Tag: Luciana Berger

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2015-12-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, for what reasons he has not yet announced funding for the Time to Change campaigns beyond March 2016.

Alistair Burt

We have provided £3.2 million in funding in 2015/16 to the Time to Change programme to support the excellent work the programme does in reducing the stigma associated with mental illness.

The Time to Change programme received £16 million in funding from Government between 2011/12 and 2014/15.

Officials are in discussions with Time to Change, and its other funding partners, about the next phase of the programme.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what reports NHS England has produced on progress in achieving parity of esteem for mental health.

Alistair Burt

NHS England and the Department jointly published Achieving Better Access to Mental Health Services by 2020 in October 2014. This publication recognised that a key element of achieving parity across mental and physical health care depends on enabling people to have timely access to evidence-based and effective care, and set out a clear vision for the development of access and waiting time standards in mental health including introduction of the first set of standards on early intervention in psychosis and psychological therapies, as well as signalling new investment in liaison mental health services in acute hospitals.

NHS England’s Five Year Forward View set out a clear commitment to a more equal response across mental and physical health and achieving genuine parity of esteem by 2020.

In support of this objective, NHS England’s latest planning guidance, Forward View into Action: planning for 2015-16, includes an expectation that clinical commissioning groups’ (CCG) spending on mental health services in 2015-16 should increase in real terms, and grow by at least as much as each CCG’s allocation increase to support the ambition of parity between mental and physical health.

NHS England has commissioned an independent Mental Health Task Force to produce a five-year mental health strategy, for improved access and outcomes in all settings, to be published in the New Year.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many prescriptions for anti-depressants were dispensed by the NHS for patients aged under 18 in each year since 2010.

Alistair Burt

Information is not available centrally concerning the age of patients prescribed and dispensed specific medicines.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-01-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 14 December 2015 to Question 19356, if he will make it his policy to collect information on the proportion of people identified as having experienced child abuse who are diagnosed with a mental health condition as a young person or adult.

Alistair Burt

The Government is fully committed to providing support for anyone who needs it, including those who have suffered child abuse, and aims to improve the data on prevalence of child sexual abuse so that commissioners are better able to ensure the most appropriate services are available. This includes improving available data on the prevalence of child abuse and related mental health issues, using the population-wide children and adolescent mental health survey, as well as a data collection specifically on the prevalence of child sexual abuse starting in certain targeted services.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-01-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Prime Minister’s announcement of 11 January 2016 on parenting classes, (a) how many hours of such classes will be provided to parents and (b) whether there will be a cost to parents participating in such classes.

Priti Patel

The Department will be working through the details of what will be provided by the contracted relationship support provision in the next few months.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-01-21.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much has been spent on treatment for drug and alcohol addiction in (a) each year since 2010 and (b) each month of 2015.

Jane Ellison

I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 14 January 2016 to Question 21900.

It is not possible to provide a breakdown of monthly spend on treatment for drug and alcohol addiction due to disproportionate cost.

“

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what guidance his Department provides to employers on supporting young apprentices with mental health conditions.

Nick Boles

Employers must fulfil their duties as set out in the Equality Act 2010 for apprentices as they would for other employees.

Under the Equality Act (2010), employers have a duty to make reasonable adjustments for employees with disabilities (including mental health impairment) in order to ensure that they have the same access to everything that involves gaining or keeping employment as a non-disabled person.

Advice is also available to help employers and training providers understand disabilities and how to better support disabled apprentices. We have funded NIACE to produce an employer toolkit http://www.employer-toolkit.org.uk/ for employers who want to develop a more inclusive and accessible apprenticeship offer.

An Apprenticeships Equality and Diversity Advisory group helps government understand and address any apprenticeship equality and diversity issues in order to reduce barriers and make apprenticeships as inclusive as possible.

“

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to improve the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme outcomes for the BAME population.

Alistair Burt

NHS England (NHSE) monitors clinical commissioning groups’ (CCGs) performance against the recovery target for people who have received psychological therapies through the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme. In October 2015, 77 CCGs met the 50% Recovery Standard.

The Department is working closely with NHSE to reduce the variation in recovery rates across CCG areas.

NHSE is also supporting lowest performing IAPT providers to improve their recovery rates and is offering workshops to spread good practice to all commissioners and providers.

The Government is aware of evidence that shows that people from Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities are less likely to use psychological therapies. There is ongoing activity by NHSE in collaboration with the Department to encourage access to IAPT services by the under-represented groups.

A BAME benchmarking tool has been developed and is currently being piloted by a number of IAPT services. This will assist services to improve access to people from BAME communities by helping those services understand the ethnicity of the population and whether this is reflected within the population they see. It asks services to assess whether outcomes for BAME communities are equivalent to non-BAME patients whilst also checking whether improvements for access to people from BAME communities have been made and specific training for therapists have been utilised. Once pilots are complete NHS England will publish the benchmarking tool for all services to access.

Equality of access is an issue for wider mental health services and that is why the Mental Health Partnership Board is considering the issues around equality of access in mental health services, which includes the IAPT programme.

The Health and Social Care Information Centre publish referrals and outcomes data by ethnic groups. NHSE intends to compare those numbers with BAME prevalence population data to highlight referrals and access rates for ethnic groups at CCG level. CCGs are responsible for taking the necessary actions to address any disparity.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what information his Department holds on the number of psychological therapists employed by the NHS who experienced workplace-related stress in each of the last five years.

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 2016-02-22.

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many deaths were recorded for which an eating disorder was mentioned on the death certificate in (a) the UK and (b) England in each year since 2010-11.

Mr Rob Wilson

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.