Tag: Valerie Vaz

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Valerie Vaz on 2016-05-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department plans to change provision of the Post Office Card Account.

Priti Patel

Post Office Card Accounts provide a useful service to many people and there are no plans to change provision.

The Department recognises, however, that working age claimants may also be receiving wages. As the account does not receive wages or allow for direct debit or standing order facilities, Post Office Card Accounts are not suitable for all of their needs. Those claimants are therefore being encouraged to open main stream bank accounts including credit union accounts.

The Post Office Card Account contract was awarded from 01 December 2014 and expires on 30 November 2021 and there are no plans to amend that term.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Valerie Vaz on 2016-02-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many people under the age of 18 have epilepsy.

Jane Ellison

The Department does not collect this information centrally. The Joint Epilepsy Council in Epilepsy prevalence, incidence and other statistics, (December 2011) estimated that around one in 220 (0.5%) children under the age of 18 have epilepsy in the United Kingdom.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Valerie Vaz on 2016-05-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department plans that the Post Office Card Account will be available until 2021.

Priti Patel

Post Office Card Accounts provide a useful service to many people and there are no plans to change provision.

The Department recognises, however, that working age claimants may also be receiving wages. As the account does not receive wages or allow for direct debit or standing order facilities, Post Office Card Accounts are not suitable for all of their needs. Those claimants are therefore being encouraged to open main stream bank accounts including credit union accounts.

The Post Office Card Account contract was awarded from 01 December 2014 and expires on 30 November 2021 and there are no plans to amend that term.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Valerie Vaz on 2016-02-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what discussions his Department has had with NHS England on its decision not to renew the position of National Clinical Director for Adult Neurology from March 2016.

Jane Ellison

Sir Bruce Keogh, NHS England’s Medical Director, has undertaken a review of the National Clinical Director (NCD) resource designed to focus clinical advisory resources on areas where major programmes of work are currently being taking forward, or areas identified as priorities for improvement. As a result NHS England has proposed to change the way in which clinical advice is received in speciality areas in the future.

Where there will no longer be a specific NCD role, NHS England will secure expert clinical advice from its clinical networks, through its relationships with professional bodies and by appointing clinical advisors. For neurology, it is planned that advice will be provided through a range of sources such as: clinical leads and members of the NHS England-funded neurology clinical networks; the Neurology Clinical Reference Group; and the Royal Colleges. It is expected that these new arrangements will be in place from 1 April 2016.

The Neurology Intelligence Network (NIN) is a joint partnership programme between Public Health England (PHE) and NHS England to support the generation and dissemination of neurology-related health intelligence. The NIN, which is currently funded by PHE, faces no change to its current resource for the next financial year.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Valerie Vaz on 2016-07-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate she has made of the proportion of student loan borrowers who took out their loan after 2012 who have read the contract terms contained in a separate online document.

Joseph Johnson

All borrowers applying for support must sign a declaration to confirm that they have read and understood the terms and conditions that apply to their loans.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Valerie Vaz on 2016-02-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how the Accelerated Access Review will ensure that people with epilepsy will have access to drugs found by whole genome sequencing to be effective in treating the cause of their individual epilepsy.

George Freeman

The Accelerated Access Review, chaired by Sir Hugh Taylor, will make recommendations to government on reforms to accelerate access for National Health Service patients to innovative medicines and medical technologies making our country the best place in the world to design, develop and deploy these products. The terms of the reference for the review focus on faster access to innovations, which may include drugs identified through whole genome sequencing as effective for the treatment of epilepsies affecting individual patients.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Valerie Vaz on 2016-07-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department plans to alter the terms and conditions of student loans for existing borrowers.

Joseph Johnson

My department has no current plans to alter the terms and conditions of student loans for existing borrowers.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Valerie Vaz on 2016-02-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many people with epilepsy have been offered a personalised care plan since 2013 in accordance with the Department of Health’s mandate to NHS England; and what steps he is taking to increase the number of such people.

Jane Ellison

This information is not available in the format requested. The GP Patient Survey measures the number of patients with a long term condition (LTC) who say they have care and support plans.

NHS England advises that information from the patient survey for 2013/14 shows that of the 9,540 people with epilepsy that responded, 15% (1,463) reported they had a care plan, whilst 79% said no and 6% did not know. This survey does not record the number of people who were offered a care plan but did not feel they needed or wanted one.

As set out in our Mandate to NHS England, all patients with a LTC should be offered a personalised care plan.

To deliver this, NHS England is implementing the House of Care model for care planning, which takes into account the expertise and resources of the people with LTCs and their communities to provide a holistic approach to their lives and help them achieve the best outcomes possible.

NHS England has developed tools and guidance on personalised care planning and provided examples of delivery for the local National Health Service. They have also provided a LTC dashboard providing a wealth of data about LTCs in each local area, helping clinical commissioning groups to plan services for local people.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Valerie Vaz on 2016-07-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent discussions he has had with the governments of (a) India and (b) Pakistan on the current situation in Kashmir.

Alok Sharma

The former Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my Rt Hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Mr Swire) was deeply saddened by recent reports of unrest in Kashmir, and offered his condolences to the victims and their families. Our High Commission in Delhi is monitoring the situation closely and we have updated our travel advice. The Pakistani Foreign Secretary briefed our High Commissioner along with other P5 Ambassadors on Pakistan’s views on the current situation in Kashmir on 12 July.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Valerie Vaz on 2016-02-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will ensure continued Government funding for the Neurology Intelligence Network through NHS England and Public Health England.

Jane Ellison

Sir Bruce Keogh, NHS England’s Medical Director, has undertaken a review of the National Clinical Director (NCD) resource designed to focus clinical advisory resources on areas where major programmes of work are currently being taking forward, or areas identified as priorities for improvement. As a result NHS England has proposed to change the way in which clinical advice is received in speciality areas in the future.

Where there will no longer be a specific NCD role, NHS England will secure expert clinical advice from its clinical networks, through its relationships with professional bodies and by appointing clinical advisors. For neurology, it is planned that advice will be provided through a range of sources such as: clinical leads and members of the NHS England-funded neurology clinical networks; the Neurology Clinical Reference Group; and the Royal Colleges. It is expected that these new arrangements will be in place from 1 April 2016.

The Neurology Intelligence Network (NIN) is a joint partnership programme between Public Health England (PHE) and NHS England to support the generation and dissemination of neurology-related health intelligence. The NIN, which is currently funded by PHE, faces no change to its current resource for the next financial year.