Asked by: Lord Colwyn (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord O'Shaughnessy on 20 December 2017 (HL3994), what was the total number of fines issued for incorrectly claiming an exemption on NHS dental fees in the first six months of 2017–18.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
The NHS Business Services Authority reports that a total of 217,539 fines were issued to patients on the grounds of incorrectly claiming an exemption from NHS Dental Patient Charges in the first six months of 2017–18.
Asked by: Lord Colwyn (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what the expected timescales are for introducing legislation to amend the Damages Act 1996 with regard to how the discount rate is set.
Answered by Lord Keen of Elie
On 30 November the Justice Select Committee published the report of its pre-legislative scrutiny inquiry into the draft legislation on the personal injury discount rate published by the Ministry of Justice on 7 September (Cmnd 9500).
The Government will respond to the Committee’s conclusions and other comments received on the draft legislation and set out its views on the way forward, including in relation to the introduction of legislation, within two months of the publication of the Committee’s report.
Asked by: Lord Colwyn (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what action has been taken in response to the Lord Justice Jackson review on fixed recoverable costs.
Answered by Lord Keen of Elie
The Government is committed to ensuring that the costs of litigation are proportionate. As part of this, we are considering Lord Justice Jackson’s report on extending fixed recoverable costs (FRC) in civil cases, published on 31 July 2017. We are grateful to Lord Justice Jackson for his expertise and industry in compiling his report.
We announced at the Public Accounts Committee hearing on 16 October 2017 that we have already accepted his recommendation to commission the Civil Justice Council to devise a bespoke process and set of FRC for clinical negligence cases up to £25k damages.
We will set out the way forward on the rest of the recommendations shortly.
We will consult before implementing any changes.
Asked by: Lord Colwyn (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they intend to increase the small claims track threshold for clinical negligence cases in medical and dental practice.
Answered by Lord Keen of Elie
The Government announced on 23 February 2017 that it intends to increase the small claims track limit for personal injury claims from £1,000 to £5,000 for road traffic accident related claims, and to £2,000 for all other personal injury claims (including clinical negligence). These reforms will be taken forward through secondary legislation.
These planned increases are part of a package of reforms, other elements of which will be taken forward in the Civil Liability Bill which the Government announced in the Queen’s Speech. Details of these reforms were set out in the Government’s response to the ‘Reforming the Soft Tissue Injury (‘whiplash’) Claims Process consultation - https://consult.justice.gov.uk/digital-communications/reforming-soft-tissue-injury-claims.
Asked by: Lord Colwyn (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how much revenue was raised from patient charges for NHS dental services in each of the last ten years for which figures are available.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
The table below shows the revenue raised from patient charges for National Health Service dental services in each of the last ten years.
Year | Patient charge (£ million) |
2006/07 | £475 |
2007/08 | £531 |
2008/09 | £572 |
2009/10 | £598 |
2010/11 | £614 |
2011/12 | £635 |
2012/13 | £658 |
2013/14 | £685 |
2014/15 | £714 |
2015/16 | £739 |
2016/17 | £783 |
Source: NHS Dental Statistics for England
Notes:
- Data on patient charge revenue are based on the amount calculated as recoverable from the contract payment based on the activity scheduled and patient charges recorded on the FP 17. It may not correspond exactly to the charge income reported in financial accounts for a number of reasons, including the fact that an estimate of charge income collected may have to be incorporated in the final phase of the financial year because accounts have to be prepared before the activity data for the full year becomes available.
- No account is taken in this report of refunds for patients who pay for their treatment and prove at a later date that they should not have paid charges, or penalties imposed on those who should have paid but did not.
- The patient charge total actually recovered into NHS funds during the year may also differ from the calculated amount, because of time-lags inherent in retrospectively deducting charges from monthly payments to dental contractors.
- 2006/07 data excludes revenue from Courses of Treatment (CoTs) which began before 1 April 2006 but were completed in 2006/07 due to the transition to the new contract system.
- The amount raised is dependent on the volume of banded COTs delivered and the charge for each banded COT levied.
Asked by: Lord Colwyn (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what was the total number of fines issued for incorrectly claiming an exemption on NHS dental fees in each of the last ten years for which figures are available.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
The following table shows the total number of fines issued for incorrectly claiming an exemption from National Health Service dental charges in each of the last ten years.
Financial Year (April - March) | Total number of fines |
2007-08 | 1,975 |
2008-09 | 3,394 |
2009-10 | 4,119 |
2010-11 | 7,065 |
2011-12 | 8,392 |
2012-13 | 33,887 |
2013-14 | 57,031 |
2014-15 | 196,154 |
2015-16 | 192,087 |
2016-17 | 365,181 |
Source: NHS Business Services Authority
Note:
During the period covered in the table above, both the scope and volume of checking has increased significantly.
Asked by: Lord Colwyn (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what engagement they have had with dental stakeholders regarding the cost of professional indemnity insurance in relation to clinical negligence.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
Departmental Ministers and officials regularly meet with dental stakeholders to discuss expenses and other matters. Most recently, the Parliamentary under Secretary of State (Steve Brine MP) met with the British Dental Association (BDA), as the main representative body for the dental profession, on 28 November 2017 to discuss a range of issues, including professional indemnity insurance. Departmental officials also met with the BDA on 22 November 2017 to discuss professional indemnity insurance.
Asked by: Lord Colwyn (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the main causes of clinical negligence in NHS dental care in England.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
No such assessment has been made as the Department does not hold data on the causes of clinical negligence in National Health Service dental care.
Asked by: Lord Colwyn (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government when they plan to publish a response to the consultation on fixed recoverable costs for clinical negligence claims.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
In January 2017 the Department launched a consultation on proposals to fix or limit the costs recoverable by claimant lawyers in lower value clinical negligence cases. The Department published a holding response to the consultation on 25 July 2017, so as to allow the Department time to reflect the recommendations made by the Right Honourable Lord Justice Jackson following his review in to fixed costs, published on 31 July.
Lord Justice Jackson’s report includes a recommendation for the Civil Justice Council and the Government to set up a working party to develop a new process for clinical negligence initially up to £25,000 alongside new fixed costs.
Departmental Ministers have agreed with this recommendation, as referenced in the recent Public Accounts Committee on 29 November 2017 and the Department is now preparing the final response to the consultation for publication. The publication dates will be decided according to standard Government processes.
Asked by: Lord Colwyn (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what were (1) the total contracted Units of Dental Activity, and (2) the average value of a contracted Unit of Dental Activity per capita, in each region in England in each year since the current dental contract was introduced in 2006.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
The total contracted units of dental activity for England and by region can be found in the table, which is attached owing to the size of the data. We do not hold the average value of contracted unit of dental activity per capita in England or by region.