Asked by: Lord Hain (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government why the use of both the UK Conformity Assessment mark and the EU’s CE mark will be allowed indefinitely for UK companies in the electronic, industrial, consumer and other sectors, but not for medical products produced in the UK.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Medical devices are regulated by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and are considered high-risk goods. The Government has put in place legislation to extend the acceptance of CE marked medical devices on the Great Britain market up to 2028 or 2030, depending on the type of CE certificate held.
In addition, the MHRA are currently developing proposals for an international recognition framework. This would reduce, where safe to do so, barriers to medical devices entering the Great Britain market where they have already demonstrated to other trusted regulators that they meet our essential requirements.
Asked by: Lord Hain (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of reports that more than a million health and care staff will be needed in order to recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Answered by Lord Kamall
The Department will support the National Health Service to address the impacts of the pandemic by supporting and increasing the workforce. The monthly workforce statistics for January 2022 show that there are more than 1.2 million full time equivalent staff working in the NHS. Since January 2021, there are over 20,700 more professionally qualified clinical staff working in NHS trusts and clinical commissioning groups, including over 4,200 additional doctors and 12,100 nurses. We are currently on schedule to deliver 50,000 more nurses and provide a sustainable long-term supply in future. We have established a programme to improve retention and support return to practice, invest in and diversify the training pipeline and ethically recruit internationally.
We have offered non-repayable grants of at least £5,000 per academic year to eligible students studying pre-registration programmes in nursing and midwifery and allied health professions. A further £3,000 is available to students with child dependents and those studying specialist subjects. At the end of the 2021 recruitment cycle, there are over 57,000 applications for nursing and midwifery courses – an increase of 21% compared to 2020. Over 30,000 nurses and midwives accepted places to study nursing and midwifery in 2021 and there are currently more than 72,000 people training to be nurses, approximately 9,000 midwifery trainees and 30,000 trainees for the allied health professions.
We have also funded an additional 1,500 undergraduate medical school places each year for domestic students and opened five new medical schools. In response to the pandemic, the Government temporarily lifted the cap on medical and dental school places for students who had completed A levels in 2020 and 2021. We are also investing in workforce skills, wellbeing and career development to help address the barriers to people taking up work in adult social care and make adult social care a more attractive offer. We have committed at least £500 million to develop and support the adult social care workforce, including training places and initiatives to improve wellbeing.
Asked by: Lord Hain (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what daily rate they pay to senior executives from Boston Consulting Group to work on the COVID-19 testing system.
Answered by Lord Bethell
We are unable to provide the information requested as it is commercially sensitive. However, the payment rates are as per the Crown Commercial Service Framework rate card with discounts attained depending on value and length of role.
Asked by: Lord Hain (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the answer by Lord Bethell on 14 May (HL Deb, col 807), what is the average time in England between a test taking place in a care home and the results being delivered to its management. [T]
Answered by Lord Bethell
The care home tests are processed via the existing programme lab infrastructure, the lighthouse labs and Randox in Northern Ireland. Test turnaround times are consistent with the rest of the programme with over 97% of tests being returned within 48 hours. We continue to make progress on being able to return all results within 24 hours.
Asked by: Lord Hain (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many patients were in receipt of continuing healthcare payments in England, broken down by category of payment, in (1) 2010, (2) 2015, (3) 2016, (4) 2017, (5) 2018, and (6) 2019.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
Data on NHS Continuing Healthcare (CHC) payments is not held currently, but NHS England collects data on the total number of cases eligible for NHS CHC during each year. This includes newly eligible individuals and individuals who were already eligible at the start of the period. The following table provides the total numbers eligible for both Standard and Fast Track NHS CHC for the years 2015/16 to 2018/19. ‘Category of payment’ has been interpreted to mean the split of total NHS CHC by Standard NHS CHC and Fast Track.
Data relating to 2010/11 has not been included as formal mandatory data collection was not in place at this time and is therefore not comparable to the more robust data collected subsequently.
Number eligible year to date | |||
Period | Standard NHS CHC | Fast Track | Total NHS CHC |
2015/16 | 67,774 | 91,791 | 159,565 |
2016/17 | 63,474 | 96,353 | 159,827 |
2017/18 | 59,916 | 99,706 | 159,622 |
2018/19 | 56,395 | 104,461 | 160,856 |
‘Somerset Health Authority’ is not a recognised organisation. Data is therefore provided for Somerset Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) for the years 2015/16 to 2018/19.
Somerset CCG Number eligible year to date | |||
Period | Standard NHS CHC | Fast Track | Total NHS CHC |
2015/16 | 835 | 1,277 | 2,112 |
2016/17 | 511 | 1,495 | 2,006 |
2017/18 | 350 | 1,572 | 1,922 |
2018/19 | 330 | 1,626 | 1,956 |
Data relating to 2010/11 has not been included as formal mandatory data collection was not in place at this time and is therefore not comparable to the more robust data collected subsequently. In addition, 2010/11 data pre-dates the existence of CCGs and relates to primary care trusts, meaning that comparison at organisational level is not possible.
Asked by: Lord Hain (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many patients were in receipt of continuing healthcare payments from Somerset Health Authority in (1) 2010, (2) 2015, (3) 2016, (4) 2017, (5) 2018, and (6) 2019.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
Data on NHS Continuing Healthcare (CHC) payments is not held currently, but NHS England collects data on the total number of cases eligible for NHS CHC during each year. This includes newly eligible individuals and individuals who were already eligible at the start of the period. The following table provides the total numbers eligible for both Standard and Fast Track NHS CHC for the years 2015/16 to 2018/19. ‘Category of payment’ has been interpreted to mean the split of total NHS CHC by Standard NHS CHC and Fast Track.
Data relating to 2010/11 has not been included as formal mandatory data collection was not in place at this time and is therefore not comparable to the more robust data collected subsequently.
Number eligible year to date | |||
Period | Standard NHS CHC | Fast Track | Total NHS CHC |
2015/16 | 67,774 | 91,791 | 159,565 |
2016/17 | 63,474 | 96,353 | 159,827 |
2017/18 | 59,916 | 99,706 | 159,622 |
2018/19 | 56,395 | 104,461 | 160,856 |
‘Somerset Health Authority’ is not a recognised organisation. Data is therefore provided for Somerset Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) for the years 2015/16 to 2018/19.
Somerset CCG Number eligible year to date | |||
Period | Standard NHS CHC | Fast Track | Total NHS CHC |
2015/16 | 835 | 1,277 | 2,112 |
2016/17 | 511 | 1,495 | 2,006 |
2017/18 | 350 | 1,572 | 1,922 |
2018/19 | 330 | 1,626 | 1,956 |
Data relating to 2010/11 has not been included as formal mandatory data collection was not in place at this time and is therefore not comparable to the more robust data collected subsequently. In addition, 2010/11 data pre-dates the existence of CCGs and relates to primary care trusts, meaning that comparison at organisational level is not possible.
Asked by: Lord Hain (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many patients were in receipt of continuing healthcare payments in England in (1) 2010, (2) 2015, (3) 2016, (4) 2017, (5) 2018, and (6) 2019.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
Data on NHS Continuing Healthcare (CHC) payments is not held currently, but NHS England collects data on the total number of cases eligible for NHS CHC during each year. This includes newly eligible individuals and individuals who were already eligible at the start of the period. The following table provides the total numbers eligible for both Standard and Fast Track NHS CHC for the years 2015/16 to 2018/19. ‘Category of payment’ has been interpreted to mean the split of total NHS CHC by Standard NHS CHC and Fast Track.
Data relating to 2010/11 has not been included as formal mandatory data collection was not in place at this time and is therefore not comparable to the more robust data collected subsequently.
Number eligible year to date | |||
Period | Standard NHS CHC | Fast Track | Total NHS CHC |
2015/16 | 67,774 | 91,791 | 159,565 |
2016/17 | 63,474 | 96,353 | 159,827 |
2017/18 | 59,916 | 99,706 | 159,622 |
2018/19 | 56,395 | 104,461 | 160,856 |
‘Somerset Health Authority’ is not a recognised organisation. Data is therefore provided for Somerset Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) for the years 2015/16 to 2018/19.
Somerset CCG Number eligible year to date | |||
Period | Standard NHS CHC | Fast Track | Total NHS CHC |
2015/16 | 835 | 1,277 | 2,112 |
2016/17 | 511 | 1,495 | 2,006 |
2017/18 | 350 | 1,572 | 1,922 |
2018/19 | 330 | 1,626 | 1,956 |
Data relating to 2010/11 has not been included as formal mandatory data collection was not in place at this time and is therefore not comparable to the more robust data collected subsequently. In addition, 2010/11 data pre-dates the existence of CCGs and relates to primary care trusts, meaning that comparison at organisational level is not possible.
Asked by: Lord Hain (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many care homes have closed in England since 2010.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
This data is not held in the format requested.