Tag: Parliamentary Question

  • Philip Davies – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Philip Davies – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Philip Davies on 2015-11-23.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to improve mental health support and services for looked-after children.

    Alistair Burt

    Future in Mind, the previous Government’s report on the work of the Children and Young People’s Mental Health and Wellbeing Taskforce, established a clear and powerful consensus for change across the whole system, including health, social care and education. This Government is driving forward the transformation of children and young people’s mental health services to improve access and make services more widely available across the country so that, where possible, children can access high-quality support locally.

    This transformation programme, backed by additional investment of £1.4 billion allocated over the next five years, will deliver a step change in the way children and young people’s mental health services are commissioned and delivered. Emphasis will be placed on prevention and early intervention, building care around the needs of children, young people and their families, including the most vulnerable, such as those who are looked-after and adopted.

    Clinical commissioning groups, covering all areas in the country, have submitted Transformation Plans for children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing developed with local partners which are currently being assured by NHS England.

    A national programme of work will support local areas. This will include the extension and expansion of the use of evidence-based interventions, tacking stigma, improving data and information to inform greater transparency and accountability and developing a specialist and stronger workforce.

  • Lord Rana – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    Lord Rana – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Rana on 2015-12-14.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the efficacy of UK aid to India in 2015.

    Baroness Verma

    The UK can be proud of the results that its aid to India continues to achieve. For example, during the five years to 2015, UK aid has ensured that over 3.5 million pregnant women and children under 5 are covered by nutrition programmes in eight low income states; that over 1.3 million people have sustainable access to improved sanitation; and that over 600,000 additional people have access to low carbon energy.

  • Wes Streeting – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Wes Streeting – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Wes Streeting on 2016-01-25.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, which parliamentary constituencies she has visited in her official capacity since the May 2015 general election; and on which dates and for what purposes those visits were made.

    Karen Bradley

    Home Office Ministers and officials have meetings with a wide variety of international partners, as well as organisations and individuals in the public and private sectors, as part of the process of policy development and delivery.

    Details of Ministerial meetings are passed to the Cabinet Office on a quarterly basis and are subsequently published on the Gov.uk website: http://data.gov.uk/dataset/ministerial-data-home-office

  • Baroness Finlay of Llandaff – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Baroness Finlay of Llandaff – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Finlay of Llandaff on 2016-02-22.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what discussions they have held in the last year with Health Education England about ensuring that all GPs gain experience in children and young people’s health during their initial training, as suggested by CLIC Sargent’s report The best chance from the start: improving support to identify cancer in children and young people.

    Lord Prior of Brampton

    Health Education England’s (HEE) mandate sets out the Government’s strategic priorities for workforce planning, education, training and development in the health and public health system. These objectives and priorities are published on an annual basis. Officials are currently discussing the next HEE mandate.

    Within their three year training programme, about half of all General Practitioner (GP) trainees undertake a dedicated hospital placement in paediatrics. In addition, there are various initiatives around the country to increase access to child health training. These include clinics jointly staffed with paediatric and GP trainees, paediatric outreach clinics and multi-disciplinary meetings in GP surgeries led by paediatric consultants. A variety of e-learning, including the MindEd package – a free educational resource on children and young people’s mental health, is available.

    It is the responsibility of the General Medical Council (GMC) to set the standards and outcomes for the education and training of doctors and to approve training curricula to ensure newly qualified doctors are equipped with the knowledge, skills and attitudes to provide high quality patient care. HEE will work with bodies that set curricula such as the GMC and the Royal College of General Practitioners to seek to ensure general practice training meets the needs of patients.

    The independent Cancer Taskforce published its report, Achieving World-Class Cancer Outcomes in July last year, which recognised the importance of earlier diagnosis for patients of all ages and contains specific recommendations for children, teenagers and young adults. NHS England has appointed Cally Palmer as NHS National Cancer Director to lead the implementation of a five year Strategy based on the recommendations in the report. Whilst the Taskforce was independent, the Department of Health and all of its Arm’s Length Bodies were represented on it and contributed to development of the Strategy.

    NHS England is now developing its work programme to take forward the recommendations in the Strategy. There have been no discussions with Monitor as this falls outside their remit.

  • Lord Kennedy of Southwark – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    Lord Kennedy of Southwark – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Kennedy of Southwark on 2016-03-17.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the difference between a local authority being able to recover (1) its expenses, and (2) its reasonable costs, in matters relating to its duties around housing legislation.

    Baroness Williams of Trafford

    Local housing authorities incur a range of costs when carrying out their statutory homelessness duties. They have powers to require households to pay reasonable costs towards both the accommodation that it secures for them and property storage costs, however they cannot require households to pay actual costs where these are more than those determined to be reasonable. Authorities determine what constitutes a reasonable cost by taking account of a household’s personal circumstances, its finances and the nature of the accommodation.

  • Greg Mulholland – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    Greg Mulholland – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Mulholland on 2016-04-15.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate she has made of the number of councils in England that provide doorstep glass collection.

    Rory Stewart

    Estimates on the number of kerbside collections of glass in the dry recycling stream are collated by the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP). Data for 2014/15 shows that in England the number of authorities providing a kerbside collection for glass was 290 (89% of English authorities). This represented 19,768,943 (85%) of all households within England.

  • Oliver Colvile – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Oliver Colvile – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Oliver Colvile on 2016-05-24.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what measures his Department uses to identify how often people with a diagnosis of epilepsy receive treatment from a consultant or nurse.

    Jane Ellison

    There are no national measures or means by which the Department monitors frequency of patients reviews, either by consultants or nurses. Guidance is issued by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence however this does not replace the skills and knowledge of health professionals in managing patients. The arrangements for the management and follow up of people with epilepsy are a local matter and decisions on the frequency with which patients are seen should be made on a case by case basis, taking into account the individual circumstances of each patient.

    NHS England advises that the maximum wait for outpatients to receive a neurology appointment is 12 weeks currently. Additionally 92% of patients are being seen under the specified ‘Referral To Treatment’ waiting times of 18 weeks which is within the national target.

    The information on the number of people with epilepsy in Plymouth is not available in the format requested.

  • The Earl of Listowel – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The Earl of Listowel – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by The Earl of Listowel on 2016-07-11.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many care leavers under the age of 25 in each local authority area in England received Discretionary Housing Payments in 2015–16.

    Lord Freud

    The information requested is not available.

  • Hugo Swire – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Hugo Swire – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Hugo Swire on 2016-10-07.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to increase the number of (a) doctors and (b) nurses recruited by the NHS.

    Mr Philip Dunne

    The responsibility for recruitment and staffing rests with National Health Service organisations as they are best placed to ensure they have the right staff, in the right place, at the right time to provide safe and effective care for their patients.

    On 4 October 2016 the Secretary of State for Health announced that from September 2018, the Government will fund up to 1,500 additional undergraduate medical places through university medical schools each year.

    In November 2015 reforms to nursing, midwifery and allied health pre-registration training was announced, the reforms aim to increase the number of training places by up to 10,000 by the end of the Parliament.

    As outlined in its Workforce Plan for 2016-17, Health Education England has increased the overall volume of education and training with, in excess of, 38,000 new training places in 2016-17 for nurses, scientists, and therapists, and there are now over 50,000 doctors and dentists currently in training.

    The latest workforce statistics published by NHS Digital for June 2016 show that since May 2010, there are now almost 22,700 more professionally qualified clinical staff working in NHS trusts and clinical commissioning groups, including over 8,500 more doctors and 4,600 more nurses and midwives.

  • Adam Afriyie – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Adam Afriyie – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Adam Afriyie on 2015-11-23.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he has taken to encourage higher donor registration among (a) all people and (b) mixed ethnicity donors to the UK stem cell and bone marrow register.

    Jane Ellison

    Since 2012, the Department has provided nearly £19 million to improve the provision of stem cells in the United Kingdom for all people. This funding has enabled the recruitment of over 75,000 young male donors who are more likely to be able to donate bone marrow and we continue to expand the pool of young male donors.

    The stem cell improvement programme has directly addressed the difficulty faced by patients from the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) community and those with mixed ethnicity through targeted recruitment. The Department also continues to support the work of the National BAME Transplant Alliance. The programme has also funded the collection of umbilical cord blood samples, which has a specific target to achieve 40% of samples come from BAME and mixed ethnicity births.