Asked by: Lord Fox (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the absolute value of the increased funding that the National Institute for Health Research will receive over the spending review period.
Answered by Lord Kamall
The Spending Review settlement provides £5 billion over the Spending Review period for health-related research and development (R&D). This includes the largest funding received by health R&D, with an increase of £605 million on 2020-21 funding by 2024-25 which means the investment will rise to £2 billion by the end of the Spending Review period.
The National Institute for Health Research budget will be finalised as part of a detailed financial planning process. The distribution of capital across health R&D areas will be confirmed before funding is made available in April 2022.
Asked by: Lord Fox (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what proportion of the overall Research and Development funding uplift announced in the Spending Review will go to the National Institute for Health Research.
Answered by Lord Kamall
The Spending Review settlement provides £5 billion over the Spending Review period for health-related research and development (R&D). This includes the largest funding received by health R&D, with an increase of £605 million on 2020-21 funding by 2024-25 which means the investment will rise to £2 billion by the end of the Spending Review period.
The National Institute for Health Research budget will be finalised as part of a detailed financial planning process. The distribution of capital across health R&D areas will be confirmed before funding is made available in April 2022.
Asked by: Lord Fox (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to their obesity strategy which recommends the use of digital technologies for the monitoring of weight loss and lifestyle improvements, what steps they will take to protect personal data collected by fitness trackers and apps.
Answered by Lord Bethell
Public Health England (PHE) digital products complete a Data Protection Impact Assessment. This assessment is reviewed by their Data Protection Officers prior to launch to ensure the processing complies with the requirements of data protection law. ?
PHE stores information such as weight, age, sex and ethnic group in the Weight Loss App but PHE does not store any personally identifiable information.
On Monday 27 July, PHE launched an adult health campaign, ‘Better Health’, encouraging adults to kick start their health by losing weight, eating better and getting active.
The campaign directs people to a variety of free tools and apps including the 12-week NHS Weight Loss Plan, Couch to 5k, Active10 and Easy Meals. These tools were reviewed ahead of the campaign launch and approved by PHE Data Protection Officers.
Asked by: Lord Fox (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how much in total the NHS has contributed to the apprenticeship levy fund to date; and what proportion of that total has been spent on apprenticeships.
Answered by Lord Bethell
We are working closely with employers, Health Education England and other delivery partners to make sure that the National Health Service is supported to recruit apprentices, thus utilising their levy contributions, in a range of occupations. This is to ensure the NHS has a workforce that is reflective of the population it serves.
The apprenticeship levy is paid by NHS employers with a pay bill over £3 million. It is for each NHS employer to determine how to spend the funds available to them for apprenticeships. The Department for Education hold the official data on employer level spending. Individual NHS employers hold their own data on their levy spend. We do not collect this data centrally.