Asked by: Lord MacKenzie of Culkein (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether, in the light of the report produced by MindMetre Research <i>How Sharp Are We On Safety?</i>, they will take further steps to improve the mandatory compliance with EU Council Directive 2010/32/EU and the Health and Safety (Sharp Instruments in Healthcare) Regulations 2013.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
It is for individual National Health Service provider organisations to ensure that policies, procedures and practices in the affected clinical areas are consistent with current regulations and that requisitions for sharps clearly stipulate the requirement for safer sharps.
We are not aware of any restriction in the availability of products that comply with the Health and Safety (Sharps Instruments in Healthcare) Regulations 2013 for the areas of care as outlined within the ‘How Sharp are we on Safety’ report, published in October 2015.
Asked by: Lord MacKenzie of Culkein (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Earl Howe on 22 October 2015 (HL2638), whether the study into the remuneration package for officers has been completed, and if so, whether they will publish the findings.
Answered by Earl Howe - Deputy Leader of the House of Lords
The process of stakeholder engagement to support the study into the remuneration package for the Royal Fleet Auxiliary and wider Royal Naval engineering officers is complete. The study report is now being finalised. Once the report is accepted, consideration will be given to its publication, in part or in full.
Asked by: Lord MacKenzie of Culkein (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they will respond to the report <i>A Review of Choice at the End of Life</i>, published by the End of Life Coalition in February 2015.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
The Department commissioned the independently-led Review of Choice in End of Life Care which provided advice to Ministers last year. The Review set out a vision for enabling greater choice and improving quality at the end of life for every dying person.
We want to ensure that patients have greater choice about the care they receive at the end of their life and we are working with NHS England to see how this can best be achieved. We will set out our full response to the Choice Review shortly.
Asked by: Lord MacKenzie of Culkein (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessments they have carried out on the future of resilient position, navigation and timing systems and the vulnerability of the global navigation satellite system to intentional and unintentional jamming.
Answered by Baroness Neville-Rolfe - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
The Government recognises the strengths and limitations of global navigation satellite systems such as GPS and Galileo, and the importance of the position, navigation and timing services that they provide.
The issue of the vulnerability of satellite based navigation systems has been addressed in the National Space Security Policy, which notes that the signals received from satellite navigation systems are inherently weak. The policy recognises that a proportionate approach is needed to ensure that space infrastructures are resilient to threats, including for instance the use of alternative or fall-back methods of providing the necessary services in the event of an interruption.
Responsibility for determining alternative methods will rest largely with owners and operators of space services or with infrastructure owners and operators, with oversight provided by lead Government departments. UK industry has well recognised capability in developing systems that identify and mitigate intentional and unintentional interference to GNSS.
Asked by: Lord MacKenzie of Culkein (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they are funding research into terrestrial enhanced position navigation and timing systems.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Her Majesty’s Government is researching terrestrial technology that could supply positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) needs. For example, Innovate UK is working with other agencies to research the use of quantum technology for PNT applications. In addition, there is research into technologies that supply only some elements of PNT, including ranging mode and radar absolute positioning.
Asked by: Lord MacKenzie of Culkein (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have made representations to the governments of France and Norway about their discontinuing the transmission of Enhanced Loran signals on 31 December 2015, and if not, why not.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Officials continue to discuss with their counterparts in France and Norway the decision by those countries to discontinue Loran transmissions, to understand their reasoning and plans for the disused transmitters.
Asked by: Lord MacKenzie of Culkein (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have received advice from the Council of Deans of Health about the future funding of nursing and midwifery students.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
The Department of Health (DH) received joint correspondence from the Council of Deans of Health and Universities UK about a number of issues relating to healthcare education funding in England.
The Council of Deans of Health and Universities UK also wrote a joint letter to DH and the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) Ministers on 7 August 2015 requesting a meeting to discuss a redesigned system. DH and BIS Ministers agreed to a joint meeting, which took place on the 2 December.
Asked by: Lord MacKenzie of Culkein (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have considered training nurses in England according to the approach used for trainee paramedics who receive a salary for the work they do while studying for their degree, and if not, why not.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
The Department has no plans to move to the system proposed. Under the current system student nurses are supernumerary in the workforce during their clinical placements. This was introduced in the 1990s following criticisms, led by the Royal College of Nursing, that the employment model used student nurses as a major part of the workforce which did not effectively contribute to their learning, education and development to become competent registered nurses.
Asked by: Lord MacKenzie of Culkein (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what was the capped number of nursing and midwifery students in each year since 1999.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
The following table shows the number of pre-registration nursing and midwifery places (degree and diploma courses) that were commissioned by year, for the period 2000-01 to 2015-16. Information on planned commissions for the period 1999-2000 is not available.
Year | Nursing | Midwifery |
2000-01 | 19,460 | 1,983 |
2001-02 | 20,668 | 2,029 |
2002-03 | 21,949 | 2,250 |
2003-04 | 23,553 | 2,285 |
2004-05 | 24,956 | 2,425 |
2005-06 | 24,520 | 2,380 |
2006-07 | 22,964 | 2,170 |
2007-08 | 21,569 | 2,115 |
2008-09 | 21,732 | 2,274 |
2009-10 | 21,337 | 2,537 |
2010-11 | 20,327 | 2,493 |
2011-12 | 18,069 | 2,507 |
2012-13 | 17,546 | 2,578 |
2013-14 | 18,056 | 2,588 |
2014-15 | 19,206 | 2,563 |
2015-16 | 20,033 | 2,605 |
Source: multi professional education and training budget monitoring returns
Health Education England are the in process of developing commissioning plans for 2016-17. This process will conclude later this month with the publication of the Workforce Plan for England 2016-17.
Asked by: Lord MacKenzie of Culkein (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what reasons nursing and midwifery students have given for discontinuing their courses in each year since 2010, including financial reasons.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
This data is not collected centrally.