Asked by: Lord Blunkett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to invest in NHS occupational health services; and whether any such plans include procurement from private sector providers which have capacity to provide services.
Answered by Lord Bethell
Occupational health services are vitally important in keeping people healthy and safe in the workplace. The command paper, Improving Lives: The Future of Work, Health and Disability, committed to setting out a clear strategy for the future occupational health market reform. Following the Health is everyone’s business consultation published in July 2019, an upcoming response will outline future occupational health strategy.
The health and wellbeing of National Health Service staff is very important. As part of the NHS People Plan, we plan to set out a comprehensive package of support that all NHS staff can expect to receive from their employer, including rapid access to occupational health services. Publication of the final NHS People Plan has been deferred to allow the NHS to provide maximum operational effort to COVID-19 response. However, we have commissioned the NHS to urgently put in place a package of support for NHS staff during COVID-19 response.
Asked by: Lord Blunkett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Interim NHS People Plan, published on 3 June, what steps they are taking to implement the recommendations of the Kark review of the fit and proper persons test, published on 6 February; and when they expect to complete their response to that review.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
The Government has accepted in principle recommendations 1 and 2 of the Review by Tom Kark QC into the Fit and Proper Persons test, namely:
- to develop competency standards for all NHS directors; and
- to create a central database of NHS director employment and training data.
The Government has asked Baroness Harding of Winscombe, to take forward implementation of the two accepted recommendations and to engage on the remaining recommendations alongside work to develop the NHS People Plan.
A response is expected later this year.
Asked by: Lord Blunkett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the review of the Sheffield Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), what plans they have to (1) ensure the protection of whistleblowers, (2) take action to restore confidence in the operation of that CCG, and (3) refresh that CCG's decision-making structure.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
NHS England commissioned an independent assessment of the Clinical Commissioning Group’s (CCG) leadership and culture as part of their role as the CCG’s regulator. The independent assessor did not uncover any issues on whistleblowing therefore the report does not make recommendations on their approach to whistleblowing. However, NHS England are always keen to learn and improve how we listen and respond to staff.
Sheffield CCG takes all concerns raised by staff very seriously and invites anyone who has concerns to raise them under its Freedom to Speak Up: Raising Concerns (Whistleblowing) Policy and/or Dignity at work (prevention of bullying and harassment) policy. The CCG encourages staff to speak up and is committed to dealing with them responsibly and professionally.
NHS England will be developing an improvement plan, with input from staff and partners, to systematically address all the issues in the report.
Asked by: Lord Blunkett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what advice or direction they have given to clinical commissioning groups in relation to the reconfiguration of local services, specifically (1) the removal and closure of walk-in centres opened under the reforms set out in the Darzi Review, and (2) the use of apps to replace local services with technology.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
Local commissioners have been asked to review their current local urgent care facilities against the key Urgent Treatment Centres standards and make a decision for each facility; these decisions should be based on local patient need and take into consideration current and planned future provision of urgent and primary care services.
NHS England is working with clinical commissioning groups to develop complementary online channels to operate alongside existing services, which offer patients choice and flexibility. This includes the deployment of NHS 111 Online to all areas in England, allowing people to connect with urgent health care services through either a web-based or app-based interface.
NHS Improvement is leading the effort to standardise and enhance the service offer, make sure services are best positioned to reduce unnecessary attendances at accident and emergency departments, and help patients understand what services are available wherever they are in the country.
Asked by: Lord Blunkett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to his Statement of 5 January 2015, Official Report, columns 38-40, on UK Ebola preparedness, whether the eligibility for full access to NHS care will be retained by UK citizens working with aid agencies and international relief organisations outside the UK.
Answered by Jane Ellison
United Kingdom citizens working with aid agencies and international relief organisations outside the UK, who remain ordinarily resident in the UK, will retain full entitlement to free NHS hospital treatment. For those not ordinarily resident in the UK, they will become so if they take up or resume settled residence in the UK, and will consequently be fully entitled again.
Asked by: Lord Blunkett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 11 December 2014 to Question 217647, if he will direct the Care Quality Commission to engage people with recent primary care experience in analytical processing under the heading of Intelligent Monitoring.
Answered by Norman Lamb
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of health and adult social care in England. It is for the CQC rather than the Secretary of State to direct the CQC on the type of staff it should employ.
Asked by: Lord Blunkett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the robustness of the methodology used in the Care Quality Commission's Intelligent monitoring process and of the quality of the management of that process.
Answered by Norman Lamb
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of health and adult social care in England. The CQC is responsible for developing and consulting on its methodology for assessing whether providers are meeting the registration requirements.
Following feedback from national and local stakeholders, and working with NHS England, on 5 December the CQC completed a comprehensive review of the general practitioner (GP) intelligent monitoring (IM) data and, as a result, made a number of changes to the IM tool. Concerns were identified with five indicators. The first of these was an indicator about the ability to get a GP appointment, which has consequently been removed from GP IM. Separately, and also after publication, NHS England advised the CQC about concerns with the data that NHS England had provided for four indicators. For three, revisions were needed to the indicator construction to align with other NHS England publications, and for the remaining one there was a data error. Following the discovery of the mistakes, the CQC’s approach has been to apologise, to address the problem, and learn lessons to prevent a repeat occurrence.
The CQC is now reviewing the quality assurance of all of its outward facing analyses to ensure any necessary actions are taken to prevent a recurrence of the mistakes made. An internal audit by the CQC is also in the process of being commissioned.
Asked by: Lord Blunkett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what qualifications are required for working on, designing or undertaking analytical processing under the heading of Intelligent Monitoring; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Norman Lamb
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of health and adult social care in England. The CQC is responsible for the recruitment of its own workforce.
The CQC has advised that it ensures that all staff appointed have the necessary skills and expertise to fulfil their roles.
Among the skills, qualifications and experience required for the role are:
- Excellent quantitative and qualitative analytical skills and previous experience of working in an analytical role.
- Experience of interpreting and presenting data sets to a wide range of audiences.
- Excellent communication skills, both written and oral with experience of preparing and presenting high-level reports on complex issues.
- Understanding of how intelligence is used in a risk based regulatory model.
- Knowledge and understanding of health and/or social care data sets.
- Experience of using management information systems to ensure an integrated information approach.
- Experience of working with consistent analytic frameworks.
The CQC’s Primary Medical Services Intelligent Monitoring team consists of six analytical staff. The team draws on particular expertise from across the CQC, for example clinical, sector policy and statistical advice.
Asked by: Lord Blunkett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what monies have been set aside to fund litigation proceedings launched by independent practitioners in response to the recently acknowledged failings of the Care Quality Commission's Intelligent Monitoring methodology.
Answered by Norman Lamb
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of health and adult social care in England. As the CQC is responsible for developing its own methodology for assessing whether providers are meeting the registration requirements, the CQC would be responsible for any legal proceedings that arose in relation to that methodology.
The CQC has advised that it will deal with any legal proceedings that may be brought against it. It has made no specific arrangements, as each case must be reviewed on its merits.
Asked by: Lord Blunkett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Autumn Statement 2014, (a) over what timescale, (b) through what mechanism and (c) in what form the £1.2 billion allocated for GP services in that Statement be provided to clinical commissioning groups and primary care commissioned services.
Answered by Dan Poulter
The additional funding announced by the Chancellor in the Autumn Statement will enable the National Health Service to continue to meet rapidly rising demand in the short term while making the investments in new services and facilities to transform care for patients and ensure that the NHS remains sustainable in the longer term.
As part of the additional funding announced, £1 billion will be invested in England over the next four years (2015-16 to 2018-19) in modern infrastructure, technology and facilities in primary and community care settings. NHS England will set out in due course their proposals for how this funding will be used.