Asked by: Scott Mann (Conservative - North Cornwall)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what progress has been made on the digital transformation of the NHS.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
Good progress is being made towards a more digitised National Health Service. The Government is investing £4.2 billion to support wider adoption of digital technology over the five years up to 2020.
95% of general medical practices are able to offer patient online services, so patients can make GP appointments and order repeat prescriptions, increasing choice and convenience for patients.
A new ‘Apps Library’ launched in April this year for the NHS includes 43 apps which can be used by patients to support management of their health and wellbeing. Some apps are labelled, "NHS Approved" meaning there is clinical evidence that they support clinical outcomes, or "Being Tested in the NHS", which means they are part of an NHS programme that is monitoring and gathering evidence of its effectiveness.
Free Wi-Fi services have been rolled out to 1,200 general practices, enabling up to 8 million patients to get online and plans are in place to roll this out to the rest of the country.
98% of the population in England have a summary care record (SCR). SCRs are helping to deliver better, safer care for patients when seen by healthcare professionals in unplanned settings e.g. out of hours, or by ambulance and accident and emergency services, providing healthcare staff with essential information about an individual’s allergies, medications and any adverse reactions to medicines. SCRs were used over 4 million times during 2016, and for 2017 the expected figure is 6.5 million.
The global digital exemplar (GDE) programme is investing in acute and mental health trusts to develop world class digitally enabled services and to share and spread their experience to other NHS trusts so they can digitise more quickly and effectively. There are currently 16 acute global digital exemplar trusts and seven mental health global digital exemplars receiving up to £10 million and £5 million respectively matched by investment by the trust.
All GDEs are now partnered with fast followers – so GDEs can share their experience of implementation and fast followers can learn from this and support the spread of best practice and innovation. Mental health GDEs will also partner with fast followers over the next year.
Asked by: Scott Mann (Conservative - North Cornwall)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much funding the NHS in Cornwall currently receives; and how that level of funding compares to levels in 2010.
Answered by Philip Dunne
Decisions on clinical commissioning group (CCG) allocations are taken independently of Government by NHS England and published on the NHS England website. The 2017-18 allocation for NHS Kernow CCG, which comprises both Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, is £745,816 million on page 13 of:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/ccg-allocations.pdf
The CCG framework was created following the Health and Social Act in 2012, therefore no direct comparison can be made between 2010 and the current funding levels in 2017-18.
Asked by: Scott Mann (Conservative - North Cornwall)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to assist the Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust since it has been placed into special measures.
Answered by Philip Dunne
This is a matter for NHS Improvement. Special Measures for Quality is a targeted and time-limited regime agreed between the Care Quality Commission and NHS Improvement.
We have been advised by NHS Improvement that a range of support has already been provided to Royal Cornwall Hospitals National Health Service Trust, including an Improvement Director to support the Trust in the development of an overarching improvement plan; buddying arrangements with the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust and Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust to provide peer executive support and improvement expertise; as well as a range of other clinical improvement activities. There is national dedicated funding available to any trust that is placed in Special Measures for Quality. Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust will have full access to this resource to support improvement activities.
Asked by: Scott Mann (Conservative - North Cornwall)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will bring forward legislative proposals to require the Care Quality Commission to notify (a) hon. Members and (b) local councillors of ratings of inadequate or requires improvement in care homes.
Answered by David Mowat
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of health and adult social care in England. The CQC is responsible for assessing whether providers are meeting the fundamental standards of quality and safety including the decisions around the publication of its reports.
The CQC has advised that it currently informs hon. Members when there has been an inadequate or outstanding rating given to a care home in their constituency. This is done as close as possible to the publication of the report. All inspection reports are available on the CQC website once they have been published and hon. Members can also sign-up to an automated CQC constituency email alert tool which will alert them to any new reports published in their constituency, irrespective of rating.
Each week the CQC sends information on all inspection reports, and ratings, published the previous week to all English local authorities.