Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment his Department has made of the likelihood of another global pandemic occurring within the next 50 years.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
It is not possible to predict when the next pandemic will occur or what virus will cause it. Therefore, our strategic approach to pandemic preparedness constantly evolves in response to new scientific information, learning from our response to prior pandemics, responses to other infectious disease outbreaks and rigorous exercising to test our response mechanisms.
The Department is working with the Centre for Pandemic Preparedness in the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) to ensure we have a flexible and capabilities-based approach to pandemic preparedness that will allow us to respond to future outbreaks, protect the health of the United Kingdom population, and contribute to minimising the wider societal disruption that pandemics and infectious diseases can cause.
The UKHSA brings together our world-leading public health science and expertise, cutting-edge capabilities in data analytics and genomic surveillance, at-scale testing and contact tracing capabilities to respond to a range of pandemic threats, as outlined in UKHSA’s Science Strategy, published on 16 May 2023. Information on the strategy is available at the following link:
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to tackle benefit fraud.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Our Fraud Plan, Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System, published on 19 May 2022, sets out our approach and explains how additional investment is allowing us to recruit 1,400 more staff into our counter-fraud teams and develop enhanced data analytics as a means of preventing and detecting fraud and error.
Additionally, we are creating a dedicated team to deliver Targeted Case Reviews of existing Universal Credit claims. This supports wider Government aims of strong oversight and control and efficiently managing the public purse. Over the next five years we expect to review over 2 million potentially high-risk claims, including suspicious cases which entered our system at the height of the pandemic.
More information on our Fraud Plan, which also explains our ambition to modernise and strengthen our legislative framework, can be found here:
Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much the NHS England Chief Data and Analytics Office spent on consultancy work by (a) contract, (b) provider, (c) time period and (d) value in (i) each financial year since 2018-19 and (ii) the 2022-23 financial year to 24 February 2023.
Answered by Will Quince
The following table shows the spend in pounds as per each spend category for the financial years since the Chief Data and Analytics Office was established. It has been provided in an aggregated format, as the information requested on contracts and providers is commercially sensitive.
Spend category | 2021/22 | 2022/23 | Grand total |
Implications of legal merger between NHS England and NHS Digital | - | 1,009,000 | 1,009,000 |
Other Data & Analytics Consultancy | 942,750 | 288,600 | 1,231,350 |
Grand Total | 942,750 | 1,297,600 | 2,240,350 |
Asked by: Lord Mendelsohn (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Markham on 14 February (HL5363), what data they are utilising (1) to monitor emerging COVID-19 variants, and (2) to assess their potential impact; and what specific surveillance arrangements are in place to assist this assessment.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) undertakes regular monitoring of United Kingdom and international SARS-CoV-2 genomic data to detect and characterise new variants. In the UK, this includes data from routine testing and surveillance studies, with variant evaluation currently based on data from multiple sources. UK genomics surveillance is primarily conducted through healthcare associated sites such as hospitals and Office for National Statistics community sampling, with international data being obtained from the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data which includes genetic sequence and related clinical and epidemiological data.
The potential impact is considered first based on the relative fitness advantage (the lineage growth rate), national and international geographic dispersion, and/or mutation profile in relation to immune response or therapeutic efficacy, using genomic sequence data. Analysis is discussed at multidisciplinary expert meetings where further laboratory virology investigations can be triggered to add confidence to the risk assessment.
UKHSA is utilising strong surveillance capabilities, rooted in the highest-quality data systems, data architecture and analytics to anticipate, prepare for and respond to health risks, including emerging COVID-19 variants. UKHSA is currently working with the Department to consider next steps for the future of surveillance programmes.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will hold discussions with the National Diabetes Audit group on that group's decision not to include the rate of diabetes among children on their database.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Clinical Audit and Patient Outcomes Programme includes two diabetes audits focusing on adults and children respectively due to the differences in the way that diabetes care and services are delivered for adults and children. The Data and Analytics Directorate at NHS England collect and analyse data relating to adults with diabetes for the National Diabetes Audit while the Royal College of Paediatric Child Health deliver the National Paediatric Diabetes Audit.
Asked by: Clive Lewis (Labour - Norwich South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether Palantir has failed to meet in (a) part and (b) full the terms of any of its contracts with his Department since January 2020
Answered by Will Quince
The contract in place between NHS England and Palantir for provision of Foundry Services and the data management platform since 12 December 2020 has provided NHS England with the core capabilities as set out within the contract, including a core platform usage licence, Data Integration and Analytics Capabilities, Supply Management Capability, Immunisation and Vaccination Management Capability, Workforce Analytics Capability, Integrated Planning Tool and Adult Social Care Dashboard.
Throughout the delivery and provision of these capabilities, NHS England can confirm that Palantir has met its obligations as set out within the terms. Throughout the life of the contract, NHS England have not had cause to utilise a Performance Improvement Plan or manage underperformance of the contract.
Palantir are managed via NHS England Contract Management Framework to ensure that performance is monitored and measured, the National Health Service receives value for money, stakeholder expectations are managed, robust governance is in place, risks are actively managed and mitigated, delivery is ensured and the end user outcomes are maximised.
Asked by: Matt Hancock (Independent - West Suffolk)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to improve the availability and use of data to prepare for a future pandemic.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) is utilising strong surveillance capabilities, rooted in the highest-quality data systems, data architecture and analytics to anticipate, prepare for and respond to health risks. UKHSA will exploit the potential of new techniques and technologies across a range of disciplines.
We are continuously updating our pandemic plans to reflect the latest scientific information and lessons learned from exercises and our response to emergencies, including COVID-19.
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of using new technology such as artificial intelligence to find and prevent fraud across the public sector.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
The Cabinet Office’s Public Sector Fraud Authority (PSFA) is investing in new technologies that will increasingly use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) capabilities to detect and prevent fraud. This includes the use of predictive analytics, a field of AI, that uses supervised machine learning techniques to predict the likelihood of fraud within a given area of spending.
For example a recent Cabinet Office contract award to build a Single Network Analytics Platform for the public sector, features AI and ML capabilities. This platform is for use by public bodies to access data that will help them identify fraud and actors who present a threat.
The PSFA’s approach is to ‘test and learn’ and to carefully apply AI and ML where appropriate, each time proving its merits, and then expanding where a viable use case exists.
Asked by: Viscount Waverley (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they use customs data to map market changes over time in (1) quantity, (2) pricing, (3) number of suppliers, and (4) number of importers, for each harmonized system code; and whether they use any artificial intelligence-based solution to do so.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Lainston - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Department makes use of customs data to monitor and better understand patterns of demand for imports and exports of goods and is continuously looking at ways improve and integrate complex datasets and techniques further.
The Department also uses customs data from HMRC and UN COMTRADE to analyse trade flows in the context of supply chains. This is done to improve the visibility of UK critical supply chains and inform government resilience strategies. The Department also leads a cross-Government project called the ‘Global Supply Chains Intelligence Pilot’ which aims to combine government and commercial datasets, along with big data analytics, to map global supply chains.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to tackle benefit fraud.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
We take all fraud very seriously. Our Fraud Plan, Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System, published on 19 May 2022, sets out our approach and explains how the additional investment is allowing us to recruit 1,400 more staff into our counter-fraud teams, establish a new 2,000-strong team dedicated to reviewing the circumstances of large volumes of the Universal Credit caseload over the next 5 years and develop enhanced data analytics as a means of preventing and detecting fraud and error.
More information on our Fraud Plan, can be found here:
Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
This work is supported by two tranches of additional investment totalling around £900m, which will help prevent a further £2.4bn of loss by 2024/25. This investment includes money allocated via the Autumn Statement, which will help prevent abuse of the system and drive forward our UC case checks.
Collectively, this builds on the existing work and measures DWP has in place to address overpayments, with savings from the correction and prevention of fraud and error totalling £2 billion last year.