Asked by: Baroness Browning (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to address barriers to discharge from mental health inpatient units for autistic people and people with learning disabilities related to the provision of (1) suitable housing, and (2) social care support.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
On 26 January 2024, we published statutory guidance on discharge from mental health inpatient settings. This guidance sets out key principles for how National Health Service bodies and local authorities across adult and children’s services should work together to support people to be discharged from mental health inpatient services, including mental health inpatient services for people with a learning disability and for autistic people. This guidance states that strong links should be made with relevant community services prior to, and during, the person’s stay in hospital, and that this should include links in relation to meeting the person’s needs related to health, social care, education, housing, and any other individual needs.
In 2023/24, we are investing an additional £121 million to improve community support, as part of the NHS Long Term Plan. This includes funding for children and young people’s keyworkers. We continue to support the delivery of new supported housing by providing capital subsidies to providers, through the Care and Support Specialised Housing Fund and the Affordable Homes Programme in England. We have also made available up to £8.6 billion over this and next financial year, to support adult social care and discharge.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will take steps to ensure that (a) school leavers and (b) adults with SEND are given prioritised access to apprenticeships.
Answered by Robert Halfon
Apprenticeships provide a fantastic opportunity for school leavers and adults with special educational needs and disabilities to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to progress in their chosen careers. So far, in the 2023/24 academic year, 15.9% of all starts were by learners declaring a learning difficulty and/or disability (LDD), an increase from 14.7% for the same period last year. The department is also increasing investment in apprenticeships to £2.7 billion by 2024/25, supporting more employers across the country to recruit new apprentices.
The department is investing £3.2 million annually in the ‘Apprenticeship Support & Knowledge’ programme, which ensures students in schools and colleges are aware of the benefits of apprenticeships. Young people can also now access apprenticeships vacancies on UCAS, and later this year they will also be able to use the service to apply for apprenticeships.
The department provides £1,000 to both employers and training providers when they take on apprentices aged under 19, or 19 to 24 year old apprentices who have an Education, Health and Care plan or have been in care. The department also provides additional funding to support those apprentices who require reasonable adjustments to undertake learning.
As part of the work to remove barriers for people starting an apprenticeship, the department has launched a pilot to consider how the department determines apprentice eligibility for flexibilities to English and maths requirements. The department is also currently delivering another pilot to test whether offering expert support, advice and training to the people providing mentoring to apprentices with a LDD results in a positive impact on the cohort, both in terms of satisfaction and achievement for these apprentices.
The department will continue to work closely with the Apprenticeship Diversity Network and the Disabled Apprentice Network to better understand and remove barriers so everyone can access the benefits of an apprenticeship.
Asked by: Baroness Browning (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the effectiveness of the dynamic support register and Care (Education) and Treatment Review policy for autistic people without a learning difficulty in (1) preventing hospital admissions, and (2) speeding up hospital discharges.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England published updated policy and guidance on both Care (Education) and Treatment Reviews (C(E)TRs) and Dynamic Support Registers (DSRs) on 25 January 2023, for implementation from 1 May 2023, to help ensure people get the support they need to stay well in their communities. This includes guidance on the timescales for C(E)TRs and on ensuring that actions are taken forward.
NHS England produced the updated policy and guidance following a process of reviewing the learning since the inception of C(E)TRs and DSRs, including consultation and engagement with people with lived experience. This process included drawing on the findings of the Norfolk Safeguarding Adults Board’s review of the deaths of Joanna, Jon and Ben at Cawston Park in Norfolk, and the subsequent safe and wellbeing reviews for all people with a learning disability and autistic people in mental health hospitals.
Asked by: Baroness Browning (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that Care (Education) and Treatment Reviews are taking place within recommended timeframes, and that recommendations arising from those reviews are being acted on.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England published updated policy and guidance on both Care (Education) and Treatment Reviews (C(E)TRs) and Dynamic Support Registers (DSRs) on 25 January 2023, for implementation from 1 May 2023, to help ensure people get the support they need to stay well in their communities. This includes guidance on the timescales for C(E)TRs and on ensuring that actions are taken forward.
NHS England produced the updated policy and guidance following a process of reviewing the learning since the inception of C(E)TRs and DSRs, including consultation and engagement with people with lived experience. This process included drawing on the findings of the Norfolk Safeguarding Adults Board’s review of the deaths of Joanna, Jon and Ben at Cawston Park in Norfolk, and the subsequent safe and wellbeing reviews for all people with a learning disability and autistic people in mental health hospitals.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has issued guidance for schools on supporting children with care experience with (a) trauma and (b) behavioural issues.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Statutory guidance for virtual school heads and designated teachers, for looked-after and previously looked-after children, recognises the prevalence of social, emotional, and mental health issues amongst the cohort, and the need for whole school awareness of the impact of trauma and attachment disorders. The guidance highlights the impact past experiences can have on behaviour, and the importance of recognising this when considering how best to support the pupil with their learning as well as in the design and application of school behaviour policies.
In July 2022, the department published updated guidance on Behaviour in Schools which is the primary source of help and support for schools on developing and implementing a behaviour policy that can create a school culture with high expectations of behaviour.
Any school behaviour policy must be lawful, proportionate reasonable and comply with the school’s duties under the Equality Act 2010 and the Education and Inspections Act 2006. Account must be taken of a pupil’s age, any special educational needs or disability they may have, and any religious requirements affecting them.
Within these legal parameters, it is then for individual schools to develop their own policies.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to (a) assess and (b) address the (i) educational needs and l(ii) earning disabilities of people on the secure estate.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
A range of starting-point assessments are used to determine needs, including in relation to English and mathematics; neurodiversity; reading; and employment/career goals.
Between 45,000 and 65,000 of these assessments are carried out each year. Duplication is avoided by storing the results digitally, so that they are accessible in every establishment. Each establishment determines, and reviews annually, a curriculum to meet these needs. From 2022, prisoners’ progress has been tracked digitally through individual Personal Learning Plans (PLPs). In 2023-24 to date, approximately 40,000 PLPs have been opened.
The Digital Prisons Service will create a prison-wide, standardised process for capturing and reviewing prisoner’s developmental goals, bringing together information on prisoner’s education, skills and work journey from various systems into one central place. A single platform tracking progress will ensure that prisoners benefit from information and goals being easily accessible, and able to follow them when they transfer to another prison.
HM Prison Service is utilising approximately 2500 Coracle laptops across the prison estate. 85 prisons are able to allocate laptops to support prison learners. The laptops, which are designed for safe off-line use, facilitate greater in-cell education provision and improve access to learning outside of the classroom. In addition, learners who need extra support materials for the main core education courses, or who wish to pursue further study out of class hours, are able to access Open University courses.
We have procured digital learning content specifically to address the needs of prisoners, focusing on improving literacy and expanding the range of subjects available digitally for learners. This content will be coming on-line for testing in prisons in Spring 2024, and will be made available in all prisons across England & Wales.
In the Youth Estate, learners in YOIs have access in classrooms to on-line content via the Virtual Campus system, to enhance their learning by allowing them access to current, relevant information. They are also able to continue their learning when not in class, using laptops on which educational content has been uploaded. This includes text and video-based learning modules.
Asked by: Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the effectiveness of support for children and young people with Tourette’s Syndrome as outlined in the Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) and Alternative Provision Green Paper published in 2022, and how is that measured.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Through delivery of the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision Improvement Plan, which was published in March 2023, the department is 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.
Pupils at school with medical conditions should be properly supported so that they have full access to education. In 2014, the government introduced a new duty on schools to support pupils with all medical conditions and has published statutory guidance intended to help governing bodies meet their legal responsibilities. This guidance sets out the arrangements they will be expected to make based on good practice. Schools should ensure they are aware of any pupils with medical conditions and should have policies and processes in place to ensure these can be well managed.
Tourette's is a complex neurological condition and children and young people with it may also have other learning difficulties. As a result, schools must use their best endeavours to make sure a child or young person gets the special educational provision they need, which includes monitoring the progress of pupils regularly and putting support in place where needed, such as arranging diagnostic tests where appropriate.
Asked by: Barbara Keeley (Labour - Worsley and Eccles South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the findings in the Red Quadrant report entitled, Building the Right Support: An analysis of funding flows, published by her Department, in July 2022, whether she is taking steps to improve financial oversight of expenditure for the Building the Right Support programme.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
In our response to the Health and Social Care Committee’s report, The Treatment of Autistic People and People with Learning Disabilities published 27 July 2022, we noted the wide range of capital and revenue funding sources, as well as the range of support that a person who is, or is at risk of being, admitted to a mental health hospital may draw on. This makes assessing the costs and expenditure associated with the Building the Right Support (BtRS) programme practically challenging. The response, which referenced RedQuadrant’s report, set out that we are clear that there must be credible alternatives to inpatient care, so that people can live independent, fulfilled lives in their community, without financial incentives or disincentives which prevent this from happening.
We recognise the case for improving how data is collected, in order to better understand the specific costs related to BtRS. That is why the BtRS Delivery Board set up a Funding Flows task and finish group to look at improving national oversight of the National Health Service and local authority spend on services, and support for this group of people.
Asked by: Barbara Keeley (Labour - Worsley and Eccles South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many times the Funding Flows Task and Finish Group has met since 20 January 2023.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The Funding Flows task and finish group has met five times since its inception in September 2022. Two of those meetings took place after 20 January 2023.
Asked by: Barbara Keeley (Labour - Worsley and Eccles South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many (a) autistic people and (b) people with learning disabilities were placed in an inpatient unit rated as inadequate by the Care Quality Commission in the last 12 months.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The Assuring Transformation data shows that there are 130 people with learning disabilities or autism reported in a mental health inpatient setting which the Care Quality Commission (CQC) rates as inadequate. This is based on inpatients at the end of November 2023, and CQC inspection ratings on 17 January 2024. These units may not have been rated as inadequate at the point of the person’s admission.