Asked by: Melanie Onn (Labour - Great Grimsby)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he has to reduce patient notification errors due to NHS bodies having different communication systems.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
We are committed to creating a technology infrastructure that allows systems to communicate securely, using open standards for data and interoperability. This will enable health and care professionals to have access to the information they need to provide care. Effective technology supported by interoperability can reduce patient safety errors.
Interoperability and openness is one of the guiding principles set out in, ‘The future of healthcare: our vision for digital, data and technology in health and care’, published on 17 October 2018.
We are also investing in the development of Local Health and Care Record Exemplars (LHCRs). These will allow local areas to ensure data is collected consistently and made available to support joined up and safer patient care. LHCRs will give health and care staff better and faster access to vital information about the person in their care as patients move between different parts of the National Health Service and social care system. The first five Exemplars cover 23.5 million people and will each receive up to £7.5 million over two years.
Asked by: Melanie Onn (Labour - Great Grimsby)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department has undertaken to ensure that health services such as access to continuing healthcare plans are available to people with hearing impairments or profound deafness.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
It is the responsibility of local providers and commissioners of NHS services to make the reasonable adjustments required by the Equality Act 2010 to ensure that disabled people, including those with hearing impairments, are not placed at a substantial disadvantage compared to non-disabled people. Additionally, under the NHS Constitution, National Health Service organisations in England are required to provide high quality comprehensive services, based on clinical need, which do not discriminate between patients on the basis of disability, including hearing impairments.
NHS Continuing Healthcare is a package of care that is arranged and funded solely by the NHS. It is provided when an individual aged 18 or over has been found to have a ‘primary health need’ as set out in the National Framework for NHS Continuing Healthcare and NHS-funded Nursing Care.
Asked by: Melanie Onn (Labour - Great Grimsby)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what the timetable is for the publication of the independent review of disabled facilities grants.
Answered by Heather Wheeler
The independent review of the Disabled Facilities Grant was published on 10 December 2018 and can be found at the following link: www.gov.uk/government/publications/disabled-facilities-grant-and-other-adaptations-external-review.
I welcome the review and the Government will be responding to its findings in due course.
Asked by: Melanie Onn (Labour - Great Grimsby)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many kinship carers who applied for child tax credit were exempt from the two-child limit in 2017-18; and how many of those people were financially affected by the benefit cap in that period.
Answered by Elizabeth Truss
The number of Child Tax Credit claimants who received an exception from the policy to provide support for a maximum of two children on the basis of non-parental care was 270 on 2 April 2018. This information is published and can be found by following the URL:
No claimants were excluded from financial support where supporting documentation was provided.
HMRC does not hold data on how many of these kinship carers were financially affected by the benefit cap.
The most recent benefit cap figures were published on 1 November 2018 and are available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/benefit-cap-number-of-households-capped-to-august-2018
Asked by: Melanie Onn (Labour - Great Grimsby)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what (a) training and (b) guidance has been provided to HMRC staff in relation to the variation in the two child limit exemption for kinship carers and adopters applying for child tax credit.
Answered by Elizabeth Truss
HMRC fully recognises that the policy to provide support for a maximum of two children is a difficult and sensitive issue, and has set up procedures that are mindful of the sensitivities involved. HMRC has a specialist operational team to handle claims for exceptions relating to this policy. Dedicated guidance is in place for this team which is actively maintained to ensure it is kept up to date.
Asked by: Melanie Onn (Labour - Great Grimsby)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what processes are in place to compensate kinship carers that are unable to claim child tax credit for their birth child in the period between 1 April 2017 and 28 November 2018 as a result of the two child exemption.
Answered by Elizabeth Truss
The regulations to extend support for kinship carers and parents who adopt in Child Tax Credit (CTC) came into force on 28 November 2018. HMRC is already in contact with a number of families who may qualify for additional support and will be contacting all CTC claimants who have added a third or subsequent child to their award since 6 April 2017 to advise them of the policy change. Anyone who thinks they may have been affected by the policy change will be advised to get in touch with HMRC's specialist operational team. All individuals who qualify for the extension, will receive payment for their third or subsequent child from the date the child, or children, were added to their award.
Asked by: Melanie Onn (Labour - Great Grimsby)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many kinship carers were affected by the benefit cap of (a) £20,000 and (b) £23,000 in 2017-18.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Department does not hold data which would allow us to identify capped households under Housing Benefit or Universal Credit, who are kinship carers.
Asked by: Melanie Onn (Labour - Great Grimsby)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many kinship carers that applied for universal credit were exempt from the two child limit in 2017-18; and what proportion of those carers were affected by the benefit cap.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The number of exemptions to the policy to provide support for a maximum of two children for kinship carers up to 2 April 2018 can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/child-tax-credit-and-universal-credit-claimants-statistics-related-to-the-policy-to-provide-support-for-a-maximum-of-2-children-april-2018
The Government does not hold information about how many kinship carers were affected by the Benefit Cap.
Asked by: Melanie Onn (Labour - Great Grimsby)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what (a) training and (b)guidance has been provided to staff in her Department on the variation in the two child limit exemption for kinship carers and adopters applying for (i) child tax credit and (ii) universal credit.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
We have provided comprehensive training for all of our Work Coaches to ensure that they can effectively apply the variation in two child limit exemptions. The guidance which supplements this training was updated on 28/11/18 and is published in the House of Commons Library is called “UC Full Service Guidance ‘Additional Amounts for Children’”.
Asked by: Melanie Onn (Labour - Great Grimsby)
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 10 December 2018 to Question 199449, what assessment his Department has made of whether the number of avoidable deaths of people with learning disabilities in the care of the NHS has reduced since the Care Quality Commission began working with NHS Improvement.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The Department is committed to ensuring that all disabled people, including those with a learning disability, have the same opportunities to access high quality healthcare as everyone else. Where necessary, all healthcare services should make reasonable adjustments to ensure this, in line with the requirements of the Equalities Act 2010 and the NHS Information Standard. We have no plans to introduce a national healthcare strategy for disabled people.
In the new year we will consult on the introduction of mandatory learning disability and autism training for health and care staff. This will provide for greater parity of treatment by ensuring that staff understand the needs of people with learning disability or autism and have the skills to deliver the most effective care and support to them.
Learning disabilities and autism are also one of the four clinical priority areas within the National Health Service long-term plan, which will also help to address the inequalities experienced by people with a learning disability or autism.
As of 30 November 2018, 914 reviews of deaths reported to the Learning Disabilities Mortality Review Programme (LeDeR) have been completed with a further 185 at the approval stage. The next annual report of the LeDeR programme is currently planned to be published before summer 2019 and will include data from 1 January 2018 to 31 December 2018. All local areas have access to findings from reviews taking place within them.
The Department does not assess complaints made to the National Health Service by people with a learning disability. The Local Authority Social Services and National Health Service Complaints (England) Regulations 2009 set out what local organisations must do in respect of complaint handling in the NHS. These regulations are designed to ensure that wherever possible complaints are resolved effectively at local level with lessons learnt to improve services.
As part of the implementation of the Learning Disability Improvement Standards, a data collection is being undertaken by NHS Improvement to better understand the key themes arising for people with learning disabilities accessing NHS care. As part of the data collection, which will close on 31 December, NHS trusts are expected to measure themselves against the Learning Improvement Standards and a number of metrics allied to each Standard. NHS Improvement has shared data from this collection with the Care Quality Commission to help inform their regulatory approach and identify where their support activity is best prioritised.
We have not made a formal assessment of whether the number of avoidable deaths of people with learning disabilities in the NHS has reduced. The aim of the LeDeR programme and the Learning Disability Improvement Standards is to ensure that NHS trusts and commissioners maintain a focus on avoidable mortality so that the deaths of people with learning disabilities thought to be due to problems in care are significantly reduced. The LeDeR programme is taking place within the context of the Government’s Learning from Deaths Programme and all acute, community and mental health trusts are required to review and publish locally the number of deaths thought to be due to problems in care on a quarterly basis, evidence of what they have learned through reviews and the actions taken to prevent such deaths in future on an annual basis.