Tag: Luciana Berger

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.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-09-05.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many mental health services he has visited in his capacity as Secretary of State since December 2015; and what the date was of each such visit.

David Mowat

The Secretary of State for Health has visited the following mental health services in an official capacity since December 2015.

29 January 2016 King’s College Hospital, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust

5 February 2016 Coombe Wood Perinatal Mental Health Unit, Park Royal Centre for Mental Health, Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust

27 July 2016 STITCH project, Royal Bristol Infirmary, University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-09-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what his assessment is of the adequacy of the availability of talking therapies to young people.

Nicola Blackwood

The Future in Mind report published in March 2015 which followed the work of the Taskforce into Children and Young People’s Mental Health and Wellbeing recognised the lack of access to treatment for children and young people with mental health difficulties. This suggested that less than 25% – 35% of children and young people with a diagnosable mental health condition, based on epidemiological data from 2005, accessed support. In response to this, the Government committed to realising the vision set out in Future in Mind to deliver a major, system-wide transformation in children and young people’s mental health services. This aims to improve access to services and make evidence-based psychological therapies, also known as talking therapies, more widely available across the country for those children and young people who need them.

To support this transformation, an additional £1.4 billion funding has been made available over the course of this Parliament for spending on children and young people’s mental health. This will be used to improve community-based services so that young people are helped earlier and are less likely to need to go into hospital. It will also enable the expansion and extension of the Children and Young People’s Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme so that children and young people are able to access high quality and evidence-based interventions wherever they live.

All clinical commissioning groups have been asked to work with their partners to develop Local Transformation Plans to transform their local offer to improve children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing. These Plans cover the full spectrum of mental health issues; from prevention and improving access to support and care for existing and emerging mental health problem to ensuring that inpatient services are available for those who need them.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-10-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what his Department’s policy is on supporting people with mental health issues who are employed in traditionally male-dominated industries.

Nicola Blackwood

We are committed to supporting people with mental health problems to stay in work and the Department of Health and the Department for Work and Pensions established a joint Work and Health Unit to look at these matters.

Improving access to mental health services for those who need them is important and we are increasing access to talking therapy services so that 1.5 million people per year will be able to access support by 2020.

We will shortly be publishing a Green Paper on work and health, which will include a focus on mental health as we know that people with mental health conditions fare poorly in the labour market. Our aim is to help transform the lives and prospects of disabled people and those with a health condition.

We know that the stigma surrounding mental health can create barriers to people seeking and receiving support. We have recently announced £20 million of additional funding to the national Time to Change anti-stigma programme, in conjunction with Comic Relief and the Big Lottery Fund, which works with employers to support them in tackling the stigma in the workplace associated with poor mental health. This next phase of Time to Change places a particular focus on stigma experienced by men.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-10-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to reduce the number of suicides among women with autism.

David Mowat

The cross-Government suicide prevention strategy, ‘Preventing suicides in England: a cross-Government outcomes strategy to save lives’ highlights various groups of people for which tailored approaches to meet their mental health needs are required to address risk of suicide. This includes people who are in contact with mental health and/or social care services and people who may experience social factors such as social isolation and social exclusion, which may be experienced by people with autism.

We are looking at ways to strengthen the cross-Government suicide prevention strategy and will set out details later this year.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence published a guideline in 2015, ‘Challenging behaviour and learning disabilities: prevention and interventions for people with learning disabilities whose behaviour challenges’ which recommends interventions to mitigate risks, including for people with autism, such as self-harm and suicide.