Asked by: Baroness Hollins (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to raise awareness of vacancies in the care sector resulting from COVID-19-related international travel restrictions; and the opportunities that this may provide people who will be made redundant during the pandemic.
Answered by Lord Bethell
We are working closely across Government with local authorities and providers to make sure the adult social care sector is prepared and able to respond to COVID-19. We know that the adult social care sector will need to recruit more people to ensure it can operate at maximum capacity, both to fill existing vacancies, but also to ensure there is sufficient cover for those in the workforce who will need to self-isolate because they are unwell, or who need to undertake more stringent social distancing measures because they are in a high risk group. We are planning to adapt our current national recruitment campaign ‘When you care, every day makes a difference’ for the current context, while continuing to highlight opportunities for career development and progression.
Asked by: Baroness Hollins (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what additional funding they plan to provide to Clinical Commissioning Groups and social services to enable frontier workers who are personal assistants or carers for disabled people, including those in receipt of continuing health care funding, to remain in this country between shifts in order to not deplete the social care workforce.
Answered by Lord Bethell
We are working closely across Government with local authorities and providers to make sure the adult social care sector is prepared and able to respond to COVID-19. Local authorities, clinical commissioning groups and providers should have appropriate arrangements in place to manage their workforce. We expect them to work together to make sure that our valued social care staff, including frontier workers, can continue working wherever possible. There is a £5 billion contingency fund to support the National Health Service and local authorities to meet the additional costs they will face, and to ensure they can maintain adult social care provision, given the additional pressures on the sector caused by COVID-19.
Asked by: Baroness Hollins (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what discussions they have had with online media platforms to ensure readers and users of their comment sections are not subject to online harms.
Answered by Baroness Barran
DCMS ministers and officials regularly meet stakeholders to discuss a range of issues, including online media sites and their comment sections.
The Government published the initial response to the Online Harms White Paper consultation in February 2020. This confirmed that the Government is developing legislation on online harms to establish a new duty of care on online companies towards their users, overseen by an independent regulator. This framework will make companies more responsible for their users’ safety. For comments sections on media sites, the legislation will not duplicate existing regulation.
Asked by: Baroness Hollins (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, in the event of a no-deal Brexit, EU frontier workers working and paying tax and National Insurance in the UK will be entitled to NHS treatment.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
In a ‘no deal’ European Union exit, EU citizens living in another state but travelling regularly to and from the United Kingdom as a frontier worker on or before exit day will continue to be entitled for National Health Service treatment without charge.
The Government is aiming to agree with the EU or with individual Member States continuing the existing reciprocal healthcare arrangements after exit day until at least 31 December 2020. Where such agreement is reached, an EU citizen who becomes a frontier worker after exit day would be eligible for NHS treatment without charge, under the terms of that arrangement. Where no agreement is reached, a frontier worker from that country may be charged for their care unless an exemption applies or the service that they are accessing is one which is free for everyone.
Asked by: Baroness Hollins (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many times the Court of Protection has ordered the termination of a pregnancy in a woman with a learning disability or autism in the last ten years; and on how many occasions this has been against the wishes of the woman or her family.
Answered by Lord Keen of Elie
The information requested is not held centrally and could only be obtained at a disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Baroness Hollins (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans are in place to ensure the continued delivery of psychiatric medication to pharmacies in England in the event of a no-deal Brexit.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
We understand that psychiatric medicines are vitally important to many people in this country. Our contingency plans aim to ensure that the supply of psychiatric medicine and other essential medicines to patients is not disrupted in all European Union exit scenarios, including in the event we exit the EU without a deal.
We are confident that, if everyone does what they need to do, the supply of medicines will be uninterrupted in the event of exiting the EU without a deal.
The Department is working closely with trade bodies, product suppliers, the health and care system in England, the devolved administrations and Crown Dependencies, to make detailed plans to ensure the continuation of the supply of medicines to the whole of the United Kingdom in the event of a ‘no deal’ EU exit.
Asked by: Baroness Hollins (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what engagement the Department for Work and Pensions has had with organisations representing people with learning disabilities about the Universal Credit managed migration process to ensure that communications are accessible for people with learning disabilities.
Answered by Baroness Buscombe
We are unable to forecast who might need to go through the managed migration processes, as it will apply to those who have not had by that point a change in their circumstances. There will inevitably be a number of claimants currently receiving ESA who will be managed migrated, but we do not have data on the nature of their disability.
We are committed to fully support all of our claimants through our managed migration processes, which we are working with a diverse stakeholders to co-design to ensure that they work for the most vulnerable. In each phase of the design process, we will be working with a broad range of participants representing all of our claimants, including those with learning disabilities. We will ensure through this work that our design is user-centred, and that we use a wide range of insights to collaboratively develop our approach.
Asked by: Baroness Hollins (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what work they have done to ensure that the application process for Universal Credit is accessible for people with a learning disability.
Answered by Baroness Buscombe
We are unable to forecast who might need to go through the managed migration processes, as it will apply to those who have not had by that point a change in their circumstances. There will inevitably be a number of claimants currently receiving ESA who will be managed migrated, but we do not have data on the nature of their disability.
We are committed to fully support all of our claimants through our managed migration processes, which we are working with a diverse stakeholders to co-design to ensure that they work for the most vulnerable. In each phase of the design process, we will be working with a broad range of participants representing all of our claimants, including those with learning disabilities. We will ensure through this work that our design is user-centred, and that we use a wide range of insights to collaboratively develop our approach.
Asked by: Baroness Hollins (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many people with a learning disability will be subject to the Universal Credit managed migration process.
Answered by Baroness Buscombe
We are unable to forecast who might need to go through the managed migration processes, as it will apply to those who have not had by that point a change in their circumstances. There will inevitably be a number of claimants currently receiving ESA who will be managed migrated, but we do not have data on the nature of their disability.
We are committed to fully support all of our claimants through our managed migration processes, which we are working with a diverse stakeholders to co-design to ensure that they work for the most vulnerable. In each phase of the design process, we will be working with a broad range of participants representing all of our claimants, including those with learning disabilities. We will ensure through this work that our design is user-centred, and that we use a wide range of insights to collaboratively develop our approach.
Asked by: Baroness Hollins (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what was the average time taken to complete Disclosure and Barring Service applications for employment in the adult social care workforce in (1) 2016, and (2) 2017.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford
The information requested is not held centrally. The DBS do not hold the information requested by sector.