Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much money the NHS collected from prescription prepayment certificates in the 2017-18 financial year.
Answered by Seema Kennedy
The net cash receipts collected from prepayment certificates during the 2017-18 financial year is £145.6 million.
Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate his Department has made of the administrative cost to the NHS of collecting prescription charges.
Answered by Seema Kennedy
The annual cost to the NHS Business Services Authority of administering National Health Service prescription charges is around £75,000 per year. This figure covers the work of NHS Prescription Services, which includes the reimbursement and remuneration of dispensing contractors in England on behalf of the Department and NHS England. It does not include the work of the NHS Business Services Authority’s ‘Loss Recovery Service’ which involves checking prescription form exemption declarations, issuing Penalty Charge Notices and managing associated customer contact.
Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Transforming Children Green Paper, what his strategy is for ensuring a joined-up approach between school mental health leads and other appropriate agencies to improve the mental health of young people.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department has a joint programme of work with the Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England and Health Education England to deliver the proposals set out in the green paper ‘Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health Provision’.
New Mental Health Support Teams are being introduced jointly by the Department and NHS England and will be available to 20-25% of England by 2023. These teams will work with schools and colleges and other professionals such as educational psychologists, school nurses, counsellors and social workers to supplement existing support.
The Department is also incentivising schools and colleges to identify and train a senior mental health lead, who will be responsible for overseeing the delivery of a whole school or college approach to promoting better mental health and wellbeing.
In addition, the Department is providing training through the Link programme to schools and colleges in England over four years from autumn 2019. The Link programme is designed to develop effective partnership working between schools and colleges and NHS specialist mental health services for children and young people.
Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress he has made on (a) establishing regional social prescribing steering groups, (b) holding regional social prescribing workshops and (c) facilitating a cross-government social prescribing workshop in relation to the Government's loneliness strategy.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Seven Regional Social Prescribing Steering Groups, covering the country, have now been established. Each steering group comprises key stakeholders that work together to maximise impact of social prescribing in their region. Two social prescribing network/workshop events were held in each region in 2018/19, and between April and June 2019, an additional event was held in each region aimed at commissioners and other key stakeholders. These additional events were designed to support the development of shared local plans to recruit and embed link workers in Primary Care Networks and align with existing local social prescribing schemes
In November 2018 the first meeting of the cross-Government social prescribing taskforce took place. Meeting are usually held every two months and involve a range of Government departments and agencies. The taskforce brings together those with a shared interest in social prescribing to discuss how policy in a range of areas, including work on the loneliness strategy, can support work to maximise its impact.
Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
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 counterpart in (a) India and (b) Pakistan on compliance with the Indus Waters Treaty.
Answered by Andrew Murrison - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
We continue to encourage India and Pakistan to work together in support of regional stability. The long-standing Indus Waters Treaty is an important part of this. It has continued to function well, including at times of tension, with India and Pakistan working closely with the World Bank.
Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of the Neelum-Jhelum Hydroelectric project on the population of (a) the city of Muzaffarabad and (b) Pakistani Administrated Kashmir.
Answered by Andrew Murrison - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has not carried out an assessment of the Chinese-built Neelum-Jhelum Hydropower project in Pakistani-administered Kashmir. As with any large infrastructure project, the concerns of the local population should be considered carefully and in accordance with local legal processes.
Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
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 response to Early Day Motion 2173, on World Glaucoma Week and access to effective treatments.
Answered by Seema Kennedy
The Government is committed to further reducing avoidable sight loss and ensuring that patients have access to timely treatment and support in line with clinical need and best available evidence.
Latest data from the Public Health Outcome indicator, which is tracking rates of sight loss due to age related macular degeneration, glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy, shows that sight loss due to these conditions has dropped slightly. The latest statistics can be found on the GOV.UK website at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/public-health-outcomes-framework-may-2019-data-update
NHS England is taking forward initiatives to help ensure that patients have access to high quality and timely eye care services. This includes NHS England’s EyesWise, a collaboration with the Royal College of Ophthalmologists which aims to support the development and local implementation of new ways of delivering ophthalmology outpatient services to best meet the growing demands on Hospital Eye Service Departments. This work focuses on supporting the needs of glaucoma patients and those at risk of glaucoma.
It builds on actions undertaken by all hospital eye services and clinical commissioning groups in England to deliver the Elective Care Transformation Programme’s High Impact Intervention for Ophthalmology, improving the timely assessment and follow-up of the people at highest risk of sight loss.
Further information is available on the NHS England website at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/elective-care-transformation/best-practice-solutions/eyeswise/
Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of UNRWA funding as a result of the decision by the US Government to reduce its funding to that agency.
Answered by Alistair Burt
Following US cuts in 2018, the international community was able to step up and meet the shortfall, allowing UNRWA to continue to provide essential basic services to Palestinian refugees in Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. However, we recognise that these refugee populations need UNRWA be on a more secure financial footing. To that end, the UK is working with UNRWA and other donors to ensure its sustainability. This includes finding further cost savings reforms, diversifying donor income, and encouraging multi-year funding commitments. The UK is a leading donor to UNRWA and I am proud to confirm that we plan to provide up to £80m to UNRWA over the next two years.
Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to ensure that children in home education placements have a high standard of education and care.
Answered by Anne Milton
The government supports the right of parents to educate their children at home, and many families do this well, taking on a very significant responsibility in doing so. Local authorities are responsible for identifying any children who are not receiving a suitable education and taking steps to remedy that situation, if necessary, by enforcing school attendance.
We want to make sure that every child receives a good education. In some cases, the government is concerned about the quality of education which some children are receiving at home, especially in the context of the increasing numbers of children who are being removed from school to be educated at home.
As a result, the government consulted in 2018 on revised guidance for local authorities and parents on home education. The finalised versions of this guidance will be published shortly. At the same time, a call for evidence on the issues of registration and monitoring of children educated at home, and support for home educating families, was held, and a government response document setting out proposed next steps will also be published soon.
Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what fiscal steps he is taking to ensure that the UK has the ability to train the medical students it needs to supply NHS workforce requirements.
Answered by Elizabeth Truss
The government is delivering on its commitment to roll out an extra 1,500 medical school places. Around 630 have taken up places on medical courses in September 2018, bringing the total intake for 2018/19 to 6,701 - the highest on record. A further 690 will be available to students in 2019/20 and the remaining 180 places will be available in 2020/21.
The NHS has established a national workforce group, which will look at the future medical workforce as part of delivering on the workforce aims set out in the Long-Term Plan. The NHS will publish a detailed workforce implementation plan in the Spring.