Asked by: Baroness Morgan of Cotes (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has taken steps to encourage Clinical Commissioning Groups and local authorities to jointly commission (a) short breaks for respite and (b) other children’s palliative care services.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
NHS England and the Department expects clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) and local authorities to work collaboratively to commission appropriate respite and palliative care services for children with life-limiting conditions, to make the most efficient and effective use of health and social care funding.
NHS England’s ‘Choice Commitment for end of life care’ document recognises that children’s palliative care is particularly dependent on this good collaboration between clinical and non-clinical services across a variety of settings. NHS England has also provided support to CCGs in this area in the form of a joint NHS 10 Point Efficiency Plan with NHS Improvement.
NHS England is also working with colleagues across the National Health Service and local authorities to ensure the health and care needs of specific patient groups, including children’s palliative care services, are planned collaboratively where appropriate. This includes working with commissioners, clinicians, voluntary, community and social enterprises, local authorities and people with lived experience to refresh the children’s palliative and end of life care service specification and the commissioning pathway to reflect collective responsibilities across health and social care. Work will continue on this until spring 2019.
Asked by: Baroness Morgan of Cotes (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what criteria the Care Quality Commission uses to determine the closure timeframe for a care home subsequent to a below standard rating and inadequate remedial action since that rating was given.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has provided the following response.
For urgent closures, the CQC’s enforcement policy is in line with the thresholds set out in the Health and Social Care Act 2008, Section 30 where there is a serious risk to a person’s life, health or well-being. The CQC must apply to a Justice of the Peace for an order cancelling the registration of a person as a service provider or manager in respect of a regulated activity.
Closures may also take place on a non-urgent basis. This may be related to the poor quality of a service and/or its lack of capacity or capability to improve. Where a service is rated Requires Improvement overall, but one of the CQC’s five key inspection domains (is the service Safe, Effective, Caring, Responsive and Well-Led?) is rated Inadequate, the CQC will re-inspect the service within six months. If the service remains rated as Inadequate in any of the five key inspection domains, the service will enter Special Measures. This is the same process for a service rated overall as Inadequate, which enters Special Measures straight away.
For services in Special Measures, the CQC expects the provider to seek appropriate support to improve the quality of the service. The CQC may signpost the provider to improvement support agencies. The CQC will inspect the service again within six months of the date of publication of the inspection report placing it in Special Measures. The CQC will always prioritise and respond to risk, so may re-inspect at any time.
The maximum time for a service to be in Special Measures is usually no more than 12 months. If, at the end of that period, the service still has a rating of Inadequate in any of the five key inspection domains or overall, the CQC will decide whether to cancel or suspend its registration, or vary or impose conditions on its registration.
Asked by: Baroness Morgan of Cotes (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what his Department's policy is on the provision in the NHS of interpretation services for refugees.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
The National Health Service should provide appropriate interpreting services to all patients requiring them. Individuals who experience a communications barrier, such as people whose first language is not English and who may need to communicate in another language, may require the provision of interpreting and translation services. This complies with the Equality Act 2010, the Human Rights Act 1998 and / or other legislative present provisions. In the case of those with a sensory impairment (such as British Sign Language speakers or braille readers), there are explicit obligations to make reasonable adjustments, provided by the Equality Act 2010 and the Accessible Information Standard.
This makes it imperative for organisations to provide appropriate language and communication support to ensure that patients are able to communicate effectively and appropriately with clinicians and other health service professionals.
Asked by: Baroness Morgan of Cotes (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many social care workers there are by nationality.
Answered by David Mowat
The information is not collected centrally by the Department.
Skills for Care, the partner in the sector skills council for social care, in England, collects data on the nationality of the adult social care workforce. The attached table adult social care workforce nationality contains estimated information on the number of direct care roles by nationality.