Asked by: Lord Ramsbotham (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the Secretaries of State for Health and Social Care, Education, and Housing, Communities and Local Government have discussed, or plan to discuss the findings of the Children's Commissioner for England's report We need to talk: Access to speech and language therapy, published on 11 June.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
Colleagues across different Departments meet frequently to discuss a range of topics relating to child wellbeing. The Government recognises that speech, language and communication skills are a primary indicator of child wellbeing and will continue to provide strategic leadership across education, health and social care to narrow inequalities.
Asked by: Lord Ramsbotham (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to ensure that speech and language therapists are included in the trailblazer areas anticipated in the Green Paper Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health Provision, published on 25 July.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
We will seek to use the trailblazer programme as the opportunity to link mental health support teams within schools and colleges, with the range of professionals already working with young people, including speech and language therapists where appropriate. The design of the new mental health support teams should in particular enable better joint working between health and education services, as well as working with other services.
Asked by: Lord Ramsbotham (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to develop a clear definition of joint commissioning for children and young people with speech, language and communication needs; and what discussions they have had with the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists and I CAN on that issue.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
There are currently no plans to introduce a single model of joint commissioning for children and young people with speech, communication and language needs. However, we monitor the effectiveness of local joint arrangements via a rolling programme of inspections by Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission. These began in 2016, and over five years, will visit every local area, and assess how well commissioners work together to support children and young people with special educational needs.
The Government is working with the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists and I CAN through the Expert Advisory Group established by Public Health England and the Department for Education, as part of the latter’s Social Mobility Action Plan for Education, ‘Unlocking Talent, Fulfilling Potential’.
A model speech, language and communication pathway for services for children aged 0-5 years, built on the best evidence and experience of implementation in practice, is currently in development. This will encourage joint commissioning and service provision.
Asked by: Lord Ramsbotham (Crossbench - 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 5 June (HL8079) on speech and language disorders, when NHS England’s review of the Comprehensive Health Assessment Tool will be completed; and whether the findings of that review will be made publicly available.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
The Comprehensive Health Assessment Tool Quality Assurance Audit is due to complete by the end of January 2019. It was commissioned as an internal review by NHS England to support their functioning as a commissioner and as such will not be published.
Asked by: Lord Ramsbotham (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many (1) drug, and (2) alcohol rehabilitation services are currently commissioned in each prison in England and Wales.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
NHS England does not hold the information requested centrally.
NHS England is responsible for commissioning healthcare in all prisons in England. This includes integrated substance misuse services.
Commissioning of primary healthcare, mental health and substance misuse services is carried out by local Health and Justice commissioning teams, of which there are 10 across England.
The Welsh Assembly Government and Local Health Boards are responsible for commissioning substance misuse services in public sector prisons in Wales.
Asked by: Lord Ramsbotham (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what discussions they have had with Public Health England about providing practitioners with evidence-based red flags that indicate communication and language concerns at each of the statutory review points that are part of the next review of the Healthy Child Programme.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
The Department for Education has an ongoing dialogue with Public Health England on the issue of children’s speech and language development. They have formed a partnership to address the ‘word gap’ and support the speech, language and communication elements of the Healthy Child Programme. This programme of work will include training and resources for health visitors on speech, language and communication needs, incorporating evidence-based red flags on delayed early use of gesture and pointing by young children.
Asked by: Lord Ramsbotham (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they plan to review the effectiveness of the Comprehensive Health Assessment Tool in identifying speech, language and communication needs.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
The Government has no current plans to review the effectiveness of the Comprehensive Health Assessment Tool to identify speech, language and communication needs in the children and young people’s secure estate.
NHS England has commissioned Manchester University to review use of the Tool across 14 Secure Children’s Homes, three Secure Training Centres and four Young Offender Institutions. This includes consideration of the quality of the assessments being completed and the processes and procedures set up to support the Comprehensive Health Assessment Tool. The review will report on overarching themes and individual site reports, each containing an action plan and recommendations. It is intended that this process will enable identification of key themes for NHS England to consider as well as individual site reports, each containing an action plan and recommendations.
Asked by: Lord Ramsbotham (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the independent review of mental health legislation will review those sections of the Mental Health Act 1983 that apply to (1) prisoners, and (2) those charged with offences.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
The terms of reference of the Independent Review of the Mental Health Act ask the review to identify issues across the breadth of the Act and associated practice, including those elements relating to prisoners and those charged with offences. In particular, the terms of reference highlight stakeholder concerns about ‘the time required to take decisions and arrange transfers for patients subject to criminal proceedings’.
Asked by: Lord Ramsbotham (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the current provision of medium and low secure beds in England; and what percentage of those beds are occupied.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
Since April 2013 NHS England has been responsible for commissioning all secure inpatient mental health care services nationally. The current number of beds in medium secure services in England is 3,188 and 3,348 in low secure. The data is provided by NHS England and is taken from the Mental Health Service Review Programme based on 2015/16 contracts.
The percentage of beds occupied will vary, depending on when the information is collected. However, where beds are contracted with an occupancy threshold, this is usually between 93% and 96% across the various contracts held by NHS England for these services.
The information provided refers to adult medium and low secure beds.