Asked by: James Frith (Labour - Bury North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Timpson review of school exclusion: Government response, published in May 2019, what progress his Department has made on establishing the practice programme to embed effective partnership working to better equip schools to intervene early for children at risk of exclusion.
Answered by Nick Gibb
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.
Asked by: James Frith (Labour - Bury North)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what diplomatic steps his Department is taking to help tackle alleged human rights violations of Dalits and tribal people in India.
Answered by Heather Wheeler
We engage with India on the full range of human rights matters, working with Union and State Governments and with non-governmental organisations to build capacity and share expertise to promote human rights for all. The British High Commission recently met the Vice Chairman of the National Commission for Minorities in July to discuss minority rights.
Asked by: James Frith (Labour - Bury North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether part-time students studying undergraduate courses using distance learning will be eligible to apply for maintenance loans for the 2019-20 academic year.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
In March 2019, the government announced its decision not to extend maintenance loans to part-time distance learners in the 2019-20 academic year. This was on the grounds that the demand for a loan product aimed at part-time distance learners is unlikely to be high enough to make the introduction of such a loan economically viable.
Asked by: James Frith (Labour - Bury North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether funding will be allocated to support adult learners taking T Levels.
Answered by Anne Milton
T Levels have been designed to provide a high-quality technical study programme for students aged 16 to 19 to support entry to skilled employment in technical occupations at level 3 and above. We will consider whether they might be appropriate for some adults to study but the current focus of the government and providers is on a successful roll out of these transformational courses to the core 16-19 demographic.
Asked by: James Frith (Labour - Bury North)
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 (a) residents of care homes and (b) the families of those residents in England are aware of mechanisms for reporting abuse.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Mechanisms are in place for residents of care homes and their families to report abuse.
Under the Care Act 2014, in any activity that a local authority undertakes, it should ensure that the individual is, and remains, protected against abuse or neglect.
Section 4 of the Care Act 2014 also places a duty on local authorities to “establish and maintain a service for providing people in its area with information and advice relating to care and support for adults and support for carers.” This service includes information and advice about what to do in cases of neglect or abuse of an adult. Where it is suspected that an individual may be at risk of abuse or neglect, local authorities have a duty to carry out proportionate enquiries.
Quality Matters includes work to improve access to complaints systems and improve the feedback culture in the sector. In July 2018, as part of the initiative, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman and Healthwatch England published the Single Complaints Statement – a guide for each stage of the complaints process, for adult social care providers and commissioners, people who use services, their families and carers. This sets out what service users, their families and representatives can expect when making a complaint with a simple bulleted guide for each stage of the complaints process. Service providers are encouraged to adopt the single complaints statements into their own complaints policies and highlight them in any information they give to service users, their families and representatives.
Asked by: James Frith (Labour - Bury North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent discussions his Ministers have had with the Care Quality Commission on (a) the care home inspection regime and (b) the potential inadequacies of that regime.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Ministers in the Department meet regularly with senior leaders from the Care Quality Commission to discuss a wide range of issues.
Asked by: James Frith (Labour - Bury North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many reports of abuse there have been in care homes in (a) Bury, (b) the North West and (c) England in each of the last five years.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The following table shows the number of allegations of abuse in care home locations received by the Care Quality Commission between 2014 to 2018.
Year received | Number of Notifications | ||
| Bury Local Authority | North West Region | England |
2014 | 99 | 5,741 | 37,060 |
2015 | 122 | 6,948 | 43,064 |
2016 | 164 | 7,856 | 46,227 |
2017 | 176 | 9,304 | 57,738 |
2018 | 182 | 9,936 | 67,590 |
Grand Total | 743 | 39,785 | 251,679 |
This data includes multiple notifications about individual locations.
Asked by: James Frith (Labour - Bury North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many care homes have been closed in England as a result of (a) complaints and (b) a Care Quality Commission inspection rating of poor in each of the last five years.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The following table shows the total number of care homes that have been forcibly closed by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
| Number of Enforced Closures of Locations by Latest Overall Published Rating* | Total | |||
Year of closure | Not rated | Good | Requires improvement | Inadequate | |
2014 | 42 |
|
|
| 42 |
2015 | 43 | 1 | 3 | 40 | 87 |
2016 | 34 |
| 8 | 59 | 101 |
2017 | 21 | 4 | 12 | 73 | 110 |
2018 | 7 | 5 | 15 | 64 | 91 |
2019 (to date) |
| 3 | 7 | 26 | 36 |
Grand Total | 147 | 13 | 45 | 262 | 467 |
Notes:*The last rating cannot be linked as the cause of the closure.
In addition to these figures a significant number of locations will have voluntarily closed before CQC enforcement action is completed.
Asked by: James Frith (Labour - Bury North)
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 the availability of medicines after the UK leaves the EU.
Answered by Stephen Hammond
The Government remains committed to leaving the European Union with a deal. However, as a responsible Government, we will continue to prepare to minimise any disruption to the supply of medicines and medical products in a potential ‘no deal’ scenario.
We are continuing to work with trade bodies and other stakeholders to carefully review the implications of the extension to the Article 50 period until 31 October at the latest before sharing further guidance with industry at the earliest opportunity. On 26 April we wrote to suppliers advising that, until further guidance is provided, all no-deal measures, including stockpiles and plans to route away from the short straits, should remain in place but on hold.
Asked by: James Frith (Labour - Bury North)
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 tackle shortages of (a) Adalat, (b) Nifedipine and (c) other common medicines.
Answered by Seema Kennedy
The vast majority of medicines are not subject to supply problems and every day over 2 million prescription items are successfully dispensed in England.
Where problems do occur the Department’s Medicines Supply Team has well established procedures to deal with medicine shortages and works closely with all stakeholders to help prevent shortages and to ensure that the risks to patients are minimised when they do arise.
We are aware of ongoing supply issues with the Adalat range of the drug nifedipine due to manufacturing capacity constraints. We have been working closely with all suppliers of generic and other brands of nifedipine to maintain overall supply of this medicine to patients and have provided regular updates about the situation to the National Health Service.
We will continue to work closely with all manufacturers of nifedipine preparations to monitor the overall supply situation to ensure supplies continue to remain available.