Tag: Luciana Berger

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-10-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of training for midwives on foetal alcohol syndrome.

Mr Philip Dunne

The new United Kingdom Chief Medical Officers’ (CMO) low risk drinking guidelines provide the public with the most up to date scientific information to help people make informed decisions about their own drinking. The guideline for women who are pregnant or think they could become pregnant, is that the safest approach is not to drink alcohol at all, to reduce risks to the baby to a minimum.

The Government has mandated Health Education England (HEE) to provide national leadership on education, training and workforce development in the National Health Service.

In the Mandate from the Government to HEE for the period from April 2013 to March 2015 the Government stated that HEE should work with NHS England and others to ensure that sufficient midwives and other maternity staff are trained and available to provide every woman with personalised one-to-one care throughout pregnancy, childbirth and during the postnatal period.

HEE led, completed and published the findings of the Personalised Maternity Care Project, which made recommendations on how women who have mental health or substance misuse support requirements will receive appropriate support from specialised trained midwives.

The Personalised Maternity Care Project findings are available at:

https://hee.nhs.uk/our-work/developing-our-workforce/nursing/personalised-maternity-care-stakeholder-event-findings

“

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-10-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what monitoring his Department undertakes of clinical commissioning groups’ safeguarding of access to medical nutrition for patients for whom it is recommended in NICE guidelines.

Nicola Blackwood

National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) clinical guidelines represent best practice and we expect National Health Service organisations to take them fully into account as they design services for their local populations.

NICE clinical guidelines are not mandatory but the expectation is that NHS organisations will implement them over time drawing upon clinical judgement, and commissioners will take them into account when making commissioning decisions.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2015-11-06.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many people were referred by the NHS England Liaison and Diversion Service for support or treatment in the last three years for which figures are available.

Alistair Burt

NHS England made almost 40,000 liaison and diversion screenings and more than 10,600 referrals to treatment or support services for people of all ages between 1 April 2014 and 31 August 2015. Data is not available prior to 1 April 2014.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2015-11-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 23 March 2015 to Question 227900, how much of the £250 million additional funding that was committed has been spent; and how many children and young people with mental health problems this funding has supported.

Alistair Burt

The Government will be making available £1.4 billion over the course of this Parliament to transform children and young people’s mental health. £173 million of this has been allocated in 2015-16.

It is too early to quantify how many Children and Young People have benefited from this additional investment.

A significant proportion of the additional funding is being allocated to clinical commissioning groups upon completion of the assurance of Local Transformation Plans which every area has produced on children and young people’s mental health. These plans cover the full spectrum of mental health issues, from prevention and resilience building, to support and care for existing and emerging mental health problems, as well as transitions between services and addressing the needs of the most vulnerable. Plans are currently being assured by NHS England’s regional assurance teams. Funding is being released as individual plans receive a satisfactory assessment and expenditure will be monitored over the remainder of this financial year.

In addition, the additional funding available this year will support continued improvement of existing services through the expansion of the Children and Young People’s Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme. It will also strengthen the capacity and capability of workforce including providing training and improve data and information in order to deliver the vision set out in Future in Mind by 2020.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2015-11-24.

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

Alistair Burt

Departmental Ministers have undertaken the following visits to mental health services (including charity visits and community centres) in an official capacity since March 2015 to date:

Former Minister of State (Norman Lamb)

5 March 2015- Turning Point’s Crisis Point Centre

5 March 2015- RADAR (Rapid Alcohol Detox Acute Referrals)

Minister of State (Alistair Burt)

21 May 2015- South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust- Child and Adolescent Mental Heal Services

29 June 2015- Hammersmith and Fulham Mental Health Unite/ West London Clinical Commissioning Group

2 July 2015- British Transport Policy, suicide prevention and mental health team (street triage)

3 August 2015- Margaret Oats, Mother and baby unit, City and Hackney Centre for mental health

24 August 2015- Bradford Divisional HQ, Nelson Street Police Station

10 September 2015 – Samaritans Visit on World Suicide Day

8 October 2015 – Oxfordshire Mind for World Mental Health day

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2015-11-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, (a) what obligations exist on search engine providers registered as data controllers with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) (including those with offices outside the jurisdiction) to ensure that any data processing by them complies with the Data Protection Principles and (b) what steps the ICO (i) has taken and (ii) is planning to take to ensure that such principles are complied with.

Mr Edward Vaizey

Search engines are data controllers if they process information about living, identifiable people, for example within a search result based on a person’s name.Data controllersmust comply with the data protection principles, for example by explaining to customers how their information is collected and used. Although the main search engines are international operations, if they have an establishment in the UK, then their activities will be subject to UK data protection law.

The ICO ensures thatdata controllerscomply with the lawfor example by investigating complaints and carrying out enforcement or liaison work. The ICO will continue to engage with the search engines to ensure that the right balance is struck between online access to information and individuals’ privacy rights.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2015-12-02.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what estimate he has made of how many and what proportion of homeless people (a) are ex-service personnel, (b) have mental health problems and (c) identify as LGBT.

Mr Marcus Jones

The information requested is not held centrally.

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 the proportion of people who received consultant-led mental health treatment within 18 weeks of referral.

Alistair Burt

We are implementing the first access and waiting times standards for mental health to ensure that 75% of people referred to the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme will be treated within six weeks of referral, and 95% will be treated within 18 weeks of referral and that 50% of people experiencing a first episode of psychosis will be treated with a National Institute for Health and Care Excellence approved care package within two weeks of referral.

NHS England already collects data on waiting times for people referred to IAPT services.

We are working with the Health and Social Care Information Centre and NHS England to make changes to the Mental Health and Learning Disabilities Dataset to start collecting data for the first time to measure, in a consistent way, access and waiting times for people referred to other mental health services. We will start collecting data first on access and waiting times for people referred for treatment following a first episode of psychosis in early 2016 and intend expanding this to other areas of mental health later.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what discussions he has had with mental health charities on the sections of the Editors’ Code of Practice that cover reporting on mental health and suicide.

Alistair Burt

I meet regularly with a number of mental health charities to discuss a range of issues, including suicide prevention.

Departmental officials work closely with the Samaritans on suicide prevention and support the excellent work they do on advising the media on adhering to the Ofcom Broadcasting Code and the Independent Press Standards Organisation’s Code of Practice. The Samaritans also publishes guidance to the media on its website on the sensitive reporting of suicide.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2015-12-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what proportion of (a) GPs and (b) clinical commissioning groups have plans in place to identify unavoidable deaths.

Alistair Burt

The question asked about ‘unavoidable deaths’. Data on the proportion of general practitioners (GPs) and clinical commissioning groups that have plans in place to identify unavoidable deaths is not collected centrally.