Tag: Luciana Berger

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.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-01-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 11 January 2016 to Question 21142, when (a) the provisional data referred to will be finalised and (b) the next set of data will be released.

Alistair Burt

My response to Parliamentary Question 21142 included data on attendances at accident and emergency departments covering January to September 2015 with data covering the period April to September 2015 labelled as provisional. However, my officials have advised me that data for the period January to March 2015 is also classed as provisional as the finalised data for this period is yet to be published. Provisional data is subject to change and allows for any revisions to be made throughout the year. The differences between provisional and finalised data are small, with variations of less than 1% on most figures extracted from Hospital Episode Statistics data.

Finalised data for 2014-15 will be published on January 28 2016. Finalised data for 2015-16 is expected to be published in January 2017, however, there is no approved schedule for final publication of these data as yet.

The next set of monthly provisional accident and emergency quality indicators data for October 2015 will be available on January 26 2016.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-01-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what criteria his Department uses to determine who receives Start-Up Loans; and what processes are in place to ensure that people with mental health problems have their applications considered fairly.

Anna Soubry

The Start-Up Loans programme provides loans and mentoring support to enable entrepreneurs aged 18 and over from all parts of society and based in the UK to start a business. So far, over 34,300 entrepreneurs have received support from the programme, which in turn has facilitated over £187 million worth of lending to date.

The programme operates through a network of Delivery Partners, who make individual lending decisions based on criteria set by the Start-Up Loans Company. Delivery Partners are required to be authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority. A condition of this authorisation is that they adhere to the FCA’s Treating Customers Fairly principles, which include reference to the treatment of customers with mental health issues.

A full list of principles is available on the FCA’s website

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-01-20.

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, with reference to the Prime Minister’s speech of 11 January 2016, on life chances, what period the £30 million social investment outcomes fund will cover; when that funding will become available; and to which bodies that funding will be made available.

Mr Rob Wilson

The Life Chances Fund is an £80m outcomes fund that will focus upon supporting the creation of locally developed social impact bonds tackling a range of social problems. In his speech, the Prime Minister announced that up to £30m of the Life Chances Fund would be made available to support drug and alcohol rehabilitation. The detailed criteria for the fund, including timescales, is being developed but it will provide a portion of outcome payments for locally commissioned social impact bonds where some of the benefits and savings generated fall to central government.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-02-01.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what advice his Department gives to employers on supporting employees who return to work after a period of mental illness.

Alistair Burt

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has published guidance on workplace health management practices. This guidance provides evidence based recommendations on improving the health and wellbeing of employees, and can support organisations to develop effective return to work policies. The guidance is complemented by earlier guidance published by NICE on promoting mental wellbeing at work.

Additionally, guidance on the NHS Choices website provides advice for line managers on supporting employees with long-term medical conditions, including those with mental health conditions. This can be found at the following link:

http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/workplacehealth/Documents/ChronicConds_LineManagers_Factsheet_A4.pdf

Public Health England is working with Business in the Community on a new resource for businesses focused specifically on addressing mental health issues building on the existing best practice and considering the transferable learning between business sectors and businesses of different sizes.

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-02-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether he has made an assessment of the effect of proposed changes to housing benefit on tenants in supported housing and their access to mental health services.

Alistair Burt

Shortly, we will be engaging colleagues across Government on the proposed changes to housing benefit. As the cross-Government lead, the Department for Work and Pensions is coordinating any work to understand the likely impact of the reforms.