Asked by: Lord Soames of Fletching (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 14 May 2018 to Question 142304 on Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships: South East, what sanctions are available to him for late delivery in the Sustainability and Transformation Partnership.
Answered by Steve Barclay
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care does not have sanctions available for the late delivery of sustainability and transformation partnership (STPs).
Local health and care organisations remain accountable for their individual organisational plans, which forms part of their STP.
It is important that local people, local organisations, and the STP themselves, can see how their local footprint is performing comparatively in delivering transformation and improving patient care. That is why we have published an STP Dashboard that makes this assessment.
The Dashboard will further accountability, and can be used as a mechanism to drive improvement. NHS England intends to update the dashboard annually to enable progress to be tracked. The dashboard is available at the following link:
Asked by: Lord Soames of Fletching (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure that progress is made on the Sussex and East Surrey Sustainability and Transformation Partnership's move to integrated care systems; and what the timetable is for that move.
Answered by Steve Barclay
All sustainability and transformation partnerships (STPs) are at different stages with many not yet ready to apply to become integrated care systems (ICS). Although the requirements for ICS are recognised, and Sussex and East Surrey STP is working on all the desired characteristics in 2018/19, the STP is currently focusing on the key areas of improving system financial and service delivery performance in 2018/19 before making any decision about whether or not to apply to become an ICS.
There is no defined timescale for this as it is a voluntary decision for each STP depending on their own circumstances.
Asked by: Lord Soames of Fletching (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure that the Sussex and East Surrey Sustainability and Transformation Partnership (STP) has the support it needs to move out of category 4 of the STP progress dashboard.
Answered by Steve Barclay
Sussex and East Surrey Sustainability and Transformation Partnership (STP) has strengthened its leadership with Bob Alexander now full-time in post since February and Karen Breen, a new programme director in post since April. NHS England is working with both Bob Alexander and Karen Breen to further align support to the STP’s work programmes.
NHS England Director of Commissioning Operations for Kent, Surrey and Sussex (Felicity Cox) and Director of Assurance and Delivery (Pennie Ford) meet regularly with Bob and Karen to review progress and identify any further support needed by the STP.
The initial focus for 2018/19 is on improving system financial and service delivery performance.
Asked by: Lord Soames of Fletching (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 2 May, 2018 to Question 138935 and with reference to the Answer of 26 May 2016 to Question 38904, to what he attributes the increase of 10,865 in the number of bed days lost due to delayed transfers of care in Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust in 2017 compared with 2015.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The change in the number of delayed transfers of care at Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust between 2015 and 2017, disaggregated by the reason for the delay, is shown in the table below:
Year | 2015 | 2017 |
Completion of assessment | 93 | 1,886 |
Public funding | 191 | 541 |
Waiting further National Health Service non- acute care | 4,624 | 7,890 |
Awaiting residential home placement or availability | 1,018 | 1,542 |
Awaiting nursing home placement or availability | 1,297 | 3,025 |
Awaiting care package in own home | 2,265 | 5,051 |
Awaiting community equipment and adaptations | 0 | 466 |
Patient or family choice | 2,354 | 1,001 |
Disputes | 65 | 807 |
Housing- patients not covered by NHS and Community Care Act | 0 | 563 |
Source: https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/delayed-transfers-of-care/
During 2017/18, there have been a number of actions and developments put in place to help reduce delays at the Trust. These include the identification of onward care capacity, improvements in communication and relationships with care homes and the roll-out of pathways to support early discharge.
The latest data for February 2018 shows that the number of delayed days at the Trust is now 1,200, a reduction of 1,052 delayed days compared to the same month in 2017.
Asked by: Lord Soames of Fletching (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the rate of progress on the establishment of Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships in England.
Answered by Steve Barclay
All sustainability and transformation partnerships (STPs) have governance plans and established leadership in place.
It is important that local people, organisations, and systems themselves, can see how their local footprint is performing comparatively in delivering transformation and improving patient care. That is why we have published an STP Dashboard that makes this assessment.
The STP Dashboard assesses performance and is on track to be refreshed by July 2018. The 2017 dashboard can be found in the following link:
The next steps for those STPs that are ready to go further is integrated care systems (ICS). ICSs see commissioners and National Health Service providers, working closely with general practitioner networks, local councils and others, voluntarily agree to take shared responsibility for how they use collective resources for the benefit of their local communities.
To enable this, NHS England and NHS Improvement will offer them far more control and freedom over the total operations of the health system in their area.
Asked by: Lord Soames of Fletching (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make it his policy to amalgamate NHS Improvement and NHS England.
Answered by Steve Barclay
As set out under the 2012 Act, NHS England and NHS Improvement have different statutory functions and accountabilities in relation to monitoring and supporting of trusts and clinical commissioning groups. Within this legal framework, they have already taken some steps to ensure their regulatory functions are as streamlined as possible. This includes appointment of shared, associate non-executive directors to chair a joint finance group, as a key way to ensure overall financial balance across the National Health Service. NHS England and NHS Improvement recently announced the intention to go further from September, when there will be increased integration and alignment of national programmes and activities, as well as a move to seven integrated regional teams.
These changes will enable NHS England and NHS Improvement to work even more effectively to support increasingly integrated local health systems and make best use of collective resources. The Government welcomes these steps to deliver more joined-up leadership of the NHS, within the legislative framework set by Parliament.
Asked by: Lord Soames of Fletching (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what change there was in the level of emergency admissions of older people between 2013-14 and 2016-17 in the Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust.
Answered by Steve Barclay
NHS Digital’s Hospital Episode Statistics show that between the financial years 2013-14 and 2016-17, there was an increase in emergency finished admission episodes at the Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust for patients aged 65 and over of 1,914 (an increase of 9.9%). This is a count of admissions, not patients, as the same person may have more than one admission within the time period.
Asked by: Lord Soames of Fletching (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent representations he has received from care home operators in West Sussex on their future financial viability.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
We have received two letters from care providers who operate in West Sussex.
The Department receives representations from care providers on a regular basis on a number of issues and we work with providers through the Care Provider Alliance to consider targeted action to address the issues.
The Government continues to engage with the care sector, including care providers, to understand their concerns about their financial viability and the sustainability of services.
Asked by: Lord Soames of Fletching (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent representations he has received from care home operators on their financial viability.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
We have received two letters from care providers who operate in West Sussex.
The Department receives representations from care providers on a regular basis on a number of issues and we work with providers through the Care Provider Alliance to consider targeted action to address the issues.
The Government continues to engage with the care sector, including care providers, to understand their concerns about their financial viability and the sustainability of services.
Asked by: Lord Soames of Fletching (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what information he holds on the number of bed days that were lost due to delayed transfers of care in Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust in 2017.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
There were 22,772 delayed transfer of care bed days at Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust during 2017.
NHS England publishes information on the number of delayed transfers of care on a monthly basis. This is available at individual trust and national level via their Statistical Work Areas webpages and can be accessed via the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/delayed-transfers-of-care