Asked by: Baroness Gale (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to provide targeted financial support for people with long-term conditions such as Parkinson’s disease during the cost of living crisis.
Answered by Viscount Younger of Leckie - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government understands the pressures people are facing with the cost of living, including people with Parkinson’s disease. Over recent years, the government has demonstrated its commitment to supporting the most vulnerable with one of the largest support packages in Europe. The total support over 2022- 2025 to help households and individuals with higher bills amounts to £108 billion – an average of £3,800 per UK household.
We provided a Disability Cost of Living Payment of £150 in June/July 2023 to people in receipt of certain disability benefits such as Personal Independence Payment (PIP) or Disability Living Allowance (DLA). This is in addition to the £150 payment paid in September 2022.
We estimate that nearly 60 per cent of individuals who received an extra costs disability benefit would have received the means-tested benefit Cost of Living Payments, worth up to £900. Over 85 per cent would have received either or both of the means-tested and the £300 Pensioner Cost of Living Payment.
We also increased extra costs disability benefits by 10.1 per cent from April 2023 and by 6.7% from April 2024 in line with the Consumer Price Index.
Asked by: Baroness Gale (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure the Household Support Fund meets the needs of people with Parkinson’s disease.
Answered by Viscount Younger of Leckie - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Household Support Fund (HSF) is a scheme run by Upper Tier Local Authorities in England to provide support to those most in need towards the cost of essentials. Local Authorities have the discretion to design their own local schemes within the parameters of the guidance and grant determination set out for them by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
The Household Support Fund is an intentionally flexible scheme, designed to enable Local Authorities to respond to local need. Local Authorities have the ties and knowledge to best determine how this support should be provided to their local communities.
We encourage Local Authorities to consider a wide range of households who are potentially in need of support, including families with children, pensioners, unpaid carers, care leavers and disabled people. Local Authorities have the flexibility to deliver the scheme through a variety of routes, including offering vouchers to households, directly providing food, or issuing grants to third parties. It is for each local council to decide how, where and when they distribute their funding and to ensure that it is accessible to those who need it.
Asked by: Baroness Gale (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is their assessment of the impact of the NHS long-term workforce plan upon the number of specialists such as Parkinson’s nurses in the NHS.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
In June 2023, we published the Long Term Workforce Plan which sets out the steps the National Health Service and its partners need to take to deliver an NHS workforce that meets the changing needs of the population over the next 15 years.
The Plan commits to double the number of medical places, taking the total number of places to 15,000 by 2031/32 and including a commensurate increase in specialty training places that meets the demands of the NHS in the future. It also commits to increasing adult nursing places by 92%, taking the number of total places up to nearly 38,000 by 2031/32.
There are a record number of nurses working in the NHS and we have reached our target of 50,000 additional nurses, meaning we have delivered on our commitment six months early. In January 2024 there are over 363,000 nurses working across the NHS, representing over 62,000 more than in September 2019.