Asked by: Baroness Bertin (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Statement by the first Secretary of State on 16 November 2017 (HCWS25), what progress they have made on the parallel programme of work for the care of younger adults, in particular those with learning disabilities.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
The programme of work on adults of working age with care needs, which is led jointly by the Department of Health and Social Care and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, has begun initial engagement with stakeholders. Later this month, the Minister of State for Care (Caroline Dinenage) and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Local Government (Rishi Sunak) will jointly host a roundtable discussion to bring together views from across the sector on the issues facing adults of working age with care needs.
It is important that this work is informed by a range of perspectives and there will be further opportunities for interested stakeholders to feed in their views in due course.
Asked by: Baroness Bertin (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the 2014 report published by the British Healthcare Trades Association on the economic benefits of improved provision of equipment for disabled and terminally ill children.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
The report by the British Healthcare Trades Association concluded that the costs of medical care would be significantly reduced through more effective provision of equipment, and the National Health Service is continually seeking to improve equipment provision and use. NHS England is leading work to improve wheelchair commissioning and posture services through the development and dissemination of its wheelchair service specification and by working with commissioners to eliminate 18 week waits for wheelchairs by the end of 2018/19. Since 2016, the Department has funded sports activity prostheses for children who have suffered limb loss or congenital limb deficiency.