Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of child mortality rates among children living in temporary accommodation in England in each of the last five years; and what steps his Department is taking to improve the safety and suitability of temporary accommodation for families with children.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
It is unacceptable that living situations are contributing to the tragic deaths of children. The Child Poverty Strategy and our National Plan to End Homelessness set out our commitments to eradicate unsuitable or poor-quality accommodation and ensure children in temporary accommodation do not experience gaps in health care provision.
These include our commitment to eliminating the unlawful use of Bed & Breakfast accommodation for families by the end of this Parliament, introducing a clinical code to improve data and prevent incidents in temporary accommodation, ending the practice of discharging newborns into B&B or other unsuitable shared accommodation, and providing proactive outreach to families in temporary accommodation.
Through our Emergency Accommodation Reduction Pilots, we have been driving place-based good practice by working with local authorities with the highest use of B&B accommodation, backed by £10.5 million over two years. We will expand this work through an Emergency Accommodation Reduction Programme, backed by £30 million over three years.
The government is providing £950 million of investment for the fourth round of the Local Authority Housing Fund – the largest investment in the fund to date - to support local authorities in England to increase the supply of good quality temporary accommodation and drive down the use of costly B&B and hotels.
Alongside this, the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will provide the strongest protections in a generation, making sure vulnerable children are identified and supported. We are also introducing a new temporary accommodation notification duty, to inform schools and specified health providers when a child is placed in temporary accommodation, to allow additional or different support to be provided to these children.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the efficacy of support provided to patients before and after heart and lung transplants, including follow-up care and psychological support.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government recognises the importance of ensuring timely and equitable access to heart and lung transplantation services and of improving patient outcomes.
Heart and lung transplant services provide multidisciplinary assessment, ongoing follow‑up, and access to psychological support where clinically indicated, ensuring that care addresses both physical and mental health needs across the patient pathway, before and after transplantation. The quality and effectiveness of care are monitored through national audit, service review, and patient feedback.
Evidence has identified variation in how aspects of service specifications and patient engagement are implemented across transplant services. This was highlighted in the Implementation Steering Group for Organ Utilisation’s Improving Patient Engagement in Organ Transplantation: Recommendations for Best Practice report, which sets out areas for improvement in consistency and patient experience. This report is available at the following link:
NHS England is working with patient representatives, NHS Blood and Transplant, and transplant centres through a national improvement programme which includes work to address unwarranted variation and strengthen holistic, patient‑centred care before and after transplantation, in addition to wider work to improve access, workforce sustainability, and service resilience.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
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 regional disparities in England for access to and outcomes of heart and lung transplants.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government recognises the importance of ensuring timely and equitable access to heart and lung transplantation services and of improving patient outcomes.
Access to transplantation is based on nationally agreed clinical criteria, with organs allocated through a national system managed by NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) to ensure equity according to clinical need. NHSBT publishes data annually on access and outcomes in its organ-specific reports, which are available at the following link:
https://www.odt.nhs.uk/statistics-and-reports/annual-activity-report/
This data shows good overall post-transplant survival rates, alongside some variation between centres. In addition, the data shows no evidence of geographical variation beyond chance for heart and lung transplantation rates, and some variation in lung registration rates. Further work is needed to understand and address unwarranted variation in access to transplantation.
Variation in patient outcomes, including longer‑term survival and listing outcomes, are reviewed through established NHSBT and NHS England clinical governance processes, including routine outcome review and centre‑specific follow‑up where indicated. The National Transplant Clinical Panel has been established to provide expert clinical interpretation of transplant outcome data to support oversight where issues of statistical variation are identified.
To improve access and outcomes, NHS England has established a national improvement programme, informed by the Implementation Steering Group for Organ Utilisation’s Cardiothoracic Information Collation Exercise. This programme, alongside NHS England’s commissioning structures, includes work to improve referral pathways, organ utilisation, and service consistency, through strengthened peer review processes, an audit of organ acceptance practices, and work with transplant centres to support consistent decision-making. Further information on NHS England’s national improvement programme and the Implementation Steering Group for Organ Utilisation’s Cardiothoracic Information Collation Exercise is available, respectively, at the following two links:
While progress has been made, including increases in transplant activity and reductions in waiting lists, NHS England continues to work with partners to ensure services are consistent, resilient, and able to meet patient need across the country.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
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 improve outcomes and survival rates after heart and lung transplants.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government recognises the importance of ensuring timely and equitable access to heart and lung transplantation services and of improving patient outcomes.
Access to transplantation is based on nationally agreed clinical criteria, with organs allocated through a national system managed by NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) to ensure equity according to clinical need. NHSBT publishes data annually on access and outcomes in its organ-specific reports, which are available at the following link:
https://www.odt.nhs.uk/statistics-and-reports/annual-activity-report/
This data shows good overall post-transplant survival rates, alongside some variation between centres. In addition, the data shows no evidence of geographical variation beyond chance for heart and lung transplantation rates, and some variation in lung registration rates. Further work is needed to understand and address unwarranted variation in access to transplantation.
Variation in patient outcomes, including longer‑term survival and listing outcomes, are reviewed through established NHSBT and NHS England clinical governance processes, including routine outcome review and centre‑specific follow‑up where indicated. The National Transplant Clinical Panel has been established to provide expert clinical interpretation of transplant outcome data to support oversight where issues of statistical variation are identified.
To improve access and outcomes, NHS England has established a national improvement programme, informed by the Implementation Steering Group for Organ Utilisation’s Cardiothoracic Information Collation Exercise. This programme, alongside NHS England’s commissioning structures, includes work to improve referral pathways, organ utilisation, and service consistency, through strengthened peer review processes, an audit of organ acceptance practices, and work with transplant centres to support consistent decision-making. Further information on NHS England’s national improvement programme and the Implementation Steering Group for Organ Utilisation’s Cardiothoracic Information Collation Exercise is available, respectively, at the following two links:
While progress has been made, including increases in transplant activity and reductions in waiting lists, NHS England continues to work with partners to ensure services are consistent, resilient, and able to meet patient need across the country.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
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 improve access to heart and lung transplants across England.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government recognises the importance of ensuring timely and equitable access to heart and lung transplantation services and of improving patient outcomes.
Access to transplantation is based on nationally agreed clinical criteria, with organs allocated through a national system managed by NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) to ensure equity according to clinical need. NHSBT publishes data annually on access and outcomes in its organ-specific reports, which are available at the following link:
https://www.odt.nhs.uk/statistics-and-reports/annual-activity-report/
This data shows good overall post-transplant survival rates, alongside some variation between centres. In addition, the data shows no evidence of geographical variation beyond chance for heart and lung transplantation rates, and some variation in lung registration rates. Further work is needed to understand and address unwarranted variation in access to transplantation.
Variation in patient outcomes, including longer‑term survival and listing outcomes, are reviewed through established NHSBT and NHS England clinical governance processes, including routine outcome review and centre‑specific follow‑up where indicated. The National Transplant Clinical Panel has been established to provide expert clinical interpretation of transplant outcome data to support oversight where issues of statistical variation are identified.
To improve access and outcomes, NHS England has established a national improvement programme, informed by the Implementation Steering Group for Organ Utilisation’s Cardiothoracic Information Collation Exercise. This programme, alongside NHS England’s commissioning structures, includes work to improve referral pathways, organ utilisation, and service consistency, through strengthened peer review processes, an audit of organ acceptance practices, and work with transplant centres to support consistent decision-making. Further information on NHS England’s national improvement programme and the Implementation Steering Group for Organ Utilisation’s Cardiothoracic Information Collation Exercise is available, respectively, at the following two links:
While progress has been made, including increases in transplant activity and reductions in waiting lists, NHS England continues to work with partners to ensure services are consistent, resilient, and able to meet patient need across the country.