Tag: Luciana Berger

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2015-12-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that friends and family of people who have died by suicide receive a copy of the publication Help is at Hand from Public Health England.

Alistair Burt

Help is at Hand is available on the ‘Support after Suicide’ website and to order on the Department’s orderline. Public Health England is working with the voluntary sector and local areas to make sure there is effective distribution.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2015-12-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will make it his policy to collect information centrally on how many specialist midwives have been trained in mental health.

Ben Gummer

The Department does not have any plans to collect this information.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how he plans to hold to account clinical commissioning groups whose transformation plans do not include key performance indicators or estimated costs.

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 2016-01-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what training and professional development is given to (a) doctors, (b) nurses and (c) mental health professionals on (i) conflict resolution, (b) methodical empathy and (iii) mental self-care.

Ben Gummer

It is the responsibility of the professional regulators to set the standards and outcomes for education and training and approve training curricula to ensure newly qualified healthcare professionals are equipped with the knowledge, skills and attitudes to provide high quality patient care. This may include training on conflict resolution, empathy, mental self-care and managing own stress.

Health Education England has a leadership role in ensuring the service continues to invest in the ongoing education and training of all staff and a shared responsibility for investing in continuing professional development to promote service innovation and transformation. However, employers are ultimately responsible for continuing professional development of their employees.

Employers also have a responsibility to ensure the wellbeing of their staff.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-01-14.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 14 January 2016 to Question 21922, how much of the £75 million allocated to CCGs to improve local services in 2015-16 has been spent.

Alistair Burt

Out of the £173 million, £105 million has gone to clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) directly.

The remaining £68 million has been allocated to the below organisations to be spent centrally on workforce and system development. These are approximations to the nearest million:

– £58 million allocated to NHS England;

– £9 million allocated to Health Education England; and

– £1 million allocated to the Department of Health.

The Government are taking a targeted and phased approach to ensuring the funding allocated to workforce and system development is spent effectively and plans are in place for this money to be spent.

The figure of how much of the £75 million allocated to CCGs to improve local services has been spent is not available. NHS England is currently collecting monthly financial information regarding the amount of spend on child and adolescent mental health services. This is being validated during January and will be made available later in the year.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many clinical commissioning group local transformation plans are available online.

Alistair Burt

123 local transformation plans (LTPs) have been produced covering 209 clinical commissioning groups (CCGs). All LTPs were required to be published locally by 31 December 2015 and the CCGs have been asked to provide details of where they are published, as part of the continued assurance process. At least 74 of the 123 LTPs are available online and by mid-February a link will be available to all 123.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many Law Society mental health panel accredited representatives there were on the Law Society panel available for First Tier Tribunal (mental health) hearings in each year since 2010.

Caroline Dinenage

This information is not recorded.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what discussions he has had with (a) the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and (b) the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions about the planned cap on housing benefit for tenants in supported housing at the local rate of local housing allowance.

Alistair Burt

Ministers have not yet made any official representations to other Government departments about the proposed changes to housing benefit for tenants in supported housing. Neither has the Department made any formal estimates of the people likely to be affected by the proposed changes. However, discussions are ongoing at official level between Departments.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-02-04.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what mechanisms there are for NHS mental health trusts to take into account the views of patients when making decisions.

Alistair Burt

All National Health Service trusts are required take account of and involve patients and the public in the way they plan and provide services. Transforming Participation in Health and Care, published September 2013, sets out the legal duties on NHS Commissioners to both involve patients in their own care and to involve the public in the way they commission services. The Commissioning organisation should ensure that providers they commission to provide services have suitable arrangements in place to involve patient and the public.

In addition NHS foundation trusts have specific responsibilities to involve their members and local communities usually through the appointment of Governing Body members. Trusts have their own arrangements as to how they make arrangements to involve their patients, carers and communities. Details of the arrangements would usually be available on the trust website.

Health Education England (HEE) has responsibility for training new therapists and high intensity training. In 2015/16, the budget was £22.0 million to support 1,031 trainees. These trainees provide supervised practice alongside college attendance. There may also be some workforce development funding used to further develop people working in such services, however, HEE does not code its workforce development expenditure to the degree of detail to separately identify this.

Data is not collected centrally on the number of psychological therapists employed by the NHS who experienced workplace-related stress in each of the last five years.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-02-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and what proportion of pupils who were (a) permanently and (b) temporarily excluded from school were recorded as having mental health conditions in each of the last five years.

Edward Timpson

The number of pupils recorded as having a mental health condition who received a permanent or fixed period exclusion is not held by the Department.

The number and proportion of pupils in national curriculum year group 10 and 11 with an autistic spectrum disorder primary need who were excluded in each of the last 5 years can be found in the attached table.

Information on the number of fixed period and permanent exclusions for all pupils, including separate breakdowns by national curriculum year group and special educational need provision, is available in the ‘Permanent and fixed-period exclusions in England’ National Statistics release[1].

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-exclusions

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