Asked by: Lord Bishop of Newcastle (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the reply by Lord Bethell on 23 April (HL Deb, col 90), whether their approach to personal protective equipment procurement remains one of collaboration with local initiatives following the report in the Financial Times on 4 May that procurement is being nationalised.
Answered by Lord Bethell
A cross-Government personal protective equipment (PPE) sourcing unit, staffed by over 400 people, is securing new supply lines from across the world and has published rigorous standards against which purchases will be made. Lord Deighton is leading the Government effort by British industry to manufacture PPE. The Government has processed over 23,000 cases from over 15,000 suppliers and has contracted with 150 of them. In addition, we are in contact with over 350 potential manufacturers and have signed contracts to manufacture over two billion items of PPE through United Kingdom-based manufacturers. More new manufacturers are expected to commit to producing PPE in the coming weeks.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of Newcastle (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans are in place to provide mental health support for the social care workforce (1) during, and (2) after, the COVID-19 pandemic.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The Government wants everybody working in social care to feel like they have somewhere to turn, or someone to talk to, when they are finding things difficult.
Samaritans, Shout, Hospice UK and Mind have collaborated to launch ‘Our Frontline’ to provide information, emotional support and access to a crisis text service for frontline workers, including in social care. The Department has also launched an app that contains resources that focus on mental and physical wellbeing including access to wellbeing apps designed to provide support during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Hospice UK has also extended its bereavement and trauma line to provide dedicated support to social care staff and the Department is working with Samaritans to extend its dedicated listening service to the social care workforce as soon as possible.
Asked by: Lord Bishop of Newcastle (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the causes of the fall in real-terms funding per child for low-level mental health services in 60 per cent of local authorities in England given the £226 million reported as planned spending for 2018/19.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
Local authority funding is a matter for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
The Department recognises the need to increase funding for National Health Service mental health services for children and young people. The planned spend by NHS clinical commissioning groups on children and young people’s mental health for 2018/19 is £727.3 million. This represents an increase of around 40% from the spend in 2015/16, which was £516 million.