Tag: Luciana Berger

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-02-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of in which type of healthcare there is greatest geographical disparity of treatment (a) availability, (b) choice and (c) outcomes across England.

Jane Ellison

No such assessment has been made. However, the Right Care programme actively uses variation between clinical commissioning groups to help identify those diseases or conditions that have the potential for greatest improvement. Indicators used include prevalence, treatment and outcomes.

The NHS Atlas of Variation, Commissioning for Value Packs and indicators in the National Health Service Outcomes Framework and Public Health Outcomes Framework provide publicly accessible resources to compare geographical areas and highlight health inequalities and other variation across a wide variety of indicators.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-02-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the recommendations on employment support and the housing benefit cap on page 81 of the Mental Health Taskforce report, published in February 2016; and what steps he plans to take to implement those recommendations.

Justin Tomlinson

We welcome the Mental Health Taskforce Report, which sets out how important employment can be in supporting people with mental health conditions, and how to improve current services. We have already gone some way to implementing the recommendation on employment and are improving support by developing a new Work and Health programme, which will be providing employment support to claimants with a health condition or disability and the very long term unemployed. We are investing £43 million in a range of trials to develop our evidence base on what works for those with mental health conditions; and investing in increasing employment support in therapy services. The Prime Minister also recently announced over £50m investment to more than double the number of employment advisors in IAPT services, so that they are linked in to every talking therapy service in the country.

We will publish a White Paper later this year that will set out reforms to improve support for people with health conditions and disabilities, including exploring the roles of employers, to further reduce the disability employment gap and promote integration across health and employment.

We work closely with the supported housing sector to ensure they are supported as effectively as possible, and highly value the work they do. As part of this we have commissioned an evidence review of supported housing. The results of this research will determine our future policy development and any appropriate exemptions.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that (a) young people moving from CAMHS to adult services are supported and (b) there is a comprehensive transition plan for each such person.

Alistair Burt

The ambitious national programme of work as set out in Future in mind will see a system-wide transformation in children and young people’s mental health. This is specified in the Government’s Mandate to NHS England.

In taking this forward, NHS England has asked all clinical commissioning groups, working closely with their partners, to develop Local Transformation Plans to transform their local offer for mental health and wellbeing services for children and young people. These Plans must address the full spectrum of mental health: from prevention and resilience building, to support and care for existing and emerging mental health problems, as well as transitions between services, including moving from children to adult mental health services.

It is the responsibility of local providers to ensure an appropriate transition plan is in place for each individual that requires one. In 2015, NHS England published a non-mandatory service specification for transitions from child and adolescent mental health services. The aim of this sample specification is to support commissioners responsible for funding transitional services for adolescents with mental health problems. A copy of the guidance can be found at the following webpage:

www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/mod-transt-camhs-spec.pdf

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-03-04.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what safeguards his Department has in place to ensure that people with mental health problems who are unable to attend a work capability assessment or report to the jobcentre when requested due to their mental health problems do not have their benefits sanctioned as a result.

Priti Patel

Claimants with mental health conditions are considered “vulnerable”, therefore if they failed to attend a Work Capability Assessment, attempts will be made to contact them by telephone and, if appropriate, to arrange a “safeguarding home visit” before a decision on entitlement is made.

The Jobcentre Plus sanctions regime has a range of safeguards for vulnerable claimants, including ensuring all requirements are reasonable and taking into account individual capability and circumstances, such as mental health conditions.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-03-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, for what reasons the data in the Mental Health Services Data Set for adults are grouped together under clusters which do not align with NICE guidelines.

Alistair Burt

The clusters in which the data are grouped reflect the mental health clusters which are the mandated currencies for mental health services. These reflect groupings of service users with similar levels of need, and whose care will cost on average a similar amount. For the purposes of payment, Health and Social Care Information Centre reports by cluster are required.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-03-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will estimate the return on each pound invested in mental health research.

George Freeman

The estimated return on each pound invested by government and charities in mental health research is between 22 pence and 25 pence per annum. This consists of an estimate of the net value to the United Kingdom of the health benefit arising from the research of seven pence per annum, and the most recent estimate of the general economic benefit that arises from research of between 15 pence and 18 pence per annum for each pound invested.

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 8 in the executive summary of Public Health England’s March 2015 report entitled, Public mental health leadership and workforce development framework, on working with relevant colleges, faculties and boards overseeing professional training to include mental health within public health curricula.

Jane Ellison

Public Health England (PHE) has worked with the Faculty of Public Health (FPH), Royal Society for Public Health and Royal College of Psychiatrists in developing and implementing the public mental health leadership and workforce development framework. More recently the Royal College of Nursing, Chartered Institute for Environmental Health (CIEH), Association of Directors of Public Health (ADPH) and Institute for Health Visitors have endorsed the framework and signed up to its Call to Action. Mental health has been made a presidential priority for the FPH, CIEH and ADPH. PHE has provided information and guidance to inform the recent FPH curricula review, the Public Health Skills and Knowledge Framework review and the new Mental Health Skills and Knowledge Framework. PHE has also presented the framework to the United Kingdom People in Public Health Board, Skills for Care Mental Health Board, Health Education England Mental Health Advisory Board and the forthcoming Health Education England Public Health Advisory Board.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-04-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many Looked After Children were (a) referred to mental health services and (b) accepted for treatment by mental health services in each of the last five years.

Alistair Burt

This data has not been collected centrally. However, in February this year for the first time the Health and Social Care Information Centre began collecting a range of data about children and young people’s use of secondary mental health services via the new Mental Health Services Dataset. This includes data on whether children and young people using services are looked-after. Data quality and quantity will take time to build, but we expect a range of national reports to be developed during the course of 2016.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-04-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many autistic people in England have died by suicide in each of the last five years.

Alistair Burt

The information requested is not collected centrally.

Public Health England (PHE) published ‘Guidance for developing a local suicide prevention action plan’ in 2014. The guidance states the importance of developing multi-agency suicide prevention groups to ensure that local suicide prevention plans are informed by local intelligence and the needs of the local community. PHE is currently refreshing this guidance.

We welcomed the independent Mental Health Taskforce recommendation to ensure that all local areas have multi-agency suicide prevention plans in place by 2017.

The National Suicide Prevention Strategy (2012) stated that accessible, high-quality mental health services are fundamental to reducing the risk of suicide in people of all ages with mental health problems.

Last year, NHS England commissioned the world’s first Learning Disability Mortality Review Programme to support local areas to review deaths of people with learning disabilities and to use the information to improve service provision so that physical and mental health problems can be identified and addressed. The process is currently being piloted in the North East and Cumbria.

We have made monumental strides in the way we help manage conditions such as autism in this country and that is why we are working alongside people with autism, and their carers,

to make sure they have access to healthcare with adjustments made for their conditions. This is a focus of the Cross Government Autism Strategy which was revised in 2014 as Think Autism.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-04-29.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps the Government has taken to regulate unsolicited emails offering free online gambling opportunities.

David Evennett

The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 are clear that organisations may only send marketing emails to individuals if the individual has agreed to receive them, or where there is a clearly defined customer relationship and the recipient has been given a simple means of refusing the use of their contact details for the purposes of such marketing.

The Information Commissioner’s Office upholds the rules and regulations governing unsolicited emails, and offers advice to consumers on reporting abuses. The Gambling Commission has been working with the Information Commissioner’s Office to raise awareness of the rules across the gambling industry.