Asked by: Iain Wright (Labour - Hartlepool)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the fit and proper test for individuals running care homes for the elderly; and what plans he has to make changes to that test.
Answered by Alistair Burt
All providers of regulated health and adult social care activities in England are required to register with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and to meet a set of registration requirements relating to safety and quality. The CQC has a range of enforcement powers that it can use when these standards are not met. These registration requirements include the fitness of service providers where the provider is an individual or partnership, as well as the fitness of registered managersand the fitness of staff. Since April 2015, the directors of all registered service providers have also been required to meet a fit and proper person requirement. The registered provider is responsible for ensuring that these requirements are met. The Department keeps the requirements for registration with the CQC under review. There are no current plans to make changes to the fit and proper person requirements that apply to registered providers.
Asked by: Iain Wright (Labour - Hartlepool)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what progress has been made on the implementation of the recommendations made in the Innovation, Health and Wealth report, published by his Department in December 2011.
Answered by George Freeman
NHS England has advised that since the publication of One Year On in 2012, an update on the implementation of the Innovation Health and Wealth (IHW), there has been a great deal of progress made in many of the IHW work streams. Much of this has been incorporated into NHS England’s Innovation Into Action: Supporting delivery of the NHS Five Year Funding View, published in September 2015 and can be found at:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/nhs-inovation-into-action.pdf
Both the Department and NHS England remain committed to driving improvements in health through developing, testing and spreading innovation across the health system. Key developments include:
- The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) Implementation Collaborative has been working with industry, the National Health Service, NICE and the medical Royal Colleges to provide practical solutions to overcome barriers to implementation of innovative treatments recommended by NICE.
- NHS England have launched Innovation Exchange a key platform to enhance the development and spread of innovation. Innovation Challenge prizes are now celebrating the ground breaking innovations developed in the NHS, and delivering better health outcomes for patients.
- In 2013 England became the first country in the world to implement a universal system of Academic Health Science Networks (AHSNs). These act as system integrators linking all parts of the health landscape, including every commissioner and provider of health services in their geography, with industry and academia. Through their work to build a culture of partnership and collaboration, and to drive adoption of innovation into practice, AHSNs help to improve the health of their local populations.
- The Innovation Scorecard tracks uptake of NICE technology appraisals and helps the NHS to understand where there is variation in uptake across England. Further work is underway with industry to expand the number of medicines and devices included on the scorecard and to present data at a more granular level. Industry data is included in the scorecard where companies have provided it.
- The Five Year Forward View builds on this progress. Through its publication and implementation NHS England and its partners have committed to driving improvements in health through developing, testing and spreading innovation across the health system.