Asked by: Jo Swinson (Liberal Democrat - East Dunbartonshire)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what representations he has made to his Burmese counterpart on the charges of unlawful association against the journalist Aung Marm Oo.
Answered by Andrew Murrison - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
Press freedom and the rule of law are fundamental to any democratic society, and journalists must be allowed to work freely and without intimidation. The British Ambassador has been clear in making this point, and recently raised this case with Burma's Minister for International Cooperation. The UK will continue to work hard to support media freedom within Myanmar.
Asked by: Jo Swinson (Liberal Democrat - East Dunbartonshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether civil servants transferring from his Department to NHSX received changes to (a) salaries and (b) terms and conditions of employment.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
NHSX is a joint unit between the Department and NHS England. No staff have been transferred as NHSX is not a separate body. Departmental staff working in the joint unit remain on their existing salaries and terms and conditions of employment.
Asked by: Jo Swinson (Liberal Democrat - East Dunbartonshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much the NHS spent on the NHS app before NHSX announced plans to scale back development of that App on 31 May 2019.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
The NHS App is not being scaled back. The NHS App will remain the ‘digital front door to the NHS’ as set out in the NHS Long Term Plan.
Asked by: Jo Swinson (Liberal Democrat - East Dunbartonshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much his Department has spent on setting up and running NHSX to date.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
The set up and running of NHSX has incurred additional costs of £94,516.20 to date. £79,200 of the costs relate to software licensing for NHSX staff. The remainder relates to a set up event and small elements of additional administrative purchases.
Asked by: Jo Swinson (Liberal Democrat - East Dunbartonshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many staff have been (a) transferred from his Department or other public bodies to NHSX and (b) recruited externally.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
NHSX is a joint Unit between the Department and NHS England. No staff have been transferred as NHSX is not a separate body. Two staff have been transferred from another Government Department. NHSX will recruit a Chief Technology Officer and other roles; at present, no staff have been recruited externally.
Asked by: Jo Swinson (Liberal Democrat - East Dunbartonshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of GP appointments have been made through the NHS App since the launch of that App in December 2018.
Answered by Seema Kennedy
This data is not collected centrally.
Asked by: Jo Swinson (Liberal Democrat - East Dunbartonshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of people are able to book GP appointments through the NHS app.
Answered by Seema Kennedy
We are in the process of connecting each of the 7,245 general practitioner (GP) practices with the NHS App and the ability to book GP appointments is a functionality that must be enabled locally in each practice.
77% of the GP registered population can now download the app.
Asked by: Jo Swinson (Liberal Democrat - East Dunbartonshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 8 May 2019 to Question 251992, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of proactively offering 36-week ultrasound scans to identify breech babies.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is the independent body responsible for providing authoritative, evidence-based guidance for the National Health Service. The NICE clinical guideline on antenatal care was published in 2008 and states that fetal presentation should be assessed by abdominal palpation at 36 weeks or later. The guideline also states that evidence does not support the routine use of ultrasound scanning after 24 weeks of gestation and therefore should not be offered.
The evidence considered by NICE in developing its recommendations can be found in NICE’s full guideline at the following link:
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg62/evidence/full-guideline-pdf-196748323
However, NICE is currently updating this guideline, including its recommendations relating to monitoring fetal growth and wellbeing and expects to publish final updated guidance in December 2020 with a public consultation in summer 2020.
Asked by: Jo Swinson (Liberal Democrat - East Dunbartonshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 20 May 2019 to Question 254162, what the planned timescale is for the next knife amnesty action.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
Individual police forces may use knife amnesties and surrender bins at any time, as decisions of this kind are an operational matter. Such initiatives are a key component of Operation Sceptre. The most recent week of coordinated national action under Operation Sceptre took place in March, during which 10215 knives were surrendered, including in surrender bins.
Asked by: Jo Swinson (Liberal Democrat - East Dunbartonshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment he has made of the proportion of staff working on counter-terrorism who are (a) women and (b) black, Asian or minority ethnic.
Answered by Ben Wallace
For the Office of Security and Counter Terrorism within the Home Department, the current proportion of staff working on counter-terrorism who are:
a) Women is 48.85%; and
b) BAME is 24.5%