Asked by: Lord Shinkwin (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what discussions they plan to have with NHS Clinical Commissioners about ensuring that speech and language therapy service specifications (1) require speech and language therapy services to have a pathway for when a child or young person is not brought to an appointment, including for children and young people who are known to be at higher risk of poorer outcomes or safeguarding issues, (2) ensure and appropriately resource speech and language therapy services to provide support in settings that meet the needs of the children or young people and their parents and carers, and (3) monitor and report on the number of children and young people who are discharged from speech and language therapy services because they were not brought to an appointment.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
We have no plans at present to hold discussions with NHS Clinical Commissioners concerning speech and language therapy service specifications. Clinical commissioning groups have responsibility for commissioning services to meet the needs of their local population, drawing on National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidance to agree the specifications for communication support. The protection and safeguarding of children and young people from harm is of paramount importance to all parts for the health care system. All providers should have their own governance arrangements in place for responding to non-attendance at appointments.
Asked by: Lord Shinkwin (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the publication of their response to the Consultation on Transforming Children and Young People's Mental Health Provision: a Green Paper and Next Steps (Cm 9626) published in July, which health practitioners they envisage being part of the composition of (1) Mental Health Support Teams, and (2) specialist NHS children and young people's mental health services.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
New Mental Health Support Teams will provide support in and near schools and colleges for children and young people with mild to moderate mental health conditions. They will work closely with schools and colleges on establishing a whole-school approach to supporting mental health. We are creating a new role of Education Mental Health Practitioners to staff the teams. They will provide face to face, evidence-based interventions, and work as part of an integrated referral system with existing National Health Service mental health services to ensure that children in need of more specialist support are appropriately referred.
There will be new courses starting in seven universities in January 2019 to train this new workforce of Education Mental Health Practitioners to form the Mental Health Support Teams. Working with Health Education England and NHS England, together with leading clinical experts, we have developed an evidence-based curriculum for these courses. It builds on the existing Children’s Wellbeing Practitioner programme which is already being provided in the universities.
Specialist NHS children and young people’s mental health services are multidisciplinary teams that consist of, but are not limited to psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, nurses, support workers, occupational therapists, psychological therapists, primary mental health link workers and specialist substance misuse workers.
Asked by: Lord Shinkwin (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to ensure that NHS England, NHS Improvement, Public Health England and Health Education England use the evidence and findings in the report by I CAN and the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists, Bercow: Ten Years On, published 20 March, to inform their work in developing leadership in the Allied Health Professions.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
Speech, language and communication skills are fundamental in helping people flourish in life, and the Government is firmly committed to ensuring that those with speech, language and communication needs receive the support they need to reach their full potential. We therefore welcome the Bercow Ten Years On report and it raises some important issues. The Government is currently considering the report and will respond in due course.
The NHS Leadership Academy’s leadership development programmes are aimed at all levels of leadership and disciplines including allied health professionals. NHS England colleagues already work closely with us on the Clinical Executive Fast Track Scheme and we have commenced conversations regarding allied health professionals leadership development. To date, over 4,000 allied health professionals have enrolled on NHS Leadership Academy National Programmes.
The role that allied health professionals and other clinicians play in National Health Service leadership is of utmost importance and we engage with a range of professions to understand how best to support clinical leaders.
Asked by: Lord Shinkwin (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the recommendation in the report by I CAN and the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists, Bercow: Ten Years On, published 20 March, that local authorities should include the evidence in the report in their Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy and in their contribution to Integrated Care Systems.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
As set out in the statutory guidance on Joint Strategic Needs Assessments and Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategies, local authorities and clinical commissioning groups should draw on a range of quantitative and qualitative evidence of local need and of health inequalities, in undertaking their assessments and agreeing their strategies. The report Bercow: Ten Years On provides valuable evidence of the importance of commissioners understanding local communication needs, and working together with providers and patients to ensure needs are met.
Asked by: Lord Shinkwin (Conservative - 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 20 June (HL8430), what are the five active projects funded by the National Institute for Health Research on the effectiveness of speech and language therapy interventions for children and young people.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
The five active projects funded by the National Institute for Health Research on the effectiveness of speech and language therapy interventions for children and young people are as follows:
- ATLAS - Automated Transcription and Language Analysis Software (Award reference II-BP-0817-10014);
- Evaluating ‘Enhancing Pragmatic Language skills for Young children with Social communication impairment’ (E-PLAYS): A feasibility study’ (Ref: PB-PG-0416-20035);
- A new speech and language therapy intervention for children who have Social Communication Disorder: feasibility and acceptability to service users and practitioners (Ref: PB-PG-1014-35011);
- The Paediatric Autism Communication Trial - Generalised (PACT-G) (13/119/18); and
- Identifying appropriate symbol communication aids for children who are non-speaking: enhancing clinical decision making (14/70/153).
Asked by: Lord Shinkwin (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to commission research into the effectiveness of speech and language therapy interventions for children and young people with mental health needs and speech, language and communication needs.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
There are currently five active projects funded by the National Institute for Health Research on effectiveness of speech and language therapy interventions for children and young people. There are no current plans to commission further research at this stage.
Public Health England has formed a partnership with the Department for Education to improve early language acquisition; this will enable health visitors and early years practitioners to identify and support children’s early speech, language and communication needs through training guidance and an enhanced early language assessment tool.
Asked by: Lord Shinkwin (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government with which professional bodies and third sector bodies they had discussions in developing the green paper Transforming children and young people's mental health provision.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
The Green Paper team, across the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Education, had discussions with over 90 professional and third sector bodies on development of the Green Paper. A list of these stakeholders is attached due to the size of the data. This includes engagement before the Green Paper’s publication and during the consultation period through national roundtables, telephone conferences for large groups of additional stakeholders, focus groups and many bilateral discussions. The teams in both the Department of Health Social Care and the Department for Education also spoke about the Green Paper and engaged with stakeholders at a number of events and conferences organised by others.
The list may not be completely exhaustive of all bodies the two Departments engaged with. For example, discussions with stakeholders also took place in the margins of events or through networking opportunities, and with various individual schools and colleges.
Asked by: Lord Shinkwin (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many terminations post-24 weeks’ gestation have been performed under Ground E of the Abortion Act 1967 since the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 entered into force (1) in total, and (2) by year.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
The Abortion Act 1967 requires that the Chief Medical Officer be legally notified of an abortion within 14 days of the termination. Statistical summaries of this data, which include the Grounds for the termination, are published annually. Statistics for years from 1968 to 1973 were published in the Registrar General’s Statistical Review of England and Wales, Supplement on Abortion. Statistics for years from 1974 to 2001 were published by the Office for National Statistics in its Abortion Statistics Series AB, Numbers 1 to 28. Since 2002, the Department has published an annual series of Abortion Statistics for England and Wales. All are publicly available, but for ease of reference the first three reports identifying abortions from 1991 onwards are attached.
Prior to 1991 abortion on the ground of a substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped was classified as Section 1(1)(b).
The classification of abortions as Ground E (section 1(1)(d) of the Act) was introduced in April 1991. Data on the number of abortions by Ground is included in Table 1 of each of the attached documents. Information on the distribution of all post-24 week abortions and those under Ground E is included in Table D and the supporting text in each of the documents.