Tag: Luciana Berger

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-02-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the implications for the policies of the Cabinet Office of the recommendations of the Mental Health Taskforce report, published in February 2016.

Alistair Burt

We welcome the recommendations for government in the report and will be considering how best to integrate them into our work programme. There will be an impact on policies across Government in this period and, more importantly, a positive impact on people using mental health services.

The Mental Health Five Year Forward View Taskforce Report proposes, and we accept, investing over £1 billion of additional funding by 2020/21 to reach one million more people. There are a number of recommendations in the report which will have an impact on crisis care services, accident and emergency departments, mothers suffering from mental health problems, suicide prevention, children and young people’s mental health services, access to psychological therapies and the physical health of people with mental health problems. The £1 billion announced with the Taskforce report is the total annual cost for all areas in 2020/21.

Announcements on the development of policies, including those with reference to implementing the Mental Health Taskforce will be made in due course.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-02-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many people in England with severe mental illness are registered with a GP; and how many such people had an annual physical health check in each year since 2010.

Alistair Burt

This information is not available in the format requested.

The Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) is published annually, and includes mental health indicators, which capture information on patients with schizophrenia, bipolar affective disorder and other psychoses and other patients on lithium therapy. The information captured does not relate specifically to whether patients have received an ‘annual physical health check’, but does include counts of those patients who have a record of blood pressure, alcohol consumption, or body mass index (BMI).

The relevant indicators are available from the year 2011/12. The data in the table below are snapshots as at 31 March of the reporting year.

Number of patients included in the QOF mental health register with records of blood pressure, BMI and alcohol consumption – England 2011/12 – 2014/15

Year	Register1	BP record2	Alcohol consumption record2	BMI record2
2014/15	500,451	350,751	345,730	..
2013/14	483,933	354,146	337,603	336,373
2012/13	470,971	369,223	356,519	352,501
2011/12	452,608	355,834	335,922	335,652

Notes:

1. For the years 2013/14 and 2014/15, ‘register’ includes all patients with schizophrenia, bipolar affective disorder and other psychoses and other patients on lithium therapy. For the years 2011/12 and 2012/13, ‘register’ includes all patients with schizophrenia, bipolar affective disorder and other psychoses.

2. Blood pressure record, alcohol consumption record and BMI record include all those patients with schizophrenia, bipolar affective disorder and other psychoses who have a record of blood pressure, alcohol consumption and BMI respectively in the preceding 12 months for the years 2013/14 and 2014/15, and in the preceding 15 months for the years 2011/12 and 2012/13.

Due to the changes in the definitions of the register and indicators, the data from 2013/14 onwards are not comparable with data prior to this time.

The Health and Social Care Information Centre do not recommend using the figures provided to calculate percentages, for the following reasons:

― The register for 2013/14 to 2014/15 includes ‘other patients on lithium therapy’, while the blood pressure, alcohol consumption and BMI records do not consider these patients.

― The indicators are published as achievement scores in QOF; the calculation of these proportions includes consideration of exclusions and exceptions as defined in the framework, which are not reflected in the numbers presented here.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-03-01.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the mortality rate of people with mental health issues has been (a) nationally and (b) in each local authority in each year since 2010.

Alistair Burt

Information on the mortality rate of adults under 75 years old with serious mental illness in England and in each local authority in England between 2010/11 and 2013/14 is given in the attached table Mortality rate of people with mental health issues in (a) England and (b) in each local authority in England between 2010/11 and 2013/14.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-03-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many GP practices have a mental health specialist.

Alistair Burt

This information is not held centrally.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-03-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to increase the skills of nurses relating to treatment of people with learning disabilities.

Ben Gummer

It is the responsibility of the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) to set the standards and outcomes for education and training and approve training curricula to ensure newly qualified nurses are equipped with the knowledge, skills and attitudes to provide high quality patient care. This includes training in awareness of learning disabilities.

Higher Education Institutions are responsible for ensuring the programmes they provide allow healthcare students to meet the outcomes set out by the NMC upon graduation.

Health Education England (HEE) has been working with NHS England and other national partners to set out a far-reaching plan to transform services for people with a learning disability, to make significant and lasting improvements to their care and lives. At present, this is particularly focused on supporting the transforming care programme and scaling and spreading the lessons learnt from engagement with fast-track sites.

The Department has commissioned Skills for Health, Skills for Care and HEE to develop a Learning Disabilities Core Skills Education and Training Framework which will be launched in May and is aimed at all health and social care workers who have not received training in learning disabilities, especially those nurses from other fields of nursing such as adult, children and mental health nurses.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-03-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many and what proportion of mental health trusts provide mental health services and support by female staff in female only settings; what funding is provided for such services; and what minimum standards are required for training, supervision and support for staff and volunteers providing those services.

Alistair Burt

This information is not held centrally.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-03-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what progress he has made on implementing recommendation 10 in the executive summary of Public Health England’s March 2015 report entitled, Public mental health leadership and workforce development framework, on building the capacity of the National Mental Health Intelligence Network.

Jane Ellison

Progress on implementing recommendation 10, which is to build the mental health intelligence capability through the National Mental Health Intelligence Network (NMHIN) can be categorised into three sections and is as follows:

1) Capacity – NMHIN increased capacity in 2015/16 through NHS England investment. This enabled recruitment to work on additional/enhanced programmes on Crisis Care and Perinatal Mental Health and the first stage of a mental health Joint Strategic Needs Assessment toolkit. NHS England have committed to continue investment in 2016/17.

2) Products – the NMHIN has enhanced mental health intelligence capability through the development of;

a) Profiling tools (i.e. new tool on Suicide Prevention; expanded tool on Severe Mental Illness and Common Mental Health Disorders; updated tools which include; Children and Young People’s Mental Health and Wellbeing) and,

b) ntelligence products (i.e. Measuring Mental Wellbeing in Children and Young People).

3) Dissemination – the NMHIN has enabled more people to use mental health intelligence through a communication and training programme that provides: routine updates on products and work programmes, training sessions on using products, online access to video and document guides, and a programme of presentations that promote products and encourages use. The Public Health England Local Intelligence Service support this programme and increasingly a range of partners request sessions.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-04-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 11 April 2016 to Question 32447, what steps his Department has taken to check whether all the local transformation plans have been published online.

Alistair Burt

As part of NHS England’s robust assurance process for Local Transformation Plans (LTPs) all local areas were asked to publish their LTP in an accessible format and made widely available to improve transparency. As part of its quarter three monitoring process NHS England has asked that clinical commissioning groups submit the website address on which its LTP has been published. NHS England is currently reviewing that this has happened.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 18 April 2016 to Question 33901, if he will make it his policy to collect such information in future.

Alistair Burt

The Government is committed to improving perinatal mental health services, so that women are able to access the care they need at the right time and close to home.

NHS Digital (formerly the Health and Social Care Information Centre) is starting to collect information about perinatal mental health services in the new Mental Health Services Dataset and this will increase the amount of data about women’s contact with a range of mental health services during pregnancy and in the first year after birth. We expect that some initial data on perinatal mental health will be available later this year. We will use this initial information to refine how data on perinatal mental health is collected going forward.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, in which 15 areas the joint training programme to support lead contacts in mental health services and schools has been tested.

Alistair Burt

The Mental Health Services and Schools Link Pilots is testing a named single point of contact in 255 schools across 22 pilot areas and in local child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS), meaning more joined up working between schools and health services. There are more pilot sites than originally proposed as NHS England had more funding available than anticipated.

This has been backed by £3 million of government funding. These areas are listed below with indications of those with more than one clinical commissioning group (CCG):

– East Riding of Yorkshire

– Bedfordshire

– Camden

– Brighton

– Gloucester

– Waltham Forest

– Walsall

– Birmingham (covering three CCGs)

– Tower Hamlets

– Chiltern (covering two CCGs)

– Hammersmith & Fulham

– Wigan

– Somerset

– Tameside and Glossop

– Salford

– Haringey

– Sunderland

– Chiltern 2 (Aylesbury Vale)

– Hampshire

– Halton

– East and North Hertfordshire

– Sheffield

– South and East Cheshire (two CCGs)