Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and Penge)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to assess the healthcare needs of women with autism and ADHD during menopause.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
No specific assessment has been made. Menopause is a priority area within the Women’s Health Strategy, and the Department and National Health Service are implementing an ambitious programme of work to improve menopause care so all women, including those with autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), can access the support they need.
Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for providing services that meet the needs of their local population. Every ICB is expected to have an Executive Lead for learning disability and autism, whose remit includes supporting the board in addressing the health inequalities that autistic people and people with a learning disability experience, and supporting equal access to care across all health services.
From 1 July 2022, the Health and Care Act 2022 requires Care Quality Commission registered providers to ensure their staff receive specific training on learning disability and autism, appropriate to their role. Since November 2022, over 1.7 million people have completed the first part of Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on Learning Disability and Autism. In addition, NHS England is improving the use and recording of reasonable adjustments to ensure care is tailored appropriately for disabled people, including people with autism and ADHD.
Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Streatham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Department has taken steps with NHS England to ensure that parents who have experienced stillbirth or neonatal death are (a) encouraged and (b) supported to (i) ask questions and (ii) talk about their experience as part of the NHS review of their care.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The Perinatal Mortality Review Tool (PMRT) provides robust and standardised reviews for bereaved parents about why their baby died. The tool’s aim is to also ensure local and national learning to improve care and prevent future baby deaths. All trusts and health boards across England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland are using the PMRT.
On 14 December 2023, Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries across the UK published their fifth annual PMRT report. The report found that most trusts and health boards ensure all bereaved parents were made aware of the PMRT and review process in their unit, and 95% reported that they offer parents the opportunity to share their thoughts, questions, or concerns about any aspect of their care for the review to address.
Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and Penge)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of maternity staff leaving NHS employment on services.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The Department works with NHS England on a regular basis to review the numbers of staff working in National Health Service maternity services, and to identify any issues which could potentially impact services.
Growing, retaining, and supporting the maternity workforce to ensure that there are staff with the capacity and the right skills to deliver safe, personalised, and equitable care for women and babies is a key theme of NHS England’s Three Year Delivery Plan for Maternity and Neonatal Services. NHS England is also delivering a nursing and midwifery retention programme, supporting organisations in assessing themselves against a bundle of interventions aligned to the NHS People Promise, and to develop high-quality local retention improvement plans.
Asked by: Tim Loughton (Conservative - East Worthing and Shoreham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many Perinatal Mortality Review Tool reviews into (a) stillbirths and (b) baby deaths had an external panel member in the last year.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
This information is not held in the format requested. On 14 December 2023, Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries across the UK published their fifth annual Perinatal Mortality Review Tool report. The report presents data from the 4,111 reviews conducted between March 2022 to February 2023. The report sets out that an external member was present in 45% of reviews, which is an increase from only one in three involving an external member from the previous year. An external panel member is strongly recommended due to the importance of providing fresh eyes to support the review.
Asked by: Kenny MacAskill (Alba Party - East Lothian)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether the UK's participation in the military operation in defence of Israel on 13 April 2024 was carried out under the terms of the agreement signed between the British Armed Forces and the Israeli Defence Force on 2 December 2020.
Answered by Leo Docherty - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence) (Minister for the Armed Forces)
No.
Asked by: Peter Gibson (Conservative - Darlington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of using recovered monies from the proceeds of crime to provide adaptive sports equipment for police officers.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
Funds recovered under the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) are distributed under the Home Office’s Asset Recovery Incentivisation Scheme (ARIS). The objective of ARIS is to provide agencies with incentives to use POCA powers to recover more criminal assets, with the overall aim of cutting crime and delivering justice.
Under the scheme, a proportion of the assets recovered using powers under POCA are redistributed to the agencies involved in the recovery, based on their relative contributions. The current allocation sees ARIS receipts split 50:50 between central government and operational partners.
In the spirit of the Scheme, the Government encourages agencies to use ARIS funds to increase asset recovery and, where appropriate, fund local crime fighting priorities for the benefit of the community. However, the use of ARIS allocations/payments is a matter for each agency and is left to their discretion. Further information on ARIS and how funds are spent can be found at: Asset Recovery Statistical Bulletin: Financial years ending March 2018 to March 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Lilian Greenwood (Labour - Nottingham South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment her Department has made of the effectiveness of the Care Quality Commission in enforcement of the Accessible Information Standard across the NHS.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
Compliance with the Accessible Information Standard (AIS) is not directly assured by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). However, the performance of organisations in meeting people’s needs is considered in CQC assessment and ratings. Where the CQC has information through NHS England’s AIS self-assessment framework, or other sources, that an organisation is not meeting accessible communication needs, it can use its regulatory powers.
NHS England has completed a review of the AIS to help ensure that everyone’s communications needs are met in health and care provision. An AIS self-assessment framework has been developed to support providers of National Health Service and social care services, to measure their performance against the AIS and develop improvement action plans to address gaps in implementation. The AIS self-assessment framework is designed to enable enhancements around assurance and allows organisations, commissioners, and the CQC to judge performance and compliance.
Asked by: Tim Loughton (Conservative - East Worthing and Shoreham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much funding has been allocated to the Maternity and Newborn Safety Investigation programme; and whether that funding is time limited.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The Department has allocated £16 million to the Maternity and Newborn Safety Investigations Programme for this financial year, which is the last year of this spending review period. Future budgets will be allocated in the usual way as part of the next Spending Review.
The lifespan of the programme is under review and will continue to be overseen by the Care Quality Commission, until directed otherwise by the Department. The Department, through the National Institute for Health and Care Research, is funding an evaluation to understand whether Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch investigations and Perinatal Mortality Review Tool reviews have met their anticipated requirements, resulted in system level quality improvements in maternity care, and improved outcomes for parents and families.
Asked by: Emma Hardy (Labour - Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when his Department plans to respond to the letter of 21 February 2024 from the Hon. Member for Hull West and Hessle on behalf of a constituent regarding protocol for notifiable associations.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Minister of State for Crime, Policing and Fire responded on 16 April 2024.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 19 February 2024 to Question 13342 on Special Educational Needs, if she will allocate additional funding to Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council to help increase its capacity to conduct education health and care plan assessments.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The cost of local authorities’ Education, Health and Care (EHC) needs assessment and planning function is paid from authorities’ general fund from, for example, council tax, business rates or the Revenue Support Grant provided by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC). Any increase in capacity for the EHC needs assessment team must be met from the local authority’s general fund.
Stockport special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) Local Area Partnership’s Accelerated Progress Plan (APP), which has been in place since the Ofsted and Care Quality Commission (CQC) joint area SEND revisit in September 2022, includes actions to address the quality of EHC plans in the area. Department for Education officials and NHS (England) SEND advisers have been providing support, challenge and advice in monitoring the progress of the APP.
Stockport is also one of the 55 local areas which have been invited to join the government’s £85 million Delivering Better Value Programme to support local areas to achieve maximum value for money in delivering SEND provision, whilst maintaining and improving the outcomes they achieve. One of the workstreams being funded by this grant is ‘Governance and Accountability of SEN Support and EHC Needs Assessments’ through which the department is assisting Stockport to improve their EHC plan processes and the quality of plans.
The department wants to ensure that EHC needs assessments, where required, are conducted as quickly as possible, so that children and young people can access the support they need. In March 2023, the government set out its plans to reform and improve the SEND system through its SEND and alternative provision (AP) Improvement Plan. The plan commits to establishing a single national system that delivers for every child and young person with SEND so that they enjoy their childhood, achieve good outcomes and are well prepared for adulthood and employment.
In the short term, the department is working hard to improve the current EHC plan system through a range of measures to improve the SEND system. The department is investing heavily in the SEND system. Examples of the department’s investments include: improving specialist capacity by investing over £21 million to train 400 more educational psychologists from 2024, investing £2.6 billion between 2022 and 2025 to fund new special and AP places and improve existing provision (including announcing 41 new special free schools and 38 special free schools that are currently in the pipeline), investing £30 million to develop innovative approaches for short breaks for children, young people and their families over three years and investing over £7 million to fund extension of the Alternative Provision Specialist Taskforce pilot programme, (delivering now in 22 local authorities) to run until 2025.
The department is also putting in place measures to improve the SEND system in the longer term, so that where an EHC plan is needed they can be issued as quickly as possible, so that children and young people can access the support they need.