Asked by: Baroness Crawley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to shield the BAME community from COVID-19.
Answered by Lord Bethell
To provide a more comprehensive response to a number of outstanding Written Questions, this has been answered by an information factsheet Science of Covid-19 note for House of Lords, which is attached due to the size of the data. A copy has also been placed in the Library.
Asked by: Baroness Crawley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the financial sustainability of NHS dental services.
Answered by Lord Bethell
NHS England is continuing to fund dentists for their National Health Service contracts while the requirement to deliver a given amount of treatment is suspended. As part of the agreement dental practices will provide remote urgent advice, redeploy staff to provide urgent face to face care in one of the 550 urgent dental centres and redeploy other staff to support the wider NHS on COVID-19.
NHS England and NHS Improvement announced on 28 May that NHS dentistry outside urgent care centres will begin to restart from 8 June with the aim of increasing levels of service as fast as is compatible with maximising safety.
Asked by: Baroness Crawley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that recently retired NHS workers who have returned to work for the NHS continue to be employed throughout the recovery phase of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The Department is working with the healthcare professional regulators, the devolved administrations, NHS England and NHS Improvement and employing organisations to ensure that the closure of the temporary emergency registers takes place in a planned and co-ordinated way.
The temporary registers will be closed at the end of the COVID-19 emergency period (as declared by the Secretary of State) and all those who have joined the temporary registers will have their registration revoked. However, we are keen that anyone who has returned to practice and who wishes to remain working beyond the emergency period is encouraged and supported to join the full register. To do so they will need to demonstrate that they meet the required standards and pay the relevant registration fees.
Asked by: Baroness Crawley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to (1) prepare for, and (2) administer, a comprehensive national COVID-19 vaccine programme.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The Government has established a Vaccines Taskforce to coordinate and accelerate work across Government, academia and industry to develop, manufacture and deliver a COVID-19 vaccine.
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) is an independent Departmental Expert Committee and a statutory body, which advises the United Kingdom health departments on immunisation for the prevention of infections and or disease. We are seeking advice from the JCVI on priority groups for vaccination, and on options for the introduction of any licensed COVID-19 vaccine in the UK.
We are working with partners internationally and in the UK, including Public Health England and NHS England and NHS Improvement, to develop and implement plans for the procurement and delivery of a safe and effective vaccine as quickly and effectively as possible to those who need it across the UK.
Asked by: Baroness Crawley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to publish details of any contracts made with private healthcare providers for the provision of NHS funded acute care.
Answered by Lord Bethell
NHS England will ensure that details of the contracts it has entered into under the 2020 Directions are published online on the GOV.UK website, in accordance with regulation 4(1) of The National Health Service (Procurement, Patient Choice and Competition) (No. 2) Regulations 2013.
Asked by: Baroness Crawley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of (1) the capability, and (2) the capacity, of the private acute healthcare sector to assist in the reduction of waiting times for elective surgery.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The Department and NHS England and NHS Improvement have worked with the independent sector on a national basis to increase capacity and resource within the National Health Service, adding around 8,000 beds and 20,000 clinical staff.
On 29 April 2020, NHS England and NHS Improvement wrote to the NHS setting out the second phase of the NHS response to COVID-19. The NHS has been asked to make full use of all contracted independent sector hospital and diagnostic capacity in restarting routine elective treatment, prioritising long waiters first. A copy of the letter from NHS England and NHS Improvement to the NHS is attached.
Asked by: Baroness Crawley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment was made of the options for developing contact tracing applications.
Answered by Lord Bethell
We engaged with a number of companies and methodologies.
Pivotal quickly proved their suitability, and given the extreme urgency, we made a direct award as permitted under Regulation 32 of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015.
Pivotal were recommended to us as a company who were on an existing framework, and who had experience of working with Government. Over two days, we looked across a network of suppliers who had existing contracts with the Government and had done work with the National Cyber Security Centre or other security agencies, and so could be relied on to provide highly secure and privacy-focused products.
Asked by: Baroness Crawley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what procurement process was followed in order to procure and develop the contact tracing application.
Answered by Lord Bethell
We engaged with a number of companies and methodologies.
Pivotal quickly proved their suitability, and given the extreme urgency, we made a direct award as permitted under Regulation 32 of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015.
Pivotal were recommended to us as a company who were on an existing framework, and who had experience of working with Government. Over two days, we looked across a network of suppliers who had existing contracts with the Government and had done work with the National Cyber Security Centre or other security agencies, and so could be relied on to provide highly secure and privacy-focused products.
Asked by: Baroness Crawley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they plan to publish a national dementia strategy for beyond 2020; and if so, when.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
We expect to publish a new dementia strategy for England for the period 2020 to 2025 early next year.
Asked by: Baroness Crawley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what progress they have made towards meeting the aims of the Prime Minister’s challenge on dementia.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
We have committed to implement fully the Government’s Challenge on Dementia 2020 strategy to make this country the best place in the world to live with dementia.
Our recent review of progress tells us we are largely on track to meet our commitments to improve the lives of those living with dementia, their families and carers. The Dementia 2020 Challenge: 2018 Review Phase 1 report is attached.
Examples of progress we have made so far with our delivery partners include more than two thirds of people with dementia receiving a diagnosis, over 2.8 million people becoming Dementia Friends and 365 areas in England committing to being Dementia Friendly Communities. In the £250 million Dementia Discovery Fund we have the largest venture fund in the world aimed at discovering and developing novel pre-clinical therapies for dementia.