Asked by: Baroness Masham of Ilton (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have, if any, to make it easier to employ personal carers from abroad.
Answered by Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist
In February 2022, the Government amended immigration rules which allows domiciliary and care home workers to be recruited from overseas. Under current visa rules, overseas recruits are required to work for a registered sponsor. The sponsorship system ensures employers fulfil specific duties to confirm those who apply for permission to enter or stay in the United Kingdom to work are eligible and will comply with the conditions of their visa. Businesses are able to comply with these duties and demonstrate a verifiable track record of operating lawfully in the UK in a way private individuals and households cannot, both within the immigration system and the employer regulatory regime.
This ensures the integrity of the immigration system and provides important welfare safeguards for workers who migrate to the UK and individuals requiring care. There are no current plans to change this approach.
Asked by: Baroness Masham of Ilton (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they will take to ensure that GP surgeries with low performing Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) data are provided with additional support for (1) diagnosing, and (2) treating, heart failure.
Answered by Lord Kamall
The Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) is an annual voluntary incentive programme for general practitioner (GP) practices in England, which rewards practices for meeting the required thresholds for each indicator. No additional support is offered specifically to low-performing practices.
NHS England is implementing measures to raise awareness of the symptoms of heart failure and ensure early and rapid access to diagnostic tests and treatment, overseen by the National Clinical Director for Heart Disease and supported by an Expert Advisory Group of clinical experts. This includes the launch of community diagnostic centres which could deliver over one million additional computerised tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, ultrasound scans, echocardiograms scans and X-rays. This will support Primary Care Networks to increase diagnostic capacity for the detection of conditions such as heart failure and heart valve disease.
NHS England has developed five ‘NHS@Home’ pilots to support patients with heart failure in the community. The ‘Managing Heart Failure @home’ scheme aims to support people living with heart failure to manage their condition at home through patient education and remote monitoring. Working with a specialist clinician, patients are supported to understand their medications, reduce salt intake, monitor and record daily weight and blood pressure measurements and recognise symptoms which may indicate deterioration. The ‘Blood Pressure @Home’ initiative allocated more than 220,000 blood pressure monitors in England to enable at-risk patients to measure their blood pressure remotely and share the results with their GP practice, reducing the need for appointments and travel. These schemes aim to reduce hospital admissions and increase patients’ quality of life, through improved understanding of the management of the condition and communication with primary, community and specialist teams.
Asked by: Baroness Masham of Ilton (Crossbench - 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 those most at risk of heart failure have immediate access to primary care services for the (1) diagnosis, and (2) monitoring, of their condition.
Answered by Lord Kamall
Multi-disciplinary teams within Primary Care Networks provide greater access to echocardiography to investigate the symptoms of patients with breathlessness and accelerate the early detection of heart failure and heart valve disease.
We have committed to creating an additional 50 million appointments a year in general practice by increasing and diversifying the primary care workforce. This will improve access for patients, including those at risk from heart failure and ensure staff can provide a range of care options for patients outside of hospital.
Asked by: Baroness Masham of Ilton (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many students wanting to study medicine have been turned down because of a lack of places at universities in England.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Medicine is a hugely competitive course, and consistently has far more applicants than there are places available.
The department has funded an additional 1,500 undergraduate medical school places each year for domestic students in England – a 25% increase over three years. This expansion was completed in September 2020 and has delivered five new medical schools in England. In addition, we temporarily lifted the cap on medical and dental school places for students who completed A levels in 2020 and in 2021 and who had an offer from a university in England to study medicine or dentistry, subject to their grades.
My right hon. Friend, the former Secretary of State for Education, and my hon. Friend, the former Minister for Health, have made clear to all medicine and dental schools, in joint letters in October 2021 and again in March 2022, that there is no room for flexibility this year, and it is the department's firm expectation that all schools will only recruit up to the maximum number of students as set in the Office for Students’ intake targets.
We are confident that providers will make fair decisions around admissions and students who are unable to secure a place in medicine will have a number of other high-quality options, either within higher education or through other post-18 pathways.
Asked by: Baroness Masham of Ilton (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Kamall on 17 June (HL645), whether an agenda for NHS England's Clinical Priorities Advisory Group's next meeting has been finalised; and if so, when it will be shared with relevant stakeholders.
Answered by Lord Kamall
The agenda has been finalised and made available to relevant stakeholders.
Asked by: Baroness Masham of Ilton (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Kamall on 17 June (HL645), whether an agenda for NHS England's Clinical Priorities Advisory Group's next meeting has been finalised; and if so, when the agenda will be shared with stakeholders.
Answered by Lord Kamall
The agenda has been finalised and made available to relevant stakeholders.
Asked by: Baroness Masham of Ilton (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether COVID-19 is a notifiable disease; if so, (1) who is under a duty to make such notifications, and (2) to whom such notifications are made; whether the public are (a) under a duty, or (b) advised, to notify if they have COVID-19; and if so, who the public should notify.
Answered by Lord Kamall
COVID-19 is a notifiable disease. Registered medical practitioners have a duty to make such notifications to the proper officer of the local authority and the UK Health Security Agency. There is no specific duty for the general public to make a notification and there is no advice to do so. However, individuals attending medical or dental appointments in person are advised to inform their healthcare provider where they are symptomatic or if they have a positive test for COVID-19.
Asked by: Baroness Masham of Ilton (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have, if any, to allow overseas students to have the right to access paid work placements in the UK, of up to six months, under the Short-term Student (English language) route.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
Those who wish to study the English Language for up to 6 months can do so under the visitor route, they do not need to apply for a Short-Term Study Visa.
The Short-term Student (English language) route is for those whose aim is to study the English language, not for those wishing to work in the UK. Changing this position would open this route to potential abuse by those whose intention would primarily be to work, not study, as we saw in the past when the then student routes were widely abused for this purpose.
Asked by: Baroness Masham of Ilton (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking (1) to improve access to specialist care, and (2) to reduce regional health inequalities, among patients with rare diseases, including those with hereditary angioedema.
Answered by Lord Kamall
In February 2022, the England Rare Diseases Action Plan 2022 was published, which aims to improve access to specialist care, treatment and drugs for patients with rare diseases, including hereditary angioedema (HAE). The Plan commits to support access to new treatments through programmes such as the Innovative Medicines Fund, while continuing to work with National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) on new treatments being assessed. Following the updates made to NICE’s methods and processes, the Plan aims to ensure that NICE continues to support the rapid adoption of effective new treatments for National Health Service patients with rare diseases.
The Action Plan also contains actions aimed at addressing health inequalities, including monitoring the uptake of drugs for patients with rare diseases, through measuring the number of people accessing a drug and comparing with the number expected to access it, to ensure equal access to treatment. It also commits to reduce health inequalities in NHS highly specialised services. A copy of the England Rare Diseases Action Plan 2022 is attached.
The NHS Commercial Medicines Unit is developing a procurement framework for medicines to treat HAE. It is anticipated the framework will be operational in summer 2022. The NHS Immunology and Allergy Clinical Reference Group will also revise current commissioning policies for HAE treatments to reduce health inequalities in England for these patients.
Asked by: Baroness Masham of Ilton (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to their Vision for the Women's Health Strategy for England, published in December 2021, what assessment NHS England has made of the impact of long-term androgen use by women to treat hereditary angioedema (HAE); and how their use reflects women's needs.
Answered by Lord Kamall
No such assessment has been made.