Tag: Luciana Berger

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will publish the recent review into pathways for victims of sexual assault; and if he will make a statement.

Jane Ellison

The independent review of pathways for victims of sexual assault was commissioned by NHS England. Work on next steps, including production of a summary report, is ongoing.

Sexual Assault Referral Centres (SARCs) service models vary from area to area, dependant on the commissioning decisions taken by police and Police and Crime Commissioners in partnership with their NHS England commissioners. Data on the numbers of SARCs offering therapeutic services is not collected 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 how much clinical commissioning groups are overspending on mental health.

Alistair Burt

NHS England already collects information on clinical commissioning groups’ (CCGs’) planned spending on mental health through the annual CCG business planning and assurance process. NHS England also collects information on actual annual spend by CCGs through the programme budgeting process.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 7 December 2015 to Question 18596, if he will make it his policy to collect data on the proportion of the prison population who have mental health problems and identify as LGBT.

Ben Gummer

Health and wellbeing needs assessments provide information on the mental illness incidence in individual prisons. There is no current requirement for NHS England to record sexual orientation details in patient records, so no data on the proportion of prisoners with both mental health problems and who identify as LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) is known.

The Health and Social Care’s Information Centre’s Standardisation Committee for Care Information is currently considering a proposal for a mandatory requirement to record a patient’s sexual orientation in all NHS services.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what discussions he has had with the Care Quality Commission on collection and publication of data on mortality rates of over 75s in mental health trusts.

Alistair Burt

The Department’s ministers and officials meet with representatives of the Care Quality Commission (CQC) on a regular basis to discuss a wide range of issues, including mental health.

Currently, the CQC monitors various aspects of the mortality rate for over 75s. This age threshold was applied to take account of age within the analysis of indicators which relate to deaths that may have resulted from physical health problems, given that deaths due to natural causes are likely to increase with age.

The CQC are planning further work in 2016 to develop its approach to monitoring mortality among people in contact with trusts that provide mental health services.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-01-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what processes are in place to ensure that people with mental health problems have applications for start-up loans 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 adhere to Financial Conduct Authority Regulations on Treating Customers Fairly which include reference to the treatment of customers with mental health issues.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what discussions he has had on training and registering support dogs for people with mental health problems.

Alistair Burt

The Department has not had any discussions with assistance dog organisations on the training and registration of support dogs for people with mental health problems.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to the Prime Minister’s speech of 11 January 2016, on life chances, how the waiting time target for patients with psychosis will be monitored; and when the first results of that monitoring will be published.

George Freeman

The Early Intervention Psychosis access standard will be monitored via the new Mental Health Service Dataset which is managed and reported against by the Health and Social Care Information Centre.

As this is a new collection, reporting will be phased starting with basic counts in March 2016 and building in detail as quality is assured. In the meantime NHS England has implemented a bespoke collection to monitor progress against the referral to treatment element of the standard, the first report of which is likely to be available in March 2016.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to raise awareness of B12 vitamin deficiency.

Jane Ellison

The Department raises awareness of B12 vitamin deficiency through the NHS Choices website. It provides a comprehensive web-based health information service and provides advice on areas such as health and diet, including a section on vitamin B12.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidance states that information about awareness, diagnosis and treatment of vitamin B12 deficiency should also be provided by public health care professionals.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he plans to take to improve suicide prevention policies in response to the statistics on suicides in the UK, 2013 Registrations, published by the Office for National Statistics on 19 January 2016.

Alistair Burt

The Government has invested over £1.5 million on suicide and self-harm prevention research since the National Suicide Prevention Strategy to inform and target our strategy for reducing suicide rates.

In January last year, we asked local areas to aspire to an ambition of zero suicides, to raise awareness around mental health and suicide prevention in particular.

We are in the early stages of discussions about re-invigorating the National Strategy to drive local delivery. We are developing those plans for this, and will make an announcement shortly.

The highest cause of death in young men and women in England is death through suicide, and rapid skilled response through a well-publicised access route is essential to reduce mortality. The NHS111 Mental Health Programme has been set up specifically to improve services and NHS England is working with Mind and the Telephone Helplines Partnership to develop a training course designed by people with lived experience specifically to support 111 call handlers deliver the best possible response in times of crisis.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-02-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 5 January 2016 to Question 20189, what steps he plans to take to ensure that the thematic review and future monitoring of the Future in Mind policy address the needs of young carers to have more support for their mental health.

Alistair Burt

The purpose of the thematic review is to provide a qualitative assessment of how the Local Transformation Plans (LTPs), covering every clinical commissioning group (CCG), align with the Future in Mind principles to improve children and young people’s mental health, including the needs of young carers. It also aims to, where possible, identify local approaches that could inform future service planning and design in other areas to further improve children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing.

As set out in NHS England’s guidance to support the development of LTPs an integral part was for CCGs to include a tracking template that sets out local progress milestones and financial spend. This tracker will be used as the basis for assurance assessment in 2015/16, and from 2016/17 onwards progress on local transformation will become part of the mainstream planning assurance process to ensure the successful delivery of the transformation of children and young people’s mental health.