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 how many residents of care homes have been evicted as a result of the resident, a relative or a friend raising concerns about the standards of care in the past five years.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department does not hold data on evictions from care homes as a result of raising concerns about standards of care.
Guidance on complying with the Consumer Protection Act issued by the Competition and Markets Authority advises that discrimination or victimisation against complainants, including through an eviction, is likely to breach consumer law. Where providers fail to treat residents and their representatives fairly and infringe consumer law, enforcers, residents, and other compliance partners may take action against them.
In addition, by law, all health and social care services must have a procedure for dealing efficiently with complaints, and anyone who has seen or experienced poor-quality care has the right to complain to the organisation that provided or paid for the care. If they are not satisfied with the way a provider or local authority has dealt with a complaint, they may escalate it to the local government and Social Care Ombudsman who can investigate individual concerns.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) also encourages the public to share their experience through an online feedback mechanism, called give feedback on care, which allows individuals to raise concerns about the services they receive from providers. While the CQC does not have power to intervene in decisions providers’ make to issue a ‘notice to quit’ they do review how providers handle complaints as part of their assessments. The CQC takes this matter seriously, and continues to look at ways to improve both their analysis of provider data and the incorporation of individual feedback into their assessments.
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 will ensure that the Care Quality Commission considers complaints and concerns from a resident, a relative or a friend in cases of a resident being evicted from a care home after concerns were raised about the standards of care.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department does not hold data on evictions from care homes as a result of raising concerns about standards of care.
Guidance on complying with the Consumer Protection Act issued by the Competition and Markets Authority advises that discrimination or victimisation against complainants, including through an eviction, is likely to breach consumer law. Where providers fail to treat residents and their representatives fairly and infringe consumer law, enforcers, residents, and other compliance partners may take action against them.
In addition, by law, all health and social care services must have a procedure for dealing efficiently with complaints, and anyone who has seen or experienced poor-quality care has the right to complain to the organisation that provided or paid for the care. If they are not satisfied with the way a provider or local authority has dealt with a complaint, they may escalate it to the local government and Social Care Ombudsman who can investigate individual concerns.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) also encourages the public to share their experience through an online feedback mechanism, called give feedback on care, which allows individuals to raise concerns about the services they receive from providers. While the CQC does not have power to intervene in decisions providers’ make to issue a ‘notice to quit’ they do review how providers handle complaints as part of their assessments. The CQC takes this matter seriously, and continues to look at ways to improve both their analysis of provider data and the incorporation of individual feedback into their assessments.
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 discussions they will have with the Care Quality Commission about action that can be taken to prevent care homes from evicting residents because the resident, a relative or a friend has raised concerns about the standards of care.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department does not hold data on evictions from care homes as a result of raising concerns about standards of care.
Guidance on complying with the Consumer Protection Act issued by the Competition and Markets Authority advises that discrimination or victimisation against complainants, including through an eviction, is likely to breach consumer law. Where providers fail to treat residents and their representatives fairly and infringe consumer law, enforcers, residents, and other compliance partners may take action against them.
In addition, by law, all health and social care services must have a procedure for dealing efficiently with complaints, and anyone who has seen or experienced poor-quality care has the right to complain to the organisation that provided or paid for the care. If they are not satisfied with the way a provider or local authority has dealt with a complaint, they may escalate it to the local government and Social Care Ombudsman who can investigate individual concerns.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) also encourages the public to share their experience through an online feedback mechanism, called give feedback on care, which allows individuals to raise concerns about the services they receive from providers. While the CQC does not have power to intervene in decisions providers’ make to issue a ‘notice to quit’ they do review how providers handle complaints as part of their assessments. The CQC takes this matter seriously, and continues to look at ways to improve both their analysis of provider data and the incorporation of individual feedback into their assessments.
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 action they will take to prevent care homes from evicting residents because the resident, a relative or a friend has raised concerns about the standards of care.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department does not hold data on evictions from care homes as a result of raising concerns about standards of care.
Guidance on complying with the Consumer Protection Act issued by the Competition and Markets Authority advises that discrimination or victimisation against complainants, including through an eviction, is likely to breach consumer law. Where providers fail to treat residents and their representatives fairly and infringe consumer law, enforcers, residents, and other compliance partners may take action against them.
In addition, by law, all health and social care services must have a procedure for dealing efficiently with complaints, and anyone who has seen or experienced poor-quality care has the right to complain to the organisation that provided or paid for the care. If they are not satisfied with the way a provider or local authority has dealt with a complaint, they may escalate it to the local government and Social Care Ombudsman who can investigate individual concerns.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) also encourages the public to share their experience through an online feedback mechanism, called give feedback on care, which allows individuals to raise concerns about the services they receive from providers. While the CQC does not have power to intervene in decisions providers’ make to issue a ‘notice to quit’ they do review how providers handle complaints as part of their assessments. The CQC takes this matter seriously, and continues to look at ways to improve both their analysis of provider data and the incorporation of individual feedback into their assessments.
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 Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the financial and emotional impact of delays related to the Probate Portal following results from a survey conducted by The Law Society and published in their October 2023 report, Online court services: Delivering a more efficient digital justice system, which found that 62 per cent of respondents experienced delays in court proceedings.
Answered by Lord Bellamy
HMCTS recognises that average waiting times for a grant of probate increased during 2023 following on from a sustained increase in receipts.
HMCTS remains focused on improving the service and doing all we can do to make it as effective and speedy as possible. In addition, HMCTS has increased staffing levels and streamlined internal processes to improve waiting times.
Management information published by HMCTS (which does not go through the same level of quality assurance and analysis as the Family Court Statistics Quarterly) shows the average mean length of time taken for a grant of probate from receipt of documentation reduced by three weeks in March 2024 to nine weeks.
The increase in the probate application fee to £300 was implemented on 1 May 2024. This was one of 172 court and tribunal fees that were increased by 10% to partially reflect changes in the Consumer Price Index since 2021, the last time that court and tribunal fees were increased. Given the short period of time the higher fee has been in place, an assessment on the impact of the probate fee increase has not been completed at this time. The increases are estimated to raise additional income of £30m-37m per annum, which will provide funding to support the effective delivery of court and tribunal services.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government, following the publication of the Law Society’s report Online court services: Delivering a more efficient digital justice system in October 2023, what assessment they have made of the increase in fees for probate applications at a time when those using the probate online portal are experiencing increased delays and errors.
Answered by Lord Bellamy
HMCTS recognises that average waiting times for a grant of probate increased during 2023 following on from a sustained increase in receipts.
HMCTS remains focused on improving the service and doing all we can do to make it as effective and speedy as possible. In addition, HMCTS has increased staffing levels and streamlined internal processes to improve waiting times.
Management information published by HMCTS (which does not go through the same level of quality assurance and analysis as the Family Court Statistics Quarterly) shows the average mean length of time taken for a grant of probate from receipt of documentation reduced by three weeks in March 2024 to nine weeks.
The increase in the probate application fee to £300 was implemented on 1 May 2024. This was one of 172 court and tribunal fees that were increased by 10% to partially reflect changes in the Consumer Price Index since 2021, the last time that court and tribunal fees were increased. Given the short period of time the higher fee has been in place, an assessment on the impact of the probate fee increase has not been completed at this time. The increases are estimated to raise additional income of £30m-37m per annum, which will provide funding to support the effective delivery of court and tribunal services.
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 Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many refugee families which include teenage children of both sexes being forced to share a single hotel room.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Shadow Minister (Business and Trade)
The Home Office does not hold data relating to numbers of teenage children of both sexes and room-sharing; families generally manage their own sleeping arrangements, post-allocation of beds and rooms.