Asked by: Lord Ouseley (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
Her Majesty's Government how many nursing posts were unfilled in NHS England on the most recent date for which figures are available; and what plans they have to fill those places.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
The information is not available in the format requested.
Health Education England (HEE) provide estimates of staff shortages and the plan for tackling these issues as part of their Workforce Plan for England publication.
HEE plan to publish the Workforce Plan for England 2017/18 in due course.
Asked by: Lord Ouseley (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
Her Majesty's Government how many mentally ill people are currently in prison in England and Wales; what proportion of the prison population have mental illnesses; and what proposals they have to increase the number of beds in specialist hospitals for mentally ill patients.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
The information on how many mentally ill people are currently in prison in England and Wales is not collected centrally. NHS England is currently carrying out a service review across all adult high, medium and low secure services in order to improve access, egress and throughput.
Asked by: Lord Ouseley (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
Her Majesty's Government how many vacancies exist in the social care sector in England; and what assessment they have made of the impact of those vacancies on the services being provided to elderly and disabled people.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
Skills for Care workforce data shows that there were 90,335 vacant posts in the adult social care sector. This equates to a vacancy rate of 6.8%. This data is as at March 2016 for the independent sector and September 2015 for statutory local authorities.
Current vacancies, in addition to demographic changes in the population and raised expectations mean there will be an increasing demand on care services in the future, including from the elderly and disabled. Skills for Care, an employer-led workforce development organisation for adult social care, is looking to address this through their recruitment and retention strategy.
Asked by: Lord Ouseley (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what encouragement and support is given to local authorities to develop and run their own social care residential provision, in the light of the loss of places through the closures of privately run homes for the elderly.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
High-quality, personalised care and support can only be achieved where there is a vibrant, responsive market of service providers. There has been an effective market operating in adult social care for over 20 years. The independent and charitable sector has proved successful in meeting increased demand for high quality services.
The Government continues to monitor the capacity of the social care system and bed capacity has remained broadly stable - 460,664 beds in 2010 to 459,874 now.
The Government does not advise local authorities or private companies on how to set up or operate care homes. The Care Act 2014 placed duties on local authorities making them responsible for ensuring there is an effective pool of quality providers of social care in their area with capacity to meet the needs of their local population. It is for local authorities to determine the most cost effective way of meeting the care needs of their local population.
Should a care home close, local authorities have duties to step in temporarily and ensure that all people affected in its area continue to have their needs met and their care is not interrupted.
The Department has worked with the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, the Local Government Association, the care sector and other partners to produce a wide range of guidance and support about market shaping and commissioning. We have brought this together in an online hub called Adult Social Care Market Shaping, which is an online only resource widely available to people and organisations including local authorities, service users, and care providers.
Asked by: Lord Ouseley (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment has been made of the cost effectiveness of local authorities developing and running social care residential homes to meet the urgent needs of the elderly population.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
High-quality, personalised care and support can only be achieved where there is a vibrant, responsive market of service providers. There has been an effective market operating in adult social care for over 20 years. The independent and charitable sector has proved successful in meeting increased demand for high quality services.
The Government continues to monitor the capacity of the social care system and bed capacity has remained broadly stable - 460,664 beds in 2010 to 459,874 now.
The Government does not advise local authorities or private companies on how to set up or operate care homes. The Care Act 2014 placed duties on local authorities making them responsible for ensuring there is an effective pool of quality providers of social care in their area with capacity to meet the needs of their local population. It is for local authorities to determine the most cost effective way of meeting the care needs of their local population.
Should a care home close, local authorities have duties to step in temporarily and ensure that all people affected in its area continue to have their needs met and their care is not interrupted.
The Department has worked with the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, the Local Government Association, the care sector and other partners to produce a wide range of guidance and support about market shaping and commissioning. We have brought this together in an online hub called Adult Social Care Market Shaping, which is an online only resource widely available to people and organisations including local authorities, service users, and care providers.
Asked by: Lord Ouseley (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government to what extent they have taken into account changes in (1) the number of social care bed spaces provided, and (2) local demand for social care bed spaces, in determining the requirements for adult social care provision throughout England.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
Residential care is largely provided by an independent sector of care homes and nursing homes who respond to local demand.
The Care Act 2014 placed duties on local authorities to facilitate local markets, articulating likely changes to supply and demand in a Market Position Statement (or equivalent) and engaging with local providers to encourage a local pool of provider organisations that allows people a choice of quality organisations.
Local authorities are best placed to understand the changing needs of their citizens and communities. The Department supports local authorities in meeting their market shaping duties when commissioning services and provides further support and guidance through sector-led improvement programmes.
The Department has worked with the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, the Local Government Association, the care sector and other partners to produce a wide range of guidance and support about market shaping and commissioning. We have brought this together in an online hub called Adult Social Care Market Shaping, which is an online only resource, widely available to people and organisations, including local authorities, service users, and care providers.
Asked by: Lord Ouseley (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of figures recently released by NHS Digital, what action they are taking in response to the rising number of children being admitted to hospital suffering from anxiety.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
Children and young people’s mental health is a priority area for this Government. We are committed to delivering the vision set out in the Future in Mind report, published in March 2015, which established a clear and powerful consensus about change across the whole system, including health, justice, social care and education.
This Government will drive forward the transformation of children and young people’s mental health services to improve access and make services more widely available across the country so that where possible children can access support locally. In total the Government has made available an additional £1.4 billion over the course of this Parliament to support significant transformation in children and young people’s mental health so that there is easy access to the right support from the right service when it is needed. This includes implementing clear evidence based pathways for community-based care to avoid unnecessary admissions to inpatient care.
Asked by: Lord Ouseley (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what estimate they have made of the number of hospital fatalities resulting from people not being admitted to accident and emergency departments since the beginning of December 2016; and what assessment they have made of whether any increase or decrease from usual numbers is a result of seasonal factors or demonstrates a long-term trend.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
This information is not held centrally.
Asked by: Lord Ouseley (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many hospital beds, on each day in the years (1) 2015, and (2) 2016, were filled by patients who could have been discharged; what estimate they have made of the numbers of such patients in 2017; and how they intend to tackle this issue.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
The information is not available in the format requested.
Asked by: Lord Ouseley (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what advice is being given to the public on how to spot the warning signs of sepsis so that early appropriate treatment can be sought.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
Public Health England (PHE), in partnership with the UK Sepsis Trust, launched a national sepsis campaign in December 2016 targeted at parents of children under five with the aim of raising awareness of the symptoms of sepsis and when to seek urgent medical help. Activity includes posters and leaflets, digital films featuring Melissa Mead and other families affected by sepsis, a Netmums partnership, national public relations and supporting communications through a range of National Health Service, local authority and commercial sector partners. So far the campaign has achieved strong engagement. The launch achieved excellent national news coverage, a million posters and leaflets have been ordered and there have been more than 2.7 million views of the digital films.