workplace Wellbeing Charter National Award for England which is a scheme that recognises the commitment of organisations to promoting wellbeing in the workplace. Over 1,000 organisations in England hold the award.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-04-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what discussions his Department has had with the Care Quality Commission on the findings of its mock inspection of Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust’s Slade House site in 2012.

Ben Gummer

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) does not conduct mock-inspections. The CQC compliance report on Slade House, published in 2012, was conducted under its previous inspection methodology. The inspection found that the facility was meeting the essential standards of care it looked at. The Department did not discuss the report’s findings with the CQC.

From 2014, the CQC started introducing a new inspection methodology to mental health services which makes use of a higher-skilled inspection team that includes specialist inspectors, clinical and other experts, and people with experience of care. The findings of these new inspections give patients and the public a more authoritative and comprehensive view of the quality of care provided by health and adult social care providers.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-04-27.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what training is provided to teachers on working with children who have autism spectrum disorder.

Edward Timpson

The Department has contracted with the Autism Education Trust since 2011 to deliver autism training to education professionals. The Trust has now trained more than 90,000 education professionals. The Department is also funding work by the National Autistic Society to provide information and advice to parents and professionals on exclusions, and work to integrate into the Autism Education Trust training the learning from a previous project by Ambitious about Autism on strategies for supporting transition from school to college for students with autism.

We have also supported Nasen’s Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Gateway (www.sendgateway.org.uk). This offers education professionals free, easy access to high quality information, resources and training for meeting the needs of children with SEND, including those with autism. In 2015-16, the Department also funded Nasen to develop a free universal offer of SEN Continuous Professional Development for teachers.

The National College for Teaching and Leadership has produced a series of specialist online courses, one of which focuses on autism. The training materials are designed to support teachers in mainstream schools who want to improve their skills in teaching pupils with SEND. The training materials can be found at: www.education.gov.uk/lamb.

In order to be awarded qualified teacher status, trainees must satisfy the Teachers’ Standards, which include a requirement that they have a clear understanding of the needs of all pupils, including those with SEND, and are able to use and evaluate distinctive teaching approaches to engage and support them.

Following Sir Andrew Carter’s independent review of the quality and effectiveness of Initial Teacher Training (ITT) courses, the Secretary of State appointed an independent working group made up of expert representatives from the sector to develop a framework of core ITT content. This includes considering Sir Andrew’s recommendations around the SEND content of the proposed framework. The working group is due to report to the Department soon. We will consider their recommendations carefully and determine how they should be taken forward.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-05-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if the NHS will distinguish between sexuality and gender identity in the collection of data for people accessing Improving Access to Psychological Therapies services.

Alistair Burt

The Improving Access to Psychological Therapies dataset does not currently make the distinction between sexuality and gender identity. The dataset has two fields that may be of relevance to this question:

Sexual orientation, which is the current sexual orientation of a person and has the following valid codes:

1	Heterosexual
2	Homosexual Gay/Lesbian
3	Bi-sexual
4	Person asked and does not know or is not sure
9	Unknown
Z	Not stated (Person asked but declined to provide a response)

Gender, which is the current gender of a person. Note that the classification is phenotypical rather than genotypical; i.e. it does not provide codes for medical or scientific purposes. It has the following valid codes:

0	Not known
1	Male
2	Female
9	Not specified

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-07-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what her policy is on supporting Mersey Forest in its aim to increase woodland cover to 20 per cent of the Mersey Forest area.

Rory Stewart

We certainly support this partnership of local authorities with organisations in the Defra Group, and its aim to increase woodland cover to 20 per cent of the Mersey Forest area. This supports our national commitment to plant 11 million more trees by the end of this Parliament and to continue to expand woodland cover in England.

The Mersey Forest partnership has transformed the Mersey area since it was set up in 1991. It has planted 9 million trees and doubled woodland cover in the area, providing great places for local people to enjoy as well as a wide range of economic and environmental benefits. The Mersey Forest is one of eight Community Forests in England that together deliver urban, economic and social regeneration, helping to transform areas that have seen significant industrial restructuring, by reclaiming brownfield land to create high-quality environments for millions of people. This wider network of Community Forests has planted over 10,000 hectares of new woodland and brought more than 27,000 hectares of existing woodland into management.

Whilst it is for the constituent local authorities to agree their ongoing commitment, Defra Group organisations will continue to support Mersey Forest in its ambition to increase woodland cover to 20 per cent.