Asked by: Baroness Crawley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that volunteers who are providing support for isolated people can continue to provide that support throughout the recovery phase of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
There has been an overwhelming response from the public with over 3 million people stepping up to volunteer to help those most in need.
Volunteers across the country are playing a vital role in the response to COVID-19, including supporting vulnerable people in the community who are isolating, and complementing the delivery of public services. There are over 589,000 approved NHS Volunteer Responders available in England to help with food delivery, transporting medicines and friendly phone calls, a staggering response to the call to action to support the NHS. The programme supports a flexible model of volunteering, with volunteers able to decide when they are on and off duty, to fit task based volunteering around other commitments and work.
The Government welcomes this support and is working closely with the Voluntary and Community Sector Emergencies Partnership to match the country’s strong base of willing volunteers with priority needs. This includes specific work examining how changing restrictions during the recovery phase may impact on volunteers and volunteering.
The Government is also working closely with the voluntary sector to ensure that volunteer mobilisation schemes are consistently rewarding, effective and safe for all those involved.
Asked by: Baroness Crawley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that recently retired NHS workers who have returned to work for the NHS continue to be employed throughout the recovery phase of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The Department is working with the healthcare professional regulators, the devolved administrations, NHS England and NHS Improvement and employing organisations to ensure that the closure of the temporary emergency registers takes place in a planned and co-ordinated way.
The temporary registers will be closed at the end of the COVID-19 emergency period (as declared by the Secretary of State) and all those who have joined the temporary registers will have their registration revoked. However, we are keen that anyone who has returned to practice and who wishes to remain working beyond the emergency period is encouraged and supported to join the full register. To do so they will need to demonstrate that they meet the required standards and pay the relevant registration fees.
Asked by: Baroness Crawley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to (1) prepare for, and (2) administer, a comprehensive national COVID-19 vaccine programme.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The Government has established a Vaccines Taskforce to coordinate and accelerate work across Government, academia and industry to develop, manufacture and deliver a COVID-19 vaccine.
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) is an independent Departmental Expert Committee and a statutory body, which advises the United Kingdom health departments on immunisation for the prevention of infections and or disease. We are seeking advice from the JCVI on priority groups for vaccination, and on options for the introduction of any licensed COVID-19 vaccine in the UK.
We are working with partners internationally and in the UK, including Public Health England and NHS England and NHS Improvement, to develop and implement plans for the procurement and delivery of a safe and effective vaccine as quickly and effectively as possible to those who need it across the UK.
Asked by: Baroness Crawley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to publish details of any contracts made with private healthcare providers for the provision of NHS funded acute care.
Answered by Lord Bethell
NHS England will ensure that details of the contracts it has entered into under the 2020 Directions are published online on the GOV.UK website, in accordance with regulation 4(1) of The National Health Service (Procurement, Patient Choice and Competition) (No. 2) Regulations 2013.
Asked by: Baroness Crawley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of (1) the capability, and (2) the capacity, of the private acute healthcare sector to assist in the reduction of waiting times for elective surgery.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The Department and NHS England and NHS Improvement have worked with the independent sector on a national basis to increase capacity and resource within the National Health Service, adding around 8,000 beds and 20,000 clinical staff.
On 29 April 2020, NHS England and NHS Improvement wrote to the NHS setting out the second phase of the NHS response to COVID-19. The NHS has been asked to make full use of all contracted independent sector hospital and diagnostic capacity in restarting routine elective treatment, prioritising long waiters first. A copy of the letter from NHS England and NHS Improvement to the NHS is attached.
Asked by: Baroness Crawley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment was made of the options for developing contact tracing applications.
Answered by Lord Bethell
We engaged with a number of companies and methodologies.
Pivotal quickly proved their suitability, and given the extreme urgency, we made a direct award as permitted under Regulation 32 of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015.
Pivotal were recommended to us as a company who were on an existing framework, and who had experience of working with Government. Over two days, we looked across a network of suppliers who had existing contracts with the Government and had done work with the National Cyber Security Centre or other security agencies, and so could be relied on to provide highly secure and privacy-focused products.
Asked by: Baroness Crawley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what procurement process was followed in order to procure and develop the contact tracing application.
Answered by Lord Bethell
We engaged with a number of companies and methodologies.
Pivotal quickly proved their suitability, and given the extreme urgency, we made a direct award as permitted under Regulation 32 of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015.
Pivotal were recommended to us as a company who were on an existing framework, and who had experience of working with Government. Over two days, we looked across a network of suppliers who had existing contracts with the Government and had done work with the National Cyber Security Centre or other security agencies, and so could be relied on to provide highly secure and privacy-focused products.
Asked by: Baroness Crawley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask Her Majesty's Government why the Veterans UK Helpline has been suspended; and what assessment they have made of the impact this may have on veterans, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Answered by Baroness Goldie
The Veterans UK helpline has not been suspended. Given the COVID-19 pandemic, Veterans UK services are, as far as possible being delivered remotely.
Whilst the helpline is not able to handle telephony enquiries, the helpline contains recorded service information on key subject areas, and all veterans are still able to submit enquiries via email.
A written reply or call-back is made by Veterans UK staff and where welfare support is required, these are referred to the Veterans Welfare Service. More than 4,000 people have been helped in this way since 23 March 2020.
All planned Veterans Welfare Service and Defence Transition Services contact with clients is being maintained, and alternative methods are utilised rather than face to face visits, unless deemed absolutely essential.
Asked by: Baroness Crawley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on processing War Pension Scheme and War Widow(er) Pension applications.
Answered by Baroness Goldie
All of the existing 470,000 War Pensions, War Widows Pension and Armed Forces Compensation Scheme payments are continuing to be made as usual into nominated bank accounts, and all requests for welfare support are being met, the same day where at all possible.
With staff working remotely, it has been necessary to pause some compensation scheme administration casework on new claims, appeals and reviews. Many files, some dating back to World War II, exist only as paper records and access to office-based IT systems are needed to process this work.
Where a possibility of financial hardship is identified by the Veterans Welfare Service, a small team is in place to take action on urgent payments where the case evidence needed to do so is available.
UK Veterans staff review the situation daily in order to resume as full a level of service as possible within the current restrictions.
Asked by: Baroness Crawley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assistance, if any, they have offered to the government of Australia to deal with the bushfire crises.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary and I have been in contact with our Australian counterparts to offer our condolences and stress our readiness to help in whatever way they need. I also met with FM Payne on the 3 January in Sydney and offered our full support.
As set out by FCO Minister Heather Wheeler in her Oral Statement of 9 January, we have deployed a team of UK experts to Australia.
The team includes a senior member of UK Fire and Rescue Service, a medical specialist in trauma and mental health, and a military liaison officer specialising in crisis response.
They will work with Australian counterparts to establish what further UK support will be of most use to Australian emergency responders, and ensure that such contributions are fully integrated with Australian efforts.