Tag: Wes Streeting

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Wes Streeting on 2015-11-03.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of trends in the level of home ownership since 2010.

Brandon Lewis

Annual home ownership statistics are published in the Department’s English Housing Survey. We are committed to one million more first time buyers over this Parliament, doubling the number achieved in the last Parliament. We are currently at a seven-year annual high with 264,500 first time buyers in England in 2014.

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

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether his Department has made representations to the Bank of England regarding the regulation of any specific bank since May 2015.

Harriett Baldwin

The Prudential Regulation Authority is a subsidiary of the Bank of England and operationally independent of Government.

Treasury Ministers and officials meet regularly with the Prudential Regulation Authority to discuss relevant regulatory issues.

As was the case with previous Administrations, it is not the Treasury’s practice to provide details of all such discussions.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Wes Streeting on 2016-07-21.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many NHS trusts failed to provide data on referral to treatment times in each year since May 2010.

Mr Philip Dunne

Patients have a legal right, set out in the NHS Constitution, to start consultant-led treatment within a maximum of 18 weeks from referral for non-urgent conditions.

Since May 2010, performance has been measured against one or more of the following operational standards:

― 92% of patients who have not yet started treatment should have been waiting within 18 weeks from referral (the incomplete pathway standard, introduced from April 2012 and the current measure of performance).

― 90% of patients admitted to hospital should have started consultant-led treatment within 18 weeks from referral (the admitted pathway standard, introduced from April 2008 and abolished in practice from June 2015 and in legislation in October 2015).

― 95% of non-admitted patients (outpatients or patients on pathways that end without treatment) should have started consultant-led treatment within 18 weeks from referral (the non-admitted pathway standard, introduced from April 2008 and abolished in practice from June 2015 and in legislation in October 2015).

To monitor performance against these standards, organisations that provide NHS services that fall within the scope of referral to treatment, including NHS trusts and NHS foundation trusts, are required to submit a monthly return to NHS England. Admitted and non-admitted data are still collected but are no longer used for monitoring against standards.

The NHS Standard Contract includes a comprehensive requirement on providers to submit all nationally-mandated datasets. However, from time to time trusts need to implement new IT systems and temporarily suspend submissions of data for technical reasons.

The following table shows the number of NHS trusts and NHS foundation trusts that did not report referral to treatment data in one or more months in each financial year from 2010-11.

Table: number¹ of NHS trusts² and NHS foundation trusts² that did not report referral to treatment data in one or more months of each financial year from 2010-11

Year	Admitted pathway data	Non-admitted pathway data	Incomplete pathway data
2010-11	1	1	5
2011-12	1	1	3
2012-13	1	1	4
2013-14	6	63	7
2014-15	9	9	12
2015-16	14	15	16

Source: NHS England, consultant-led referral to treatment waiting times

Notes:

1. Table shows the total number of different trusts not reporting data in a year and not the maximum number of trusts not reporting in anyone month.
2. The same trust could have been a non-reporter in more than one month.
3. Tameside Hospital NHS Foundation Trust did not report February 2014 non-admitted data in 2013-14. The data was submitted in a later revision to the dataset.
4. Each year is April to May. Two trusts that did not report incomplete pathways data in April 2010 also did not report data in some subsequent months of 2010-11.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Wes Streeting on 2015-12-14.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many (a) MRI scanners and (b) computerised tomography scanners there are in England; where each such scanner is; and how old each such scanner is.

George Freeman

Information on the number, age and location of magnetic resonance imaging scanners and computerised tomography scanners is not collected centrally.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Wes Streeting on 2016-01-27.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the number of open MRI scanners available to the NHS in each region.

Jane Ellison

We do not hold information centrally about the number of open magnetic resonance imaging scanners in each region and so no estimate has been made.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Wes Streeting on 2016-10-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, what estimate he has made of the cost of negotiations with the EU in the two years after Article 50 is invoked.

Mr Robin Walker

Detailed work is underway to establish the budget required to fulfil the department’s responsibilities over the period of the Spending Review. The budget will be set out to the House of Commons and approved as part of the Supplementary Estimates in the new year, as is standard practice.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Wes Streeting on 2015-12-14.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what advice (a) Monitor and (b) the Trust Development Authority has issued to NHS trusts in England about postponing elective operations and outpatient appointments during the winter period.

Jane Ellison

As in previous winters Jim Mackey, head of NHS Improvement (which includes both Monitor and the Trust Development Authority) sent a letter to NHS Foundation Trust and NHS Trust Chief Executive Officers on 3 December 2015.

The letter suggested as a guide to aim for 20% unoccupied general and acute bed capacity by Christmas Eve and stated that this might involve rescheduling of elective work. Winter always places extra demand on the NHS and we are working hard with hospitals to ensure they are fully prepared to meet this challenge. Managing planned non-emergency operations and helping patients to get out of hospital more quickly are examples of how hospitals can make sure they have enough free beds to cope with the rising number of patients needing emergency care that the winter period often brings.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Wes Streeting on 2016-01-26.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what meetings he has had with external organisations on Google’s tax arrangements in the last 12 months.

Mr David Gauke

Details of ministerial and permanent secretary meetings with external organisations on departmental business are published on a quarterly basis and are available on GOV.UK.

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) is responsible for the conduct of enquiries, and Ministers are not informed of the progress of enquiries and play no part in agreeing the amount of tax to be paid by any taxpayer. HMRC is transparent about how conducts its enquiries and resolves matters under dispute. HMRC publish a Litigation and Settlement Strategy which prevents them from accepting a smaller settlement than they would expect to get in court.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Wes Streeting on 2015-12-14.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much (a) NHS England, (b) Public Health England, (c) Monitor and (d) the Care Quality Commission has spent on overseas visits since 2012-13; and what the date, destination and purpose was of each such visit.

Jane Ellison

Using information from central travel systems the Arm’s Length Bodies have advised their costs for the years specified. Costs for 2015-2016 will be available after the end of the financial year.

(a) NHS England

Since 2012-13 NHS England has spent £167,492.78 on overseas travel. See attached spreadsheet for a breakdown of the costs including date, destination and purpose of visit. A summary table of annual costs is included here.

Cost of overseas travel 2012/13 – 2015/16 – NHS England

Financial Year	Total Spend
2012 -2013	–
2013 – 2014	£97,389.30
2014 – 2015	£70,103.48
Total	£167,492.78

(b)Public Health England

Since 2012-13 Public Health England has spent £2,991,553.00 20 on overseas travel. See attached table for a breakdown of destination and type of cost. Detail of individual trips can only be supplied at disproportionate cost. PHE is the lead for the UK on International Health Regulations, which extends to playing its part in protecting the UK from international health hazards, most obviously from communicable diseases. PHE’s expert scientific and medical staff are routinely deployed across the world, for example: to respond to public health incidents of international concern, such as with the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN). A summary table of annual costs is included here.

Cost of overseas travel 2012/13 – 2015/16 – Public Health England

Financial Year	Total Spend
2012 -2013	–
2013 – 2014	£1,565,958
2014 – 2015	£1,425,595
Total	£2,991,553.00

(c) Monitor

Since 2012-13 Monitor has spent £9,552.96 on overseas travel. See attached table for a breakdown of the costs including the date, destination and purpose of visit. A summary table of annual costs is included here.

Cost of overseas travel 2012/13 – 2015/16 – Monitor°

Financial Year	Total Spend
2012 -2013	£994.39
2013 – 2014	£3,833.07
2014 – 2015	£4,725.50
Total	£9,552.96

°Figures include central travel bookings, expenses and credit cards

(d) Care Quality Commission

Since 2012-13 CQC has spent £16,548.32 on overseas travel. CQC have advised that they do not collect the level of data asked for and to collate it would incur disproportionate cost. They have provided a table of year on year costs of overseas travel.

Cost of overseas travel 2012/13 – 2015/16 – Care Quality Commission°

Financial Year	Total Spend
2012 -2013	£3,136.73
2013 – 2014	£5,067.78
2014 – 2015	£8,343.81
Total	£16,548.32

°Figures include flights and travel expenses

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Wes Streeting on 2016-03-02.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions she has had with examination boards on the provision of ice skating as part of GCSE PE.

Nick Gibb

Following consultation (from July to September 2014), the Department published reformed content for physical education (PE) GCSE and A level in January 2015. The content includes a list of sports and activities in which students could be assessed as part of these qualifications.

The sports and activities in which students may be assessed were proposed by awarding organisations (AOs). Ice skating was not included, as it was not considered to meet all of the criteria for inclusion set out in the PE activity list rationale, which can be found at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/447738/GCSE_activity_list_for_PE.pdf.

Exclusion of ice skating from the list was not raised as an issue during the consultation. The inclusion or otherwise of an activity on the list does not represent a view on the legitimacy of the activity. The activity list will be reviewed at a later stage.

Further details can be found in the Government response to the consultation (https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/gcse-and-a-level-reform) and equality analysis (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/a-level-subject-content-equality-impact-assessment).

“