Asked by: Baroness Parminter (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many sites of special scientific interest are on the defence estate; how much land those sites cover; and how many such sites are in a favourable condition.
Answered by Baroness Goldie
The UK defence estate includes 171 Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) covering 81,266 hectares (ha). SSSIs are designated and assessed differently between all four countries.
Country | Number of SSSIs | Total Hectares (ha) covered |
England | 129 | 68,500 |
Wales | 18 | 4,766 |
Scotland | 22 | 6,911 |
Northern Ireland | 2 | 1,089 |
In England 34,366 ha is deemed by Natural England to be in Favourable condition.
In Wales, 3,632 ha is deemed by Natural Resources Wales to be in Appropriate Conservation Management.
Scotland includes 22 SSSIs covering 6,911 ha. This includes 148 separate SSSI features. 121 are deemed by NatureScot to be in Favourable condition and six are in Unfavourable recovering condition.
Northern Ireland includes two Areas of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) covering 1089 ha. This includes 12 separate ASSI features,10 of which are deemed by Northern Ireland Environment Agency to be in a Favourable condition with two in an Unfavourable recovering condition.
Asked by: Baroness Parminter (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to ensure that providers of the proposed new weight management services (1) receive training on eating disorders, and (2) can work with eating disorder services to appropriately support those requiring treatment for binge eating disorder.
Answered by Lord Bethell
Further details about the measures on weight management announced in Tackling obesity: empowering adults and children to live healthier lives will be available later in the year.
Diagnosing and treating eating disorders is an important area of medical practice. It is included within the curriculum for training all doctors, including for general practitioners, where most eating disorders initially present and in more depth within training for psychiatry, particularly child and adolescent psychiatrists.
Asked by: Baroness Parminter (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many independent sector beds are used by the NHS for the treatment of patients with eating disorders in (1) England, (2) the North of England, (3) the Midlands and East of England, (4) London, and (5) the South of England; how many such beds in each region are for (a) children and young people, and (b) adults; and what was the cost of procuring those beds in each region.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The data is not held in the format requested.
Asked by: Baroness Parminter (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many inpatient beds are available to the NHS for eating disorder patients in (1) England, (2) the North of England, (3) the Midlands and East of England, (4) London, and (5) the South of England; and, for each of those categories, how many are available for (a) children and young people, and (b) adults.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The following table provides data on the number of inpatient beds for eating disorders for adults and for children and young people.
| Total bed base | Adult eating disorder beds | Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services eating disorder beds1 |
England | 648 (national total) | 400 | 248 |
North of England (North East, North West and Yorkshire and Humber) | 157 | 129 | 28 |
Midlands and East of England | 203 | 97 | 106 |
London | 162 | 99 | 63 |
South of England (including Wessex) | 126 | 75 | 51 |
Source: NHS England
Note:
1Some children and young people with eating disorders are treated in general child and adolescent mental health services.
Asked by: Baroness Parminter (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the BBC Panorama programme Sport's Hidden Crisis, broadcast on 19 October, what discussions they have had with UK Sport regarding (1) minimising the risks of competitors developing eating disorders, and (2) supporting those with them.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Athlete welfare is vitally important to all sports, and my department works closely with UK Sport to strengthen policy in this area wherever possible. UK Sport is committed to ensuring that athlete welfare is at the heart of all Olympic and Paralympic sports and the national governing bodies (NGBs) they fund. UK Sport has a dedicated integrity unit and conducts an annual Culture Health Check survey that monitors athlete welfare and enables any issues to be picked up and addressed.
In terms of providing care and support to individuals with an eating disorder, UK Sport works in partnership with the English Institute of Sport (EIS). In 2018 the EIS and UK Sport announced a Mental Health Strategy for the high performance system aimed at ensuring that all people within it have the best opportunity to have positive mental health, and high quality care when required. The Mental Health Referral Programme (MHRP) provides specialist primary and secondary care services to elite athletes who are struggling with a wide range of mental health issues including depression, stress, anxiety, eating disorders, obsessive compulsive disorders and addictions.
Asked by: Baroness Parminter (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what accountability mechanisms are in place to ensure local NHS People Plans include a mental health workforce strategy to reduce vacancy rates, retain staff and create the new roles needed to fulfil their proposals on mental health.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
Supporting and expanding the mental health workforce is a key priority for this Government. The interim NHS People Plan set out the immediate actions we will take to fill vacancies and secure the staff we need for the future.
The full NHS People Plan will set out a new operating model for workforce and systematic actions to ensure healthy, inclusive and compassionate cultures for all staff working in the National Health Service, both improving staff experience and enhancing retention.
Alongside this, NHS England and NHS Improvement will work closely with all local sustainability and transformation partnerships and integrated care systems to refine and improve their existing mental health workforce plans and develop robust plans to deliver the NHS Long Term Plan ambitions.
Asked by: Baroness Parminter (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, following their response to the Seventeenth Report of Session 2017–19 by the House of Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (HC855) on 23 September, how many sites have been selected to "pump prime" innovative models of service for adults with eating disorders; and where those test sites will be.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
NHS England and NHS Improvement are providing ‘pump prime’ funding to 12 pilot sites over 2019/20 and 2020/21 to test and implement new models of integrated primary and community mental health care for adults and older adults with a range of severe mental illnesses. Eight of these will test models that include services for adult eating disorders, including:
- Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Sustainability and Transformation Partnership;
- Cheshire and Merseyside Sustainability and Transformation Partnership;
- Herefordshire and Worcestershire Sustainability and Transformation Partnership;
- Hertfordshire and West Essex Sustainability and Transformation Partnership;
- North East London Sustainability and Transformation Partnership;
- North West London Sustainability and Transformation Partnership;
- Somerset Sustainability and Transformation Partnership; and
- South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw Integrated Care System
These sites will work towards improving access to care for adults and older adults with eating disorders in line with published guidance from NHS England and NHS Improvement. They will also generate the first phase of learning about how to achieve greater levels of parity with children and young people’s eating disorder services over the course of the NHS Long Term Plan.
Asked by: Baroness Parminter (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many inpatient beds are available to the NHS for eating disorder patients in (1) England, (2) the North of England, (3) the Midlands and East of England, (4) London, and (5) the South of England; and, for each of those categories, how many are available for (a) children and young people, and (b) adults.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
The following table provides data on the number of inpatient beds for eating disorders for children and young people and adults.
Type of inpatient bed | North of England | South of England | Midlands and East of England | London | England |
Children and adolescent mental health service eating disorder1 | 40 | 45 | 108 | 56 | 249 |
Adult eating disorder | 110 | 67 | 103 | 120 | 400 |
Source: NHS England
Note:
1Some children and young people with eating disorders are treated in general child and adolescent mental health services.
Asked by: Baroness Parminter (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the possibility of illegal puppy and kitten dealers establishing themselves as rescue centres to continue their trade after the ban on third-party sales of such animals comes into force; whether they intend to carry out a consultation on that issue; and whether they intend to introduce licensing requirements on animal sanctuaries and rescue centres to prevent any such activity.
Answered by Lord Gardiner of Kimble
The Government is committed to banning the third party sale of puppies and kittens in England and the necessary secondary legislation will be laid before Parliament later in this session.
We recognise the concern that some unscrupulous breeders may consider setting up as rescue and rehoming centres, and we will provide guidance to Local Authorities to help them distinguish between genuine rescue and rehoming centres and other commercial operations. In parallel, we are working with stakeholders to understand the impact that any licensing scheme would have on the sector.
Further detail on the Government’s overall approach to the licensing of animal rescue and rehoming centres was set out by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in a Westminster Hall debate on 26 February 2019. The Hansard of the debate can be found here: https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2019-02-26/debates/EC70319B-914E-408C-A987-7C4DE9D98F1E/AnimalRescueHomes
Asked by: Baroness Parminter (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord O'Shaughnessy on 27 November 2018 (HL11475), what assessment they have made of (1) the proportion of Foundation doctors who receive teaching and training specifically in eating disorders, (2) the average amount of time spent on such teaching and training, and (3) the extent to which Foundation doctors are assessed on their knowledge and clinical skills in relation to eating disorders.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
The Foundation Programme (FP) curriculum is developed by the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (AoMRC). The curriculum sets out twenty foundation professional capabilities that foundation doctors in training must develop and demonstrate.
FP year two doctors provide supporting evidence to demonstrate the capability to recognise, assess and manage patients with long term conditions including patients who may have eating disorders. This can include working with other healthcare professionals to address nutritional needs and communicate these during care planning; recognising eating disorders, seek senior input and refer to local specialist service; and formulating a plan for investigation and management of weight loss or weight gain.
Progression to the next stage of training at the end of FP year one and FP year two is dependent on the doctor demonstrating that they have met or exceeded the minimum levels of performance required for sign off for each of the 20 foundation professional capabilities.
Health Education England is working closely with NHS England to further understand the current requirements and provision of eating disorder services in order to identify interventions to increase education and training in eating disorders, working with AoMRC as appropriate.