Tag: Norman Lamb

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Norman Lamb on 2016-02-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 9 February 2016 to Question 25396, what communication Ministers of his Department have had with the Metropolitan Police Force and other forces which are not meeting service level agreement standards for the time taken to complete local disclosure checks.

Alistair Burt

My Ministerial colleagues and I have not had any communication with the Metropolitan Police and other forces on this matter. The Disclosure and Barring Service monitors the performance of all police disclosure units and works closely with any force, including the Metropolitan Police Service, not meeting its targets.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Norman Lamb on 2016-03-02.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what representations his Department has received on the practice of retoxification prior to their release of prisoners who have a history of drug addictions.

Ben Gummer

No representations have been made to the Department in respect of the retoxification of prisoners with a history of drug addiction prior to their release.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Norman Lamb on 2016-04-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much of the Government’s allocation of £1.4 billion mental health funding for children and young people will be spent in 2016-17; and if he will provide a detailed breakdown of that expenditure.

Alistair Burt

Of the £1.4 billion additional funding made available over the course of this parliament to improve children and young people’s mental health, £280 million has been allocated for 2016-17. The breakdown of this investment is as follows:

– £119 million has been allocated to clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) to transform local services through delivery of their local transformation plans;

– £30 million has been allocated to CCGs to develop community based eating disorder services for children and young people; and

– £131 million has been allocated centrally on workforce and system development to support local transformation plans.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Norman Lamb on 2016-06-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the timetable is for (a) collection and (b) publication of data on the ethnicity and age of targets, location and outcome of taser use by the police.

Mike Penning

Data is not recorded centrally on the number of times the police have deployed Taser devices on psychiatric wards. A Taser record is completed by police officers each time a Taser is used. However, this record does not currently show the detailed geographical or type of location.

Police Use of Taser statistics are published by the Home Office and most recently on 28 April 2016. These provide a snapshot of Taser use.

We have been very clear that the public need greater transparency and that is why the Home Secretary asked Chief Constable David Shaw to lead an in-depth review of the publication of Taser data and other use of force by police officers.

The review recommended that the police record and publish the ethnicity, age, location and outcome of all serious use of force by police officers, including physical restraint and Taser. Pathfinder forces started to collect this data from April this year, and it is anticipated that the collection will form part of the 2017-18 Home Office Annual Data Return.

A copy of Chief Constable David Shaw’s review will be placed in the House library. The review contained no data on the number of times the police have used Taser in mental health settings.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Norman Lamb on 2015-11-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the findings of the report, Disabled people’s experiences of social care, published by the disability charity Scope in November 2015.

Alistair Burt

The Department welcomes the report which was funded by the Department, NHS England and Public Health England, as part of the Health and Social Care Voluntary Sector Strategic Partnership Programme. The Department and its partners will use the findings of the report to review relevant policies to improve experiences and outcomes for people with disabilities.

The Care Act 2014 put personal budgets on a legal basis for the first time, including for disabled people and carers. This drives a focus on personalisation and increases opportunities for greater control and independence, so that people can choose care and support best suited to their needs.

The Care Act 2014 introduced a new national eligibility threshold which enables local authorities to maintain continuity of access to support for service users who move between local authorities. This threshold is set out in the Care and Support (Eligibility Criteria) Regulations 2015, and local authorities cannot tighten eligibility criteria beyond this threshold.

The Care Act 2014 contains a new duty for local authorities to provide independent advocacy to facilitate and support a person’s involvement in the care and support assessment, planning and review processes. Local authorities must also establish and maintain a service that provides information and advice relating to care and support for adults and support for carers.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Norman Lamb on 2015-12-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what account he has made of the reason for the failure to meet ambulance response time targets for Red 1 999 emergencies between June 2015 and September 2015; and if he will make a statement.

Jane Ellison

Ambulance services are experiencing a significant increase in demand compared with previous years.

NHS England and trusts are responding to this challenge with a number of measures including the Ambulance Response Programme which enables trusts to provide a more clinically appropriate response to patients.In 2014/15, there were 1,048,500 more ambulance journeys compared with 2009/10 (2,800 per day). There are now almost 2,000 more paramedics compared to 2010.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Norman Lamb on 2016-02-02.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to ensure that adult mental health services have the expertise to support young people with attachment disorders.

Alistair Burt

Clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) have responsibility for the commissioning of comprehensive secondary adult mental health services. The exact nature of support available will vary by CCG and be subject to local decision making. NHS England’s programme of work to develop mental health access and waiting time standards spans all ages with a focus on enabling timely access to care delivered in line with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommendations.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Norman Lamb on 2016-02-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 9 February 2016 to Question 25396, if she will place in the Library a copy of the formal monthly performance reports provided by the Disclosure and Barring Service in each of the last six months.

Karen Bradley

The operational performance plans of police disclosure units are matters for Chief Constables in association with Police and Crime Commissioners.

The DBS regularly publishes detailed datasets showing statistics against internal performance standards which form the basis of its monthly reports to the Home Office. This includes performance against their target to issue 95% of all disclosures within 56 days and the number of disclosure applications in progress each month. This can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/dbs-dataset-1-disclosure-progress-information-disclosed-and-update-service-subscriptions.

DBS also publishes datasets showing statistics against service level agreements with police forces. These apply to the performance of police disclosure units and can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/dbs-dataset-5-police-disclosure-unit-performance.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Norman Lamb on 2016-03-14.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what discussions he has had with mental health charities on the potential effect of the removal of mental health quality premium measures in NHS England’s Quality Premium Guidance 2016-17 on mental health outcomes.

Alistair Burt

The 2016/17 Quality Premium (QP) scheme has been designed to support the delivery of the major priorities for the National Health Service, as set out in the Five Year Forward View and in the NHS Mandate. The QP scheme is reviewed annually, with the intention of having a range of high impact measures addressing a range of priorities across the Five Year Forward View.

However, there is scope for clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) to focus on mental health, if this is a local priority area in 2016/17. Each CCG is expected to select three local indicators from a menu of suitable measures aligned to the Right Care programme, which sets out a clinically led methodology for improvement and reducing variation in care. This menu includes 17 mental health indicators.

The QP scheme is a part of NHS England’s wider incentive system, including the Commissioning for Quality and Innovation scheme, which includes an incentive focussing on improving the physical health for patients with severe mental illness.

As the QP will be retaining mental health as an indicator there has been no new assessment of the effect of removing.

While there have not yet been any formal meetings with mental health charities about this, following the Mental Health Taskforce report, NHS England are keen to work with stakeholders-including mental health charities- to develop a new and robust mental health indicator for potential inclusion in the 2017/18 QP. This will align with the additional funding to drive improvements in ‘Improved Access to Psychological Therapies’ access from April 2017.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Norman Lamb on 2016-04-26.

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, for what reasons the exemption from the anti-lobbying clause is limited to Research Councils, National Academies and the Higher Education Funding Council for England; and if he will delay the implementation of that clause until a full consultation has taken place.

Matthew Hancock

As I made clear in the House on 27 April, we are continuing to consider the comments of all interested parties, ahead of the introduction into grant agreements of the clause aimed at protecting taxpayers’ money from being wasted on government lobbying government. We are pausing the implementation, pending a review of the representations made, and to give further time to consider any necessary adjustments to the wording of the clause, or the policy on its implementation, to help to deliver this policy in the best possible way for all involved.