Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will take steps to introduce further provisions for appeal in cases where a complainant to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman believes that the Ombudsman has not taken into account all elements of a case.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
Provisions for reviewing decisions made by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman are a matter for the Ombudsman, who publishes information for complainants who believe that such decisions are wrong. The Ombudsman is also accountable to Parliament through the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, who hold an annual scrutiny session to evaluate his performance.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment he has made of expediency of the PHSO in resolving NHS complaints; and what date she collects on the average length of time it is taking to conclude a case at the PHSO.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman is an office holder, established to provide an independent complaint handling service for complaints that have not been resolved by the NHS and UK Government departments.
The Ombudsman is accountable to Parliament through the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, who hold an annual scrutiny session to evaluate his performance.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what recent assessment he has made of the (a) adequacy of resourcing and (b) effectiveness of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman in handling complaints against the NHS.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman is an office holder, established to provide an independent complaint handling service for complaints that have not been resolved by the NHS and UK Government departments.
The Ombudsman is accountable to Parliament through the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, who hold an annual scrutiny session to evaluate his performance.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman is an office holder, established to provide an independent complaint handling service for complaints that have not been resolved by the NHS and UK Government departments.
The Ombudsman is accountable to Parliament through the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, who hold an annual scrutiny session to evaluate his performance.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what estimate he has made of the number of cases of women who have been stalked in (a) York and (b) England in each the last five years.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.
A response to the hon. Member’s Parliamentary Question of 8 September is attached.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what proportion of violent crime in the last year was linked to (a) drug and (b) alcohol use.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.
A response to the hon. Member's Parliamentary Question of 8th September is attached.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will (a) instruct all resilience forums to establish a plan for tackling extreme heat, including checks on vulnerable residents and cool rest facilities, and (b) publish guidance his Department has issued on this prior to the period of extreme heat in July 2022.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
This instruction should, and does, come from the Department for Health and Social Care as the lead department on the Heatwave Plan for England (through the UKHSA) rather than the Cabinet Office. As part of this, their officials and ministers liaise with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Local Communities to share policy guidance for Local Resilience Forums.
UKHSA’s Heatwave Plan for England contains the following:
“The plan focuses on the effects of severe hot weather on health and well-being, however, severe and extended heatwaves can also cause severe disruption to general services. For this reason, multi-agency Local Health Resilience Partnerships (LHRPs) and Local Resilience Forums (LRFs) will have a critical role in preparing and responding to heatwaves at a local level, working closely with Health and Wellbeing Boards on longer term strategic planning.
At local level, emergency planning arrangements run by local government and the NHS are brought together in the Local Resilience Forum (LRF), which have many years of experience with heatwave plans and heat-health alert system. LHRPs have been established to bring together the local health sector organisations to support in strategic planning.
Health Services and local authority commissioners, together with multi-agency LRFs, should satisfy themselves that providers and stakeholders take appropriate actions according to the heat-health alert levels.”
The Heatwave Plan for England also contains resources that provide guidance, recommendations and advice for the public and professionals. Given the health threat and the impacts observed in summer 2021 additional work has been taken forward by UKHSA and Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to raise awareness of the health consequences of hot weather and enable professionals, organisations and individuals to plan, mitigate and respond to hot weather episodes effectively. These include:
Updating the materials related to hot weather risks on the Heatwave Plan for England collection page. These provide sector specific guidance on actions to take during a heatwave to safeguard patients and service users.
Publishing the 2022 Heatwave communications toolkit and social media assets which have been shared with UKHSA regional communications, cross-government partners and local government to support consistent and clear messaging on heat-health.
Coordinating all of the previously circulated guidance will pose a disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what contingency planning he has carried out on dealing with periods of extreme heat.
Answered by Michael Ellis
The Cabinet Office has been overseeing the cross-government response to the current heatwave, running daily COBR meetings and ensuring appropriate situation reporting to inform contingency plans and decision making.
Individual departments are responsible for the preparedness and contingency plans of their sectors, including ensuring that plans are in place to handle the impacts of extreme heat.
The UK Government has activated a number of pre-agreed contingency plans to cope with the current heatwave, using the Met Office’s National Severe Weather Warning service and the UK Health Security Agency’s Heat Health Alerts as triggers for contingency plan implementation. For example, in response to the forecast, the rail network has introduced widespread speed restrictions and the NHS has taken steps outlined in the National Heatwave Plan.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what recent assessment he has made of the impact of (a) underlying health conditions, (b) age or another protected characteristic and (c) vaccination status on mortality rates of covid-19.
Answered by Heather Wheeler
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.
A response to the hon. Member’s Parliamentary Question of 29 June is attached.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will take steps to help ensure that (a) all public bodies undertake annual diversity reviews and (b) those annual reviews include an assessment of the progression of people with protected characteristics.
Answered by Jacob Rees-Mogg
Regulation 4 of the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017 already requires many public authorities to publish, every year, information relating to those of their employees who share a relevant protected characteristic. This helps the authorities to demonstrate their compliance with the Public Sector Equality Duty.
The Government is committed to reforming Arm’s-Length Bodies to ensure they are necessary, accountable, efficient and effective. To achieve this vision the Government has launched a Public Body Review Programme. The guidance includes an expectation that:
“All Arm’s-Length Bodies shall, in the management of its workforce:
Meet its legal obligations as a public sector employer.
Follow the Public Sector Pay Policy.
Report their gender pay gap, if meeting the reporting threshold.
Adhere to diversity action plans in place”.
Additionally, the Cabinet Office has published a new ‘Sponsorship Code of Good Practice’. As part of the Code, Arm’s-Length Bodies are challenged to have a diversity action plan.