Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to place in the Library of the House a copy of the data protection impact assessment for the NHS Federated Data Platform (FDP) and each current FDP product in use anywhere across the platform; and whether the programme’s public commitments to transparency are compatible with the assessment being published this long after the programme’s go live date.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
It has not proved possible to respond to this question in the time available before Dissolution. Ministers will correspond directly with the Member.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to address anaesthetic workforce shortages.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
It has not proved possible to respond to this question in the time available before Dissolution. Ministers will correspond directly with the Member.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the scale of the bottleneck between foundation and speciality training for NHS doctors; and what steps they are taking to address this.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Government continues to keep the number of medical speciality training places it funds under review, and has taken significant action to expand places over recent years. In January 2023, Health Education England, now part of NHS England, announced that nearly 900 additional medical specialty training posts had been created for that year, including more than 500 in the key areas of mental health and cancer treatment. This built on funding for more than 750 additional training posts across speciality programmes for 2022. Future specialty growth will take the total increase to more than 2,000 places over three years, from 2021 to 2024.
The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan published in June last year set out a commitment to double the number of medical school places in England by 2031/32. The plan also included a commitment to ensure there is adequate growth in foundation placement capacity, as students begin to graduate from the expanded number of medical school places, and a commensurate increase in specialty training places that meets the demands of the National Health Service in England, in the future. We will work with stakeholders to ensure this growth is sustainable, and focused in the service areas where need is greatest.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the progress towards the measures to retain doctors included in the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan has a strong focus on retention, but is not starting from scratch. It builds on measures put in place though the NHS People Promise and NHS People Plan, to improve organisational culture, and the workplace experience of staff across the National Health Service.
The learning from the NHS National Retention Programme is that single retention interventions rarely have an impact, instead what is needed is sustained action over time, to address retention issues. Last month, NHS England set out a range of measures to improve the working lives of doctors in training, including improving choice and flexibility on rotas, streamlining and improving human resources and payroll support, and reforming statutory and mandatory training.
We have also taken action on pensions and changed the NHS Pension Scheme rules to make retirement more flexible, and encourage retired staff to return. This includes a new partial retirement option available from 1 October 2023 as an alternative to full retirement. Staff can now draw down some or all of their pension whilst continuing to work, and further building up their pension.
To ensure the delivery and review the progress of the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan, a Governance Board has been established to provide cross Government assurance of progress. The Government has committed to updating the modelling that underpins the Long Term Workforce Plan every two years, or in line with fiscal events as appropriate.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they intend to have any discussions with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence about routinely taking into consideration the impact on the physical and mental health of the person with a rare condition and their wider family.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) develops its guidance independently, in line with its established methods and processes, which have been developed through extensive engagement with interested parties. In developing its guidance, the NICE takes into account all physical and mental health-related costs and benefits including, where relevant, the health-related benefits to carers and the wider family.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what was the annual spend by the health service on legal representation at inquests in the previous five years for which information is available.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
NHS Resolution manages clinical negligence and other claims against the National Health Service in England. The following table shows the amounts paid in accordance with the rules of the Clinical Negligence Scheme for Trusts (CNST), to support trusts at inquests and for associated costs to investigate entitlement to compensation, in the last five years:
Payment Raised Year | Amount |
2018/19 | £2,968,153 |
2019/20 | £2,223,095 |
2020/21 | £1,614,820 |
2021/22 | £1,545,135 |
2022/23 | £1,623,211 |
Total | £9,974,414 |
Source: NHS Resolution
The CNST handles all clinical negligence claims against member NHS bodies where the incident in question took place on or after 1 April 1995, or when the body joined the scheme if that is later. NHS Resolution is not involved in any arrangements that an individual trust might make outside of the scheme.
Information on the total spend by NHS trusts regarding coroner’s inquests is not collated or held centrally.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they intend to have any discussions with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) about continuing to work with the rare condition community to improve engagement and involvement in decision-making from small organisations.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
Department officials regularly meet with colleagues in the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) to discuss a range of issues. Taking into account the advice and experience of people using services, as well as their carers or advocates, alongside that of health and social care professionals, commissioners, providers, and the public, is a central principle that guides the NICE’s work.
The NICE is committed to working with people who use health and social care services, their families, carers, and the public, as well as with voluntary and community sector organisations, and all of the NICE’s guidance is developed using a process that takes into account the opinions and views of the people who will be affected by them, to ensure their needs and priorities are reflected. The NICE gathers these perspectives through the membership of its committees, and through public consultations at various stages of guidance development. Stakeholders also have an opportunity to comment on the potential impact of the NICE’s guidance on health inequalities.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework has been fully implemented throughout the NHS to support learning and compassionate responses to families following any incidents.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
Compliance with the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF) is now a contractual requirement for all services commissioned under the NHS Standard Contract. Implementing the PSIRF is an ongoing process and organisations’ approach to patient safety incident response can and should evolve over time. Work is also underway to explore implementation of the PSIRF in wider services within the National Health Service, such as primary care.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of high rates of childhood obesity on future diabetes rates; and what assessment they have made of the impact that this will have on the NHS's future spend on diabetes.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
NHS England has data from national diabetes audits showing the increasing numbers of young people being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes over the past five years. NHS England knows that 93.5% of children with Type 2 diabetes that are under the care of paediatric diabetes units are overweight or obese, with a body mass index above the 85th centile after correction for age and gender.
Core20PLUS5 – Children and Young People includes diabetes as a key clinical area and has two key areas of clinical focus, namely to increase access to real time continuous glucose monitoring and insulin pumps for children and young people in the most deprived quintiles and from ethnic minority backgrounds, and increase the proportion of children and young people with Type 2 diabetes receiving all the care processes recommended in guidance from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.
Key diabetes health metrics, such as blood glucose levels, are poorest in young adults aged between 19 and 25 years old. To address this age-related health inequality, 15 ‘Transition and Young Adult’ pilots were established by the NHS Diabetes Programme in 2022-2025 to test models of care for young adults with diabetes and those transitioning from paediatric to adult diabetes services. The pilots will be evaluated to inform the evidence base on how to best deliver care and improve outcomes for this group.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether NHS England, integrated care boards, and NHS Trusts have ensured that all maternity and neonatal staff have had the training, supervision, and support as required.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
Regulated healthcare professionals need to meet the education and training standards set by their profession’s regulator. It is the responsibility of individual employers to ensure that their staff are trained and competent to carry out the role for which they are employed, and for making decisions about the ongoing professional training and development requirements of their staff. This includes responsibility for investing in the future of their staff, through providing continuing professional development funding.
Mandatory training for maternity staff is outlined in Core competency framework Version 2: Minimum standards and stretch targets, which provides both the minimum standards and stretch targets. Compliance with the core competency framework is overseen by integrated care boards and is incentivised through the Maternity Incentive Scheme which is administered by NHS Resolution. A copy of the framework is attached.
Support for staff working in maternity and neonatal services is provided by Professional Midwifery Advocates and Professional Nurse Advocates. This is a non-statutory model of clinical supervision. There are 1400 Professional Midwifery Advocates and approximately 300 Professional Nurse Advocates working in trusts in England.