Tag: Luciana Berger

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-01-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 26 January 2016 to Question 23676, when the work being undertaken by Health Education England and NHS England to which he refers will be completed.

Alistair Burt

The additional significant investment in perinatal mental health totaling £350 million from 2016/17- 2020/21, together with the recommendations of the forthcoming report of the independent Mental Health Taskforce, will enable NHS England to design a broader five year transformation programme to build capacity and capability in specialist perinatal mental health services, with the aim of enabling women in all areas of England to access care that is in line with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines by 2020/21.

Work is underway to lay the foundations for this longer-term work through targeted funding of activities to build capacity in specialist services. This will include, for example, a £1 million investment in strengthening clinical networks across the country. It is also expected to include developing clinical leadership capacity and training for the perinatal workforce to build the skills and capabilities within specialist teams.

NHS England will work with partners, including Health Education England, over the coming months, to develop the five year programme for improving specialist perinatal mental health services.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-02-03.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he plans to take to improve the support available to mental health professionals to manage their own mental health.

Alistair Burt

Regular clinical supervision with an experienced and trained supervisor has been shown to ameliorate the negative impact of therapeutic work on the health and well-being of therapeutic staff.

Guidance on the Principles of Supervision for an IAPT Service recognises the importance of clinical supervision in this regard and recommends one hour of clinical supervision with an experienced trained supervisor per week.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-02-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to the oral contribution of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Care Quality of 9 February 2016, on party of esteem in the NHS constitution, Official Report, column 1430, if he will add the right to psychological therapies to the constitution.

Alistair Burt

The NHS Constitution right to drugs and treatments reflects the legal funding requirement that applies to interventions recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) technology appraisal guidance.

NICE has not been asked to undertake a technical appraisal of psychological therapies. If in the future, psychological therapies are recommended by NICE, and are consequently mandated for use in the National Health Service, we will consider consulting on including a right to psychological therapies within the Constitution.

Over the last spending review we invested over £400 million into the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme to ensure access to talking therapies for those who need them and this has contributed to achieving very real improvements in the lives of people with anxiety and depression.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-02-22.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many first admission episodes there were with a primary diagnosis of an eating disorder in (a) England and (b) the UK in (i) 2014-15 and (ii) each month in 2015-16 for which figures are available.

Alistair Burt

The Department is responsible for health and care in England only. Responsibility and therefore data relating to the rest of the United Kingdom are a matter for the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Assembly.

The following table shows the number of finished admission episodes (FAEs) for England with a primary diagnosis of an eating disorder for the whole year April 2014 to March 2015 and provisional data by month from April to October 2015.

Month of Admission	FAE*
2014-15 total	2,876
April 2015	238
May 2015	230
June 2015	220
July 2015	204
August 2015	166
September 2015	176
October 2015	179

* FAEs are counted against the year or month in which the admission episode finishes. Admissions do not represent the number of patients, as a person may have more than one admission within the period.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he plans to take to ensure that the expansion of parenting programmes will be integrated with local transformation plans for children and young people’s mental health services.

Alistair Burt

The Government has accepted the recommendation in the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health, published February 2016, to review the best way to ensure the expansion of the parenting programme announced by the Prime Minister in his Life Chances speech. The Department for Work and Pensions is currently considering how to implement this and further thought will be given as to how it fits with local plans for the transformation of children’s and young people’s mental health services.

It is for local areas to consider and commission services based on the needs of their local population. In general, family support is the responsibility of local government. Local Transformation Plans produced in each area of the country set out how they plan to meet the full spectrum of needs of children and young people with mental health problems, and what services should be put in place to address these. The Children and Young Peoples Improving Access to Psychological Therapies Programme, which is being expanded to cover the whole country and extended into other clinical areas including meeting the needs of children aged 0-5, already includes parenting programmes for children with conduct disorders.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-02-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to the recommendations on page 13, paragraph 2, of the Mental Health Taskforce report, published in February 2016, what steps he is taking to ensure all local areas have a multi-agency suicide prevention plan.

Alistair Burt

We welcome the recommendation by the independent Mental Health Taskforce that every area should have a local suicide prevention plan in place delivered through multi-agency groups.

We will be working with Public Health England to engage and support local authorities that do not have a local multi-agency suicide prevention plan to put one in place.

I will be meeting soon with Departmental officials and our delivery partner organisations on suicide prevention to explore ways in which we can work together to re-invigorate the National Suicide Prevention Strategy, including improving local delivery of its aims.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-03-04.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 3 March 2016 to Question 28901, on nurses: training, if he will make it his policy to collect that information.

Ben Gummer

There are no plans at present to collect this information but this will be kept under review in light of work being undertaken this year by Health Education England.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-03-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 4 March 2016 to Question 29233, how much of the annual allocation of £130 million for carers’ breaks has been spent so far in 2015-16.

Alistair Burt

Every local area is required to set out in their Better Care Fund the plan for the level of resource that will be dedicated to carer-specific support, including how it has met its minimum contributions for funding towards carers’ breaks. Delivery against these plans is a matter for local determination.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-03-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many agency mental health nurses have been employed by each clinical commissioning group in each year since 2010.

Ben Gummer

This information is not collected centrally either by the Department or NHS England.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many and what proportion of attendees at the NHS England Mental Health Crisis Care Summit were mental health service users.

Alistair Burt

The second mental health Crisis Care Concordat national summit was held on 24 November 2015, hosted jointly by the Department and Mind.

The event concentrated on progress with improving crisis care since the launch of the Concordat in February 2014. The Summit was full, with 250 delegates and speakers. All delegates were Concordat activists – either involved in their local Crisis Concordat groups or representatives from national signatory and supporter organisations. People with lived experience and carers attended, as well as members of the National Survivor User Network. Some attendees will have been present representing their organisations but also will have had lived experience, and it is therefore not possible to calculate the number of those attendees who were mental health service users.

All Departmental conferences involve stakeholders and service users as part of the preparation process.