Asked by: Baroness Howe of Idlicote (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they plan to consult on their manifesto commitment to require age verification for pornography websites.
Answered by Baroness Shields
The Prime Minister announced on 29 July that there would be a consultation on the Government’s manifesto commitment to require age verification for websites containing pornographic material. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is currently preparing the consultation documents.
I would like to thank the Noble Lady for her tireless efforts in this area and hope she will engage in the consultation when it is launched for publication later this year.
Asked by: Baroness Howe of Idlicote (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the comments by Baroness Shields on 17 July (HL Deb, col 860), how European regulations on net neutrality will affect family-friendly filters being provided by internet service providers.
Answered by Baroness Shields
Throughout the negotiations of the Telecoms Single Market package, the Government pushed for the best outcome for UK consumers. The UK was instrumental in altering the original proposals on net neutrality to ensure that the outcome was a balanced, principles-based package that protects the open internet, while supporting innovation and keeping the UK’s current world class child protection measures in place.
We are considering the best method to ensure continuity for our filters regime and will be providing an update in due course.
Asked by: Baroness Howe of Idlicote (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the comments by Baroness Shields on 17 July (HL Deb, col 862), what measures regarding the protection of children’s safety online are being considered in the strategic defence and security review.
Answered by Baroness Shields
The Government remains committed to improving the safety of children online and continues to make significant progress in a variety of areas. The Government is working through the multi-stakeholder UK Council for Child Internet Safety to drive further progress, and maintain our position as a world leader in child internet safety.
At the “We Protect Summit” next month, we are seeking to promote a ModelNational Response that will provide guidance and support to countries on thecapabilities they need to have in place to combat online child sexual exploitation – which will in turn improve global coordination and our capability to act to protect the safety and human rights of children all over the world.
This will inform work on the relevant aspects of the 2015 National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review.
Asked by: Baroness Howe of Idlicote (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the results of the cancer patient experience<i></i>survey<i></i>will be used to hold Clinical Commissioning Groups to account for improvements in patient experience through the NHS Outcomes Framework.
Answered by Earl Howe - Deputy Leader of the House of Lords
Holding clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) to account for delivering improved outcomes for patients is a core part of the CCG assurance process. NHS England is working with NHS Improving Quality to develop better ways of using the Cancer Patient Experience Survey (CPES) data within the National Health Service in order to maximise the impact of the survey, to be able to work with successful and struggling organisations to spread best practice for example. Their intention is that the learning from this can then be transferred across all surveys to understand what the barriers are to implementing change and to showcase best practice where real improvements can be demonstrated.
The CPES survey results are delivered to every organisation so each can see how they compare to other organisations. Currently, the action plans are taken into account as part of Peer Reviews. NHS England would expect that every trust board should know its own survey results and take account of them.
We have been working closely with NHS England on the review of the NHS Outcomes Framework, and will be engaging with stakeholders over the summer ahead of publication in the autumn.
Asked by: Baroness Howe of Idlicote (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what recent steps they have taken to improve the provision of palliative care services.
Answered by Earl Howe - Deputy Leader of the House of Lords
The Department and NHS England are taking steps to improve palliative care services, including the development of a per-patient funding model for palliative care services that aims to improve access to specialist palliative care.
NHS England has established palliative care networks across England which are supporting improvements in palliative care services and sharing of good practice. NHS Improving Quality’s (NHS IQ) Transforming End of Life Care (EoLC) in Acute Hospitals programme is also helping to drive improvements for people in hospitals, such as the wider implementation of electronic palliative care registers (EPaCCS). These can provide instant access to key information about EoLC patients to all health professionals with a need to see it. NHS IQ has set an ambition to achieve a 70% roll out of EPaCCs by 2015.
On 1 July 2014, we announced a review of choice in EoLC led by Claire Henry, Chief Executive of the National Council for Palliative Care. The Programme Board leading this work consists of representatives from charities, people with personal experience of EoLC (including carers), clinicians and policy makers. The review will undertake extensive public consultation to define what people want in EoLC services, and will provide advice to the Government on the policy initiatives required to enable people’s preferences to be met. This advice will be provided by early next year.
Asked by: Baroness Howe of Idlicote (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what opportunity the House of Lords and House of Commons will be given to scrutinise the NHS Mandate 2015–16 ahead of its publication.
Answered by Earl Howe - Deputy Leader of the House of Lords
The Health and Social Care Act 2012 requires the Secretary of State to publish and lay before Parliament its Mandate to the NHS Commissioning Board (known as NHS England). Before specifying any objectives or requirements in the Mandate, the Secretary of State must consult NHS England, Healthwatch England and any other persons he considers appropriate.
I announced on 22 July 2014 in a Written Ministerial Statement (HL Deb, column WS124-5) that the Government proposes to uphold all of the existing objectives in the current Mandate and maintain a stable Mandate for 2015-16. This will enable the National Health Service to build on its achievements and make further progress on the ambitious agenda already set.
We have been working closely with NHS England on the approach to the Mandate and will be engaging with stakeholders over the summer, ahead of publishing and laying the final Mandate before Parliament in the autumn. The Mandate for 2015-16 will take effect from April 2015.
Asked by: Baroness Howe of Idlicote (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the case for providing hearing aids free at the point of delivery to people with mild to moderate hearing loss.
Answered by Earl Howe - Deputy Leader of the House of Lords
The Government has not undertaken any assessments of this kind. Local commissioners are responsible for commissioning the provision of hearing aids for mild to moderate hearing loss, based on the needs of their local population. In doing so, they will take into consideration assessments of local need and any relevant clinical guidance, which may include guidance from appropriate national bodies such as the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.