Asked by: Helen Whately (Conservative - Faversham and Mid Kent)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department has taken to raise awareness of meningitis since 2015; and how much has been spent from the public purse on raising awareness of meningitis in that period.
Answered by Steve Brine
Public Health England (PHE) produces a range of training materials for immunisers, which includes information on vaccination programmes, training events and newsletters. It collaborates with charities to support their work to improve healthcare worker knowledge on meningococcal disease, including through the development and distribution of information aimed at all healthcare professionals.
In 2015-16, PHE spent £50,000 on media to raise awareness of the Meningitis ACWY immunisation. A wide range of communications with young people and their parents was undertaken. Media budgets for financial year 2016-17 are not yet finalised.
In 2016-17, PHE provided a £24,000 grant to Meningitis Research Foundation and Meningitis Now, to support their work to increase awareness and knowledge of meningitis and septicaemia symptoms amongst parents. Activities included: inserting 350,000 copies of ‘Babywatch’ and ‘Totwatch’ information materials into the ‘red book’ provided to all new mothers; distributing ‘Babywatch’ toolkit containing cards and posters to 500 maternity units and special care baby units; and a social media campaign to promote Meningitis Now’s ‘Meningitis Signs and Symptoms’ app.
Meningitis Now’s social media campaign generated almost 4 million opportunities to see their adverts (“impressions”) and there were 470,522 views of their videos about the symptoms of meningitis and septicaemia, with the majority of views coming from people new to the charity. This resulted in an 80% rise in downloads of the campaign app. The charity also had nearly 300 new orders for signs and symptoms cards.
Research conducted by PHE in 2016 showed a high level of awareness of meningitis. More than 80% of parents and 70% of 14-25 year olds reported that they had knowledge of meningitis.
The research commissioned by PHE confirmed that awareness of meningitis and septicaemia is high amongst parents but gave recommendations on how existing charity promotional materials could be improved to help parents.
Asked by: Helen Whately (Conservative - Faversham and Mid Kent)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, when he plans to publish the Cost Effectiveness Methodology for Immunisation Programmes and Procurement report into vaccine cost-effectiveness.
Answered by Steve Brine
The Cost Effectiveness Methodology for Immunisation Programmes and Procurement (CEMIPP) report is technically complex with potential implications that could extend beyond immunisation. This report was referred to the Appraisal Alignment Working Group (AAWG) for further advice. The Department will consider the CEMIPP report alongside the AAWG advice and remains committed to publishing the CEMIPP report in due course.
Asked by: Helen Whately (Conservative - Faversham and Mid Kent)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what are the reasons for the time taken to publish the 2014 Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey in the UK Data Archive; and when he expects an approval system for researchers to apply for access to data in that archive to be implemented.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
The 2014 Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey (APMS) in the UK Data Archive was published on 29 September 2016. As the APMS data was identified as containing particularly sensitive data, additional technical disclosure control measures were considered necessary by the NHS Digital Disclosure Control Panel to minimise the risk of re-identification. The complexity of these requirements and the rigorous level of testing required given the sensitivity of the data have resulted in the delays to making the dataset available for secondary use.
A version of the APMS 2014 dataset has been transferred to the UK Data Service, and researchers are now able to apply for access using the NHS Digital on-line Data Access Request Service available at.
https://dataaccessrequest.hscic.gov.uk/
Asked by: Helen Whately (Conservative - Faversham and Mid Kent)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what proportion of the UK's freight traffic uses the Kent motorway network; and what proportion of funding for motorway resurfacing has been allocated to the M20 in the last five years.
Answered by Jesse Norman
The Department produces estimates of vehicle miles by vehicle type and road type. Based on 2016 estimates, 16.6 billion HGV miles were travelled on Britain’s roads. 1.9% of these HGV miles occurred on the Kent motorway network.
11% of all motorway resurfacing in the South East region during the last five years occurred on the M20.
Asked by: Helen Whately (Conservative - Faversham and Mid Kent)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, which parts of the motorway network his Department defines as noise important areas; when Junctions 6 to 9 of the M20 were last assessed to establish whether noise exceeded the levels of the Environmental Noise (England) Regulations 2006; and how noise levels between Junctions 6 to 9 of the M20 compare to such levels on other parts of the motorway network.
Answered by Jesse Norman
Noise important areas are defined by the Department for Environment and Rural Affairs, under the Environmental Noise (England) Regulations 2006. There are 13 noise important areas between junctions 6 and 9 of the M20. There are no noise levels defined in these Regulations so it is not possible to state how many areas are in exceedance, but noise levels along this stretch of motorway are broadly similar to other parts of the motorway network with similar levels of traffic flow.
Asked by: Helen Whately (Conservative - Faversham and Mid Kent)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many (a) fatal accidents and (b) serious accidents took place on the M20 between junctions 6 and 7 and 8 and 9 London-bound and coast-bound in (i) 2013-14, (ii) 2014-15, (iii) 2015-16 and (iv) 2016-17; and how that figure compares to the average number of such accidents for all UK motorways.
Answered by Jesse Norman
The information requested for 2013-14, 2014-15 and 2015-16 is set out in the table below.
Highways England responds to requests for collision data using validated STATS19 data, which forms part of the National Statistics.
FINANCIAL YEAR ( APR-MAR ) |
|
|
|
Fatal accidents | 2013-14 | 2014-15 | 2015-16 |
M20 between junctions 6 and 7 ( coast-bound) | 0 | 0 | 0 |
M20 between junctions 7 and 6 ( London – bound ) | 0 | 0 | 2 |
M20 between junctions 8 and 9 ( coast-bound) | 0 | 0 | 0 |
M20 between junctions 9 and 8 ( London – bound ) | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Serious accidents | 2013-14 | 2014-15 | 2015-16 |
M20 between junctions 6 and 7 ( coast-bound) | 0 | 0 | 0 |
M20 between junctions 7 and 6 ( London – bound ) | 0 | 0 | 0 |
M20 between junctions 8 and 9 ( coast-bound) | 4 | 1 | 3 |
M20 between junctions 9 and 8 ( London – bound ) | 4 | 1 | 1 |
The equivalent accident numbers for all UK motorways in each of these years is as follows:
Number of accidents - Motorways | ||
Year | Fatal | Fatal and Serious |
2013 | 97 | 641 |
2014 | 85 | 680 |
2015 | 96 | 712 |
2016 | 87 | 769 |
Highways England do not currently have the data available by route for 2016-17.
Asked by: Helen Whately (Conservative - Faversham and Mid Kent)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate he has made of the number of (a) non-UK EU and (b) other seasonal agricultural workers who have come to the UK in each of the last five years.
Answered by George Eustice
Until 2016, Defra published data on the estimated number of seasonal agricultural workers in all UK countries in “Agriculture in the UK”, which is a Defra publication. Since 2016, data is published for England only, collected by the June Horticulture and Agriculture Survey. Data from the past 5 years is shown in the table below.
Defra does not collect data on the nationality of those workers.
Seasonal, casual & gang labour | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 |
UK numbers | 67 000 | 61 000 | 66 000 | 67 000 | N/A |
England-only numbers | 44 985 | 39 203 | 43 036 | 44 939 | 43 894 |
Asked by: Helen Whately (Conservative - Faversham and Mid Kent)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what measures her Department has in place to support those of its staff who have mental health problems.
Answered by Sarah Newton
In the Home Office we are committed to breaking down barriers and reducing stigma for those staff living with mental health conditions. We signed up to the Time to Change pledge in 2014 making a public commitment to be at the forefront of UK employers to tackle mental health issues in the workplace and we remain dedicated to ensuring mental health is a priority. Our specific initiatives are outlined in Annex 1.
Asked by: Helen Whately (Conservative - Faversham and Mid Kent)
Question to the Northern Ireland Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, what comparative assessment he has made of (a) the level of psychiatric morbidity and suicide rate and (b) expenditure on mental health in Northern Ireland and other nations of the UK.
Answered by Kris Hopkins
The issue of mental health and expenditure on mental health in Northern Ireland is devolved to the Northern Ireland Executive.
The Office of National Statistics does however, release regular statistics on the rate of deaths by suicide across the United Kingdom. The statistics can be found at:
Officials from the Department of Health engage with their counterparts in the Devolved Administrations on these statistics, and they discuss whether there are areas for learning on tackling mental health problems.
Asked by: Helen Whately (Conservative - Faversham and Mid Kent)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what measures her Department has in place to support those of its staff who have mental health problems.
Answered by Phillip Lee
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) Wellbeing Strategy, launched in November 2015, sets out MoJ’s commitment to supporting the mental and physical wellbeing of all our staff.
Employees can find additional information and signposting to the support available on internal Wellbeing pages on the MoJ intranet, and can seek advice and peer support from the MoJ Disability Staff Networks. In addition our independent Employee Assistance Provision provides confidential counselling sessions for employees, 24 hour telephone support, coaching for managers, mediation and group counselling.