Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many women reported experiencing birth trauma; and how much funding his Department has allocated to birth trauma support in each of the last five years.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
Data is not available in the format requested.
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
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 ensure that retired military personnel have access to mental health support.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
In addition to all the clinical commissioning group commissioned mental health services, many of which have pathways and services relevant to armed forces, NHS England commissions two bespoke services for veterans experiencing mental health difficulties.
The first is the Transition, Intervention and Liaison Service which supports serving personnel who need additional support as they are leaving the armed forces and veterans who have mental health issues. The Transition, Intervention and Liaison Service is also the entry point to the Complex Treatment Service, the second service commissioned by NHS England. The Complex Treatment Service is able to provide a range of more intensive care and treatment for veterans with military related complex mental health difficulties, many of whom will have experienced trauma.
The Transition Intervention and Liaison Service accepts referrals directly from veterans or a veteran can ask their general practitioner or a military charity to refer them.
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans his Department has put in place to ensure an adequate food supply for the UK in the event of the UK leaving the EU without a deal; and whether those plans include stockpiling.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Defra is preparing for our departure from the EU and is working alongside other relevant government departments. We are also engaging closely with businesses and trade associations across the food and drink sector at ministerial and official levels. The UK has a high degree of food security built on access to diverse sources of supply as well as domestic production. While we are making sensible preparations for all eventualities as we leave the EU, there are no plans to stockpile food.
The Government has already carried out significant ‘no deal’ preparations and has published a series of technical notices on GOV.UK so that businesses and citizens have time to prepare.
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that retired emergency service workers have access to mental health support.
Answered by Nick Hurd
Since 2014, the Government has provided £7m to pay for mental health support through Mind’s Blue Light Programme. This ensures that our current and former emergency service workers have the support they require.
Emergency service workers have demonstrated extraordinary courage and fortitude in the face of major challenges over recent years, including terrorist attacks and the Grenfell Tower fire. We are grateful to them for their tireless work and dedication to duty.
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what discussions he has had with his counterpart in Bahrain on human rights.
Answered by Alistair Burt
The UK and Bahrain enjoy an open dialogue where we are able to discuss a range of issues, including human rights. During my visit to Bahrain 26-28 October I had a range of bilateral meetings with Bahraini interlocutors and covered many issues, including human rights.
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to support the delivery of Education and Health Care Plans for children with special educational needs and disabilities.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
We have given £252 million to local authorities to support implementation of the new duties under the Children and Families Act (2014). We have also funded a consortium of partners, including the Council for Disabled Children, to work with health and social care services, including producing guidance on improving education, health and care (EHC) plans; and funded a special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) leadership programme and legal training for all local authorities and their health partners to ensure they are clear on their statutory responsibilities.
We have strengthened the National Health Service (NHS) Provider Contract for NHS Trusts to include a requirement to report on meeting the six-week deadline for health input into EHC plans; established a national network for Designated Medical Officers and Designated Clinical Officers, funded a local authority led regional network and developed resources to support joint self-assessment and peer review.
We monitor implementation on the ground, for example, looking at the time it takes for local authorities to issue EHC plans. The Ofsted/Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspections of SEND services we introduced in 2016 have also shone a light on strengths and weaknesses in the delivery of EHC plans and have proved a catalyst for local change. Where significant concerns have been identified, written statements of action (WSOA), setting out the actions the local area will take to improve services, are supporting local areas to improve their services. Ofsted and the CQC will re-visit each area with a WSOA to assess the progress they are making; and where sufficient progress is not being made, we will take appropriate action.
64.9% of new EHC plans (excluding exception cases) were issued within 20 weeks in 2017, up from 58.6% in 2016.
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps the Government is taking to ensure that the social housing system supports people with mental health problems.
Answered by Heather Wheeler
I refer the Hon Member to my answer to Question UIN 176245 on 11 October 2018.
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the Government plans to increase funding for end-of-life care; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
As with the vast majority of NHS services, the funding and commissioning of palliative and end of life care, is a local matter, over which individual National Health Service commissioners have responsibility. Local commissioners are best placed to understand the needs of local populations and commission services to meet those needs accordingly.
As part of the £20.5 billion a year for the NHS, NHS England is working with the Department to develop a long-term plan, details of which will be published later this year. End of life care is an important part of the proposals and NHS England will continue working with key stakeholders to test the plan before its publication.
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of the criteria used to determine the level of need in the allocation of high needs funding.
Answered by Nick Gibb
High needs funding allocations for individual pupils is determined by local authorities in consultation with their schools and families. In most cases, high needs funding will be allocated following a statutory education, health and care needs assessment.
Following extensive consultation, the high needs national funding formula allocates funding to local authorities through a set of proxy factors. Further information on these factors can be found in the consultation document at: https://consult.education.gov.uk/funding-policy-unit/high-needs-funding-reform-2/.
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 22 October 2018 to Question 180286 on Children: Hearing Impairments, what extensive support his Department has provided to schools to deliver the best value possible with available resources.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The department has launched a Supporting School Resource Management strategy which provides schools with practical advice on savings that can be made on the £10 billion non-staffing spend spent across England last year. This outlines the extensive support we are providing for schools and includes support and guidance to schools and academies to improve how they buy goods and services. For example:
- The financial benchmarking service, which allows schools to compare their performance and use of resources with other, similar schools, and also comparisons between academy trusts.
- Recommended deals that are helping schools to save money on the things they buy regularly, such as printers and photocopiers.
- A new deal to support schools with getting value for money when hiring supply teachers and other agency workers.
- Regional Schools Buying Hubs pilots in the North West and South West, providing hands-on support and advice to schools on complex procurement.
- A free teacher vacancy listing website to support recruitment needs and drive down recruitment costs is currently in pilot phase.
- Encouraging schools to integrate their curriculum and financial planning to inform decision making on the deployment of teaching staff.
- School Resource Management Advisers (SRMAs). These sector experts work with schools and trusts to provide tailored advice on how to make best use of their revenue and capital resources to deliver educational outcomes. The SRMA pilot started at the end of January 2018 and completed some 70 deployments by the end of the 2017/18 academic year. SRMAs will be deployed in larger scale in the 2018/19 academic year.