The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-05-18.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether there is a team within his Department with specific responsibility for children and young people’s mental health.
Alistair Burt
Yes, there is a team within the Department with specific responsibility for those areas of policy on children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing for which the Secretary of State for Health is accountable.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-06-13.
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what information his Department holds on which organisations have offered mental health support to veterans in (a) England, (b) Merseyside and (c) Liverpool in each year since 2010.
Mark Lancaster
In the UK, primary responsibility for the provision of healthcare, including mental healthcare, for veterans rests with the NHS in England and the Devolved Administrations. Funding of mental healthcare for veterans is a matter for the NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups in England and their equivalents in the Devolved Administrations. These bodies will hold information on the organisations providing mental healthcare to veterans in the UK.
The Ministry of Defence provides advice, information and signposting to support services for veterans though its Veterans UK web pages and free telephone helpline service and we encourage veterans wishing to seek help with mental health problems to visit: www.gov.uk/mental-health-support-for-the-uk-armed-forces or call the 24-hour veterans’ mental health helpline on 0800 138 1619.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-07-18.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 1 July 2016 to Question 40562, if his Department will publish details of which stakeholders it plans to engage with before publishing its response to the consultation on healthcare student funding.
Mr Philip Dunne
The healthcare education funding reforms is a transformative policy with cross-cutting implications for both health and education sectors. Through agreed governance arrangements, the Department of Health, the Department for Education and HM Treasury have worked with health and education partners ahead of publishing the Government response.
A list of respondents to the public consultation is included in the Government response published on 21 July 2016.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-09-14.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many deaths by suicide in each age group have been recorded within one month of being released from prison in England in each year since 2010.
Nicola Blackwood
This information is not held centrally.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-10-17.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the proportion of the population affected by (a) foetal alcohol syndrome and (b) foetal alcohol spectrum disorder in (a) Liverpool, Wavertree constituency, (b) Liverpool, (c) the Liverpool City Region and (d) England.
Mr Philip Dunne
The Department has made no estimate of the proportion of the population affected by Foetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) or Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) in England, regionally or locally.
The diagnosis for babies born with FAS may not be made easily at birth, and problems may present only later in childhood, for example at school. Estimates for the incidence of FASD are still more uncertain and relate to the lack of consensus on diagnostic criteria for these conditions.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-10-19.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will make it his policy to include in the Government’s mandate to NHS England for 2017-18 an explicit requirement to reduce premature mortality among people with autism.
David Mowat
NHS England is due to publish data from the Clinical Commissioning Group Improvement and Assessment Framework. These data, include indicators on mental health and learning disabilities that relate to the objectives set out in the mandate to NHS England. My Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health will publish his Annual Assessment of NHS England, including progress against the mandate objectives, at the end of this financial year. The 2017-18 mandate to NHS England, including agreed future objectives for NHS England, will be published in due course.
The ‘Think Autism’ Adult Autism Strategy for England set out a clear, cross-Government programme of action, developed with people with autism to improve lives, reduce premature mortality and reduce the health gap for people with autism. This would be achieved through better access to healthcare for people with autism and by making improvements to services. In January 2016, a cross-Government Report on progress on implementation of the Think Autism Strategy was published which set out new recommendations for going forward.
The Department is represented on the Study Steering Committee for the SHAPE (Supporting adults with High-functioning Autism and Asperger syndrome) project. This is a national study led by the Social Policy Research Unit at the University of York. Stage 1 of the project aims to describe and map provision of autism services in England which fulfil the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s description of a Specialist Autism Team. A report will be published shortly including information about the service models and care pathways which different localities have implemented.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2015-10-19.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many NHS (a) doctors and (b) nurses have been signed off work due to (i) stress and (ii) other mental illness in each of the last five years.
Ben Gummer
The Department does not collect centrally data on how many doctors and nurses have been signed off work due to stress and other mental illness.
Employers across the National Health Service are responsible for reducing staff absences due to stress and mental illness through local sickness absence policies.
NHS England recently launched "A healthy NHS workforce"[1], a commitment in its Five Year Forward View[2] "to ensure the NHS as an employer sets a national example in the support it offers its own staff to stay healthy".
Working with Public Health England and NHS Employers, NHS England aims to improve NHS staff health spearheaded by a group of provider and commissioner organisations. Work will include ensuring board level leadership and engagement as well as line manager training to increase awareness of mental health issues, helping them manage staff in a way which is supportive to health and wellbeing.
The Department continues to commission NHS Employers to help trusts improve staff mental health and wellbeing through advice, guidance and good practice[3].
The launch in July of NHS Employers’ How are you feeling NHS? Toolkit[4] enables staff to talk more openly about their emotional health, helps trusts improve the assessment of the impact emotional wellbeing has on staff and patients and supports action planning to improve staff emotional health and wellbeing.
[1] https://www.england.nhs.uk/2015/09/02/nhs-workplace/
[2] https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/5yfv-web.pdf
[3] http://www.nhsemployers.org/search-results?q=supporting+staff+who+are+experiencing+mental+health+issues
[4] http://www.nhsemployers.org/your-workforce/retain-and-improve/staff-experience/health-work-and-wellbeing/protecting-staff-and-preventing-ill-health/how-are-you-feeling-nhs-toolkit
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2015-10-23.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much of the funding distributed by NHS England to improve eating disorder services has been spent; and what that funding has been spent on.
Alistair Burt
For 2015/16, NHS England has distributed £30 million to clinical commissioning groups in order to improve services for children and young people with eating disorders. The funding will be used to reduce waiting times and to improve the way in which services are delivered for people with eating disorders. A specific aim is to move towards providing specialist care on an out-patient basis so that fewer young people will need admission to hospital. The expectation is this will improve outcomes and allow more young people to receive treatment closer to home.
Clinical commissioning groups have led the development of Local Transformation Plans for Children and Young People’s Mental Health and Wellbeing that include plans for how the eating disorder allocation will be spent. The deadline for submission was Friday 16 October and the plans are being assured by NHS England’s regional assurance teams. Expenditure will be monitored against the plans over the remainder of the financial year.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2015-10-19.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what discussions (a) he and (b) officials in his Department have had with the Department for Work and Pensions on the time taken to discharge patients from mental health inpatient care due to delays in the payment of benefits.
Alistair Burt
There have been no discussions between the Department and the Department for Work and Pensions at either ministerial or official level about the time taken to discharge patients from mental health inpatient care due to delays in the payment of benefits.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2015-10-23.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department has taken to prepare for the introduction of the waiting time standards for eating disorder services by 2020.
Alistair Burt
NHS England and the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health published on 3 August 2015, a commissioning guide for clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) that will set out how to implement the access and waiting time standard for children and young people with an eating disorder.
The standard is for treatment to be received within a maximum of four weeks from first contact with a designated healthcare professional for routine cases and within one week for urgent cases. In cases of emergency, the eating disorder service should be contacted to provide support within 24 hours.
The guidance is supported by £30 million of recurrent funding, which NHS England has already distributed to CCGs.
The ability of services to meet this standard will be monitored in 2016. The standard will be refined for implementation from 2017–18. From 2017, NHS England will set a minimum proportion of young people referred for assessment or treatment that are expected to receive treatment within the standard’s timeframe. Data collected in 2016 will help inform incremental percentage increases, with the aim of 95% of patients being treated within the standard’s timescale by 2020.