Asked by: Baroness Thomas of Winchester (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government why some blind or partially sighted recipients of Access to Work funding have had the value of their grants reduced despite their condition remaining unchanged.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Access to Work awards are made on the basis of a customer’s work-related needs, rather than their disability or health condition alone. Those needs can change over time, even where the customer’s condition has not changed. This may be because the customer’s role, workplace, working pattern or employer arrangements have changed, or because new solutions or technologies are available that can meet the customer’s needs in a different way. For this reason, support is reassessed at renewal to ensure it remains appropriate to the customer’s current work circumstances.
DWP recognises that while customers greatly value the support provided by the Access to Work scheme, they also have concerns about the scheme’s timeliness, consistency and appreciation of the complex barriers faced by people with disabilities in a modern workplace. The Department is addressing these points in order to deliver an improved scheme that will better help disabled people start and stay in work.
Efforts undertaken by the Department to achieve this include the recruitment of 480 additional staff to help reduce the Access to Work backlog by September 2027. These members of staff will receive extensive training to support them to handle complex applications. In addition, the Department is continuing to engage with a range of stakeholders to develop a richer understanding of the challenges disabled people face. The feedback from this engagement will be used to shape improvements to the scheme that better reflect the current needs of customers. Any improvements to Access to Work will be announced in advance of their implementation.
Asked by: Baroness Thomas of Winchester (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether there are enough NHS healthcare professionals, including clinical psychologists and ADHD specialist nurses, to help the number of young people who are diagnosed with ADHD and anxiety.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government recognises concerns around the sufficiency of National Health Service professionals, including clinical psychologists and specialist staff, to meet rising demand for support, such as young people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and anxiety. We have already delivered on our commitment to recruit an additional 8,500 mental health workers, three years ahead of schedule, which is helping to expand capacity across a range of services and support earlier access to care.
However, we are clear that increasing the workforce alone is not enough to meet growing need. That is why we are transforming mental health services through the 10-Year Health Plan, shifting towards prevention and earlier intervention, expanding community-based support, and improving access for children and young people, including through mental health support teams in schools and colleges and wider service improvements.
We are also developing a new mental health strategy for England, which will set out how we will go further to improve access, reduce waiting times, and ensure services respond more effectively to rising demand.
Asked by: Baroness Thomas of Winchester (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the state of the UK's fleet of ambulances for use by (1) high dependency patients, and (2) non-high dependency patients.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England has not undertaken a national assessment categorising the ambulance fleet specifically into vehicles for 'high dependency' and 'non-high dependency' patients, however NHS England routinely collects information from ambulance trusts on fleet composition, age, and utilisation to support national oversight, benchmarking, and fleet replacement planning.
Frontline emergency ambulances in England are built to a national specification and are equipped to assess, treat, and transport patients presenting with a wide range of clinical conditions, including those with complex or high-acuity needs. Patient transport services are designed to ensure patients receive a level of transport and support appropriate to their clinical and mobility needs, with national guidance supporting systems in matching patients to the most appropriate vehicle type and service.
These vehicles are staffed by appropriately trained clinicians and carry equipment designed to support the delivery of urgent and emergency care.
Asked by: Baroness Thomas of Winchester (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government what proportion of assessments for Personal Independence Payment are conducted (1) face to face, and (2) through paper-based review.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
While this information is not currently published by the department, we will be sharing the data in a future statistical release.
Asked by: Baroness Thomas of Winchester (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to establish joint commissioning arrangements between the Department for Education and the Department for Health and Social Care to ensure that there are a sufficient number of occupational therapists to deliver the Experts at Hand SEND service set out in the Every child achieving and thriving white paper.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We are working closely with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to support the delivery of the Experts at Hand offer, strengthening joint planning and commissioning at a local level between education and health partners.
Over the next three years, £1.8 billion will be made available to local area partnerships to develop and roll out the Experts at Hand offer.
Local area partnerships will design and implement their own Experts at Hand models, tailored to local population needs, existing workforce capacity, and the specific challenges each area faces. As a result, workforce requirements, including for occupational therapists, will vary across the country.
The department recognises that continuing to build the occupational therapy workforce pipeline is essential and is working with DHSC and NHS England to support workforce planning and improve access to community health services for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities, including occupational therapy input, as part of longer‑term system planning, including through the development of the NHS England 10‑year workforce plan.
Asked by: Baroness Thomas of Winchester (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how the NHS 10 Year Workforce Plan will ensure growth and retention in the occupational therapy workforce across health, social care, community and specialist services.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The 10 Year Workforce Plan will ensure the National Health Service has the right people in the right places, with the right skills to care for patients, when they need it. While the scope of the 10 Year Workforce Plan is the NHS workforce, we understand the importance of effective integration across social care and community care.
We are working through how the 10 Year Workforce Plan will articulate the changes for different professional groups.
Asked by: Baroness Thomas of Winchester (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 24 March (HL15558), what specific measures in the NHS 10 Year Workforce Plan will address the shortage of occupational therapists; and when those measures will take effect.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The 10 Year Workforce Plan will ensure the National Health Service has the right people in the right places, with the right skills to care for patients, when they need it. We are working through how the plan will articulate the changes for different professional groups. The specific measures which comprise the plan will be set out when it is published in spring this year.
Asked by: Baroness Thomas of Winchester (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they are taking action to address the shortage of occupational therapists.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Decisions on recruitment are a matter for individual National Health Service trusts which manage their recruitment at a local level, ensuring they have the right number of staff in place, with the right skill mix, to deliver safe and effective care.
The Government is committed to publishing a 10 Year Workforce Plan to set out action to create a workforce ready to deliver the transformed service set out in the 10-Year Health Plan.
The 10 Year Workforce Plan will ensure the NHS has the right people in the right places, with the right skills to care for patients, when they need it. We are working through how the plan will articulate the changes for different professional groups.
Asked by: Baroness Thomas of Winchester (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to issue updated guidance to caseworkers about the administration of the Access to Work scheme to ensure consistency across the UK; and if so, when they plan to issue that updated guidance.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
To improve consistency, we have introduced training focused on embedding the Access to Work scheme’s principles more clearly. This includes a stronger emphasis on employers’ responsibilities under the Equality Act, ensuring support is awarded in a fair and balanced way.
We have also increased the number of staff working in Access to Work by c.29% and streamlined some processes to improve the service.
We are committed to improving the service and will utilise the outcomes of the Green Paper consultation, the Collaboration Committees, and upcoming work of the Independent Disability Advisory Panel to inform the future direction of Access to Work. Once established we will consider timelines and work closely with stakeholders to ensure an appropriate transition. We continue to review our operational practices and resources, to drive improvements across the service to reduce processing times and the overall experience of our customers.
Asked by: Baroness Thomas of Winchester (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the number of wheelchair accessible homes that are being built; and what action they plan to take to encourage local planning authorities to provide more housing built to wheelchair accessible M4 standards.
Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Data relating to the number of wheelchair accessible homes is not collected centrally, although the (attached) English Housing Survey collects occasional series on accessibility and adaptations within the home.
The government is currently consulting on a new National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) that includes clearer, ‘rules based’ policies for decision-making and plan-making.
The consultation includes proposals for local planning authorities to set requirements for the delivery of M4(2) and M4(3) housing that will meet or exceed their locally assessed need for these types of housing.
In relation to M4(2) requirements, the government is proposing a national minimum that ensures at least 40% of new housing over the course of the plan period is delivered to M4(2) standards. This approach is intended to ensure that necessary levels of accessible housing are provided, while providing authorities with an appropriate degree of flexibility to maximise housebuilding overall.
Through the consultation we are seeking views on these proposals, including whether 40% is the right minimum proportion or whether an alternative requirement is preferable, and on the potential impacts of our proposals on protected groups under the Public Sector Equality Duty.
The consultation can be found on gov.uk here (attached) and will remain open for responses until 10 March 2026.