Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether any NHS staff have been made redundant while suffering from long covid; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
This information requested is not collected centrally.
The redundancy terms for employees are outlined under Section 16 of the NHS Terms and Conditions of Service Handbook. Any decision to enter into redundancy arrangements must be mainly or wholly attributable to the fact that:
- the employer or the business need for which the employee was appointed has ceased, or is intended to cease or the type of number of roles needed to carry out a particular kind of work has changed; and
- the need for staff to carry out work in the place they were originally employed has ceased or is relocating.
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
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 on the impact of inflation on the effectiveness of the Healthy Start scheme to provide adequate funding for purchase of food and milk.
Answered by Maggie Throup
In April 2021, the value of the Healthy Start benefit was raised from £3.10 to £4.25 per week, providing additional support to pregnant women and families on lower incomes to make healthy food choices. The Healthy Start scheme is kept under continuous review although there are no current plans to increase the value of the Healthy Start benefit.
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the cost per minute of accessing the Healthy Start helpline is; and what was the average length of call to the Healthy Start helpline in the month preceding the digitisation deadline of the scheme.
Answered by Maggie Throup
The NHS Business Services Authority’s Healthy Start telephone helpline is charged at a local rate. Calls are free for most people as they are included in the free minutes of a call plan. The average call handling time for February 2022 was 8 minutes 56 seconds.
General queries about Healthy Start can also be made via email and through the NHS Business Services Authority’s Healthy Start Facebook and Twitter social media channels at no charge.
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what was the average waiting time for answering an emergency call to ambulance services (a) nationally and (b) by regional ambulance emergency call centre on a (i) Friday night and (ii) Saturday night in each of the last 5 years.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The information requested is not held centrally. Average monthly call answer times by ambulance trust are published by NHS England and NHS Improvement at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/ambulance-quality-indicators/
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will publish a list of each regional call centre that handles emergency calls to ambulance services in England.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The information requested is not held centrally. Average monthly call answer times by ambulance trust are published by NHS England and NHS Improvement at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/ambulance-quality-indicators/
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many calls the Healthy Start voucher scheme helpline has received since its digitisation in December 2021.
Answered by Maggie Throup
From 1 December 2021 until 17 February 2022, the Healthy Start Issuing Unit, which administers the paper voucher scheme, received 52,294 calls into their contact centre.
Between 1 November 2022 and 22 February 2022, 119,959 calls were received by the NHS Business Services Authority’s customer contact centre.
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether information on the uptake of the Healthy Start scheme by (a) region and (b) local authority will be published online; and when the next progress report by the NHS Business Services Authority will be published.
Answered by Maggie Throup
The NHS Business Services Authority is currently transferring the Healthy Start Scheme from the Healthy Start Issuing Unit. Once completed, data will be made available by region and local authority. The NHS Business Service Authority do not publish progress reports.
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will publish the number of beneficiaries of the Healthy Start scheme (a) before and (b) after the digitisation of that scheme; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Maggie Throup
The NHS Business Services Authority is currently transferring the Healthy Start Scheme from the Healthy Start Issuing Unit. Once completed, the number of beneficiaries on the digital scheme will be made available. Prior to the transfer process, there were 346,754 beneficiaries on the Healthy Start paper voucher scheme.
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many online applications to the Healthy Start scheme have been rejected; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The NHS Business Services Authority does not collect this data.
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will ensure that personal data, including DNA, that has been received through covid-19 tests, particularly laboratory-based PCR tests, (a) has and (b) will not be shared with (i) pharmaceutical companies, (ii) insurers and (iii) other bodies that are external to the NHS; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Maggie Throup
Personal data may be shared by the UK Health Security Agency in the context of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic to help operate all elements of the Test and Trace service including with bodies external to the National Health Service.
This data will not be used for any purpose that is not linked to the control and prevention of COVID-19. We follow best practice to help protect personal information and comply with the law on the use of data, including the Data Protection Act 2018, and also require any organisations we work with to do so.
A full list of the organisations we share data with for Test and Trace purposes, and the reasons for doing so, is available at the following link: