Asked by: Rehman Chishti (Conservative - Gillingham and Rainham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to support the new NHS England commissioning model in the provision of highly specialised mental health care focusing on complex and challenging conditions.
Answered by Gillian Keegan
All appropriate specialised mental health, learning disability and autism services, including those focusing on complex and challenging conditions, will be managed through a National Health Service-led provider collaborative by 2023/24. These collaboratives are focused on improving care pathways for people who use specialised services and provide care closer to home by investing in community alternatives. There are currently 48 active collaboratives.
This model brings together commissioning skills, experts by experience, clinical leaders and provider organisations. NHS England and NHS Improvement remain accountable for commissioning specialised services and delegate specific commissioning responsibilities to the NHS lead provider within each collaborative. Integrated care systems will now develop provider collaboratives for local mental health and learning disability and autism pathways.
Asked by: Rehman Chishti (Conservative - Gillingham and Rainham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans NHS England has to change the commissioning model for mental health services.
Answered by Gillian Keegan
All appropriate specialised mental health, learning disability and autism services, including those focusing on complex and challenging conditions, will be managed through a National Health Service-led provider collaborative by 2023/24. These collaboratives are focused on improving care pathways for people who use specialised services and provide care closer to home by investing in community alternatives. There are currently 48 active collaboratives.
This model brings together commissioning skills, experts by experience, clinical leaders and provider organisations. NHS England and NHS Improvement remain accountable for commissioning specialised services and delegate specific commissioning responsibilities to the NHS lead provider within each collaborative. Integrated care systems will now develop provider collaboratives for local mental health and learning disability and autism pathways.
Asked by: Rehman Chishti (Conservative - Gillingham and Rainham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the Integrated Commissioning for Better Outcomes framework on funding for highly specialised mental health services.
Answered by Gillian Keegan
No specific assessment has been made.
Asked by: Rehman Chishti (Conservative - Gillingham and Rainham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the implications for its policies of the report by Missing People entitled, The multi-agency response for adults missing from health and care settings: A national framework for England, published in October 2020.
Answered by Gillian Keegan
Providers registered under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 must notify the Care Quality Commission (CQC) about unauthorised absences of people detained or liable to be detained under the Mental Health Act 1983 (the Act).
In addition, the Mental Health Act Code of Practice requires all hospital managers to ensure that there is a clear written policy about the action to be taken when a detained patient, or a patient on a Community Treatment Order, goes missing. All relevant staff should be familiar with this policy and hospital managers should agree their policy with other agencies – such as the police and ambulance services – as necessary.
The Code of Practice also requires that the police are informed immediately if a patient is missing who is considered to be particularly vulnerable, dangerous, and/or is subject to restrictions under Part III of the Act.
With the exception of NHS trusts, providers registered with CQC also need to inform it about police involvement. However, all providers are responsible for providing CQC with information about safeguarding incidents through its statutory notifications which could include risks to people who go missing from a service.
No formal assessment has been made of the implications of the report by Missing People.
Asked by: Rehman Chishti (Conservative - Gillingham and Rainham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what requirements his Department places on hospitals and healthcare settings in respect of (a) preventing and (b) responding to missing persons episodes.
Answered by Gillian Keegan
Providers registered under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 must notify the Care Quality Commission (CQC) about unauthorised absences of people detained or liable to be detained under the Mental Health Act 1983 (the Act).
In addition, the Mental Health Act Code of Practice requires all hospital managers to ensure that there is a clear written policy about the action to be taken when a detained patient, or a patient on a Community Treatment Order, goes missing. All relevant staff should be familiar with this policy and hospital managers should agree their policy with other agencies – such as the police and ambulance services – as necessary.
The Code of Practice also requires that the police are informed immediately if a patient is missing who is considered to be particularly vulnerable, dangerous, and/or is subject to restrictions under Part III of the Act.
With the exception of NHS trusts, providers registered with CQC also need to inform it about police involvement. However, all providers are responsible for providing CQC with information about safeguarding incidents through its statutory notifications which could include risks to people who go missing from a service.
No formal assessment has been made of the implications of the report by Missing People.
Asked by: Rehman Chishti (Conservative - Gillingham and Rainham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people have been reported missing from (a) hospitals and (b) other healthcare settings in each of the last ten years.
Answered by Gillian Keegan
The information requested is shown in the attached table.
Asked by: Rehman Chishti (Conservative - Gillingham and Rainham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to increase the availability of the flu vaccine by early December.
Answered by Jo Churchill
General practitioners and community pharmacists are directly responsible for ordering flu vaccine from suppliers, which are used to deliver the national flu programme to adults, with deliveries phased through the season.
NHS England and NHS Improvement are working with local areas to ensure that local providers are supported to meet increased demand for the flu vaccination this winter. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency has granted dispensation to allow the movement of vaccines locally between practices and other National Health Service provider organisations this season, to help address local shortages.
In addition, the Department has procured additional doses of adult seasonal flu vaccine to ensure more flu vaccines are available.