Asked by: Lord Turnberg (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what representations they have made to the Palestinian Authority about the restrictions that have been imposed on the supply of medicines to Gaza.
Answered by Lord Bates
A senior UK Government official discussed a range of challenges facing the Palestinian healthcare system with the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) Minister of Health in June last year, including the PA’s healthcare budget, the quality of healthcare available, and shortages of drugs and medical supplies in Gaza. Restrictions in Gaza were most recently raised with the PA earlier this month by a UK Government official.
Asked by: Lord Turnberg (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what representations they have made to the government of Egypt about the closure of the Rafah crossing from Gaza.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Minister for the Middle East and North Africa discussed the situation in Gaza with the Egyptian Foreign Minister in October, and officials in Cairo regularly raise the issue of Rafah crossing with the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, most recently on 10 January. The Minister also raised the issue of Palestinian Authority staff being withdrawn from the Rafah crossing with the Palestinian Head of Mission to London on 23 January. We continue to urge Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Egypt to work together to ensure a durable solution for Gaza.
Asked by: Lord Turnberg (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what was the cost to the NHS of litigated clinical negligence claims in each of the last four years for which figures are available.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
NHS Resolution handles clinical negligence claims on behalf of National Health Service organisations and independent sector providers of NHS care in England.
The figures provided do not include claims brought against general practitioners, who are covered by separate indemnity arrangements through medical defence organisations and for which data is not centrally available.
NHS Resolution has provided the following information:
Payments made on litigated clinical claims closed from 1 April 2013 to 31 March 2017 (as at the end of each respective closure year) are shown in the attached table due to the size of the data.
NHS Resolution has advised that figures exclude payments for Periodical Payment Orders.
Asked by: Lord Turnberg (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many patients are currently in receipt of an NHS personal health budget; and what was the total cost of that scheme for each of the last three years for which figures are available.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
28,040 individuals were in receipt of a personal health budget as of 2017-18 Q4.
In terms of the total cost of personal health budgets for each of the last three years, these figures are not held centrally, as it is clinical commissioning groups who have the duty to commission and deliver personal health budgets.
Personal health budgets use existing National Health Service money that would already have been spent on an individual, in a different way that meets the individual’s identified health needs. Evidence suggests that at worst, personal health budgets are cost-neutral, whilst demonstrating an ability to improve outcomes and enhance quality of life.
Asked by: Lord Turnberg (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they plan to encourage schools and examining boards to pay greater attention to the teaching of Middle East studies as a means to reduce the potential for inter-racial tensions in the UK.
Answered by Lord Agnew of Oulton
Information regarding the number of secondary schools in England that teach Middle Eastern studies is not held centrally. Information about the curriculum in Wales is held by the Welsh Government.
The government agrees that it is important that education supports the understanding of other cultures and beliefs and promotes greater tolerance.
The statutory citizenship curriculum at key stage 3 includes teaching pupils about diverse national, regional, religious and ethnic identities and the need for mutual respect and understanding. Religious education is a mandatory subject for all state funded schools, which aims to develop understanding and knowledge of religions, while promoting respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs.
The department publishes GCSE subject content which sets out the knowledge, understanding and skills common to all GCSE specifications in a given subject. It provides the framework within which exam boards create the detail of their specifications. The GCSE subject content for history and geography include scope for studying wider world settings, and the national curriculum is flexible enough to allow for teaching of Middle Eastern history, although this is not a compulsory requirement.
Asked by: Lord Turnberg (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, in the light of the case for increased understanding of disturbances in the Middle East, what action they are taking to promote the teaching of Middle Eastern studies in schools.
Answered by Lord Agnew of Oulton
Information regarding the number of secondary schools in England that teach Middle Eastern studies is not held centrally. Information about the curriculum in Wales is held by the Welsh Government.
The government agrees that it is important that education supports the understanding of other cultures and beliefs and promotes greater tolerance.
The statutory citizenship curriculum at key stage 3 includes teaching pupils about diverse national, regional, religious and ethnic identities and the need for mutual respect and understanding. Religious education is a mandatory subject for all state funded schools, which aims to develop understanding and knowledge of religions, while promoting respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs.
The department publishes GCSE subject content which sets out the knowledge, understanding and skills common to all GCSE specifications in a given subject. It provides the framework within which exam boards create the detail of their specifications. The GCSE subject content for history and geography include scope for studying wider world settings, and the national curriculum is flexible enough to allow for teaching of Middle Eastern history, although this is not a compulsory requirement.
Asked by: Lord Turnberg (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many secondary schools in England and Wales include Middle Eastern studies in their curriculum.
Answered by Lord Agnew of Oulton
Information regarding the number of secondary schools in England that teach Middle Eastern studies is not held centrally. Information about the curriculum in Wales is held by the Welsh Government.
The government agrees that it is important that education supports the understanding of other cultures and beliefs and promotes greater tolerance.
The statutory citizenship curriculum at key stage 3 includes teaching pupils about diverse national, regional, religious and ethnic identities and the need for mutual respect and understanding. Religious education is a mandatory subject for all state funded schools, which aims to develop understanding and knowledge of religions, while promoting respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs.
The department publishes GCSE subject content which sets out the knowledge, understanding and skills common to all GCSE specifications in a given subject. It provides the framework within which exam boards create the detail of their specifications. The GCSE subject content for history and geography include scope for studying wider world settings, and the national curriculum is flexible enough to allow for teaching of Middle Eastern history, although this is not a compulsory requirement.
Asked by: Lord Turnberg (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have for the recruitment of nurses and midwives in the next three years.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
To meet the growing need to increase the future supply of registered nurses, additional clinical placement funding was announced by the Department in August and October 2017. This enables around 5,000 more nursing students to enter training each year to 2020-21, representing a 25% increase compared to 2016-17.
Asked by: Lord Turnberg (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the incidence of childhood dental decay in (1) those regions where the water supply is fluoridated, and (2) those where it is not.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
Public Health England’s Water fluoridation Health monitoring report for England 2014 compared a range of dental and non-dental health indicators in fluoridated and non-fluoridated areas.
The report concluded that, when deprivation and ethnicity were taken into account, five year-old children in areas with a fluoridated water supply were 28% less likely to have tooth decay than those in non-fluoridated areas, and 12 year-old children in areas with a fluoridated water supply were 21% less likely to have had tooth decay in permanent teeth than children living in non-fluoridated areas. A copy of Water fluoridation Health monitoring report for England 2014 is attached.
Asked by: Lord Turnberg (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the current vacancy rate for nurses and midwives in the UK.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
Management information data collected by NHS Improvement estimates that as at September 2017, around 36,000 registered nursing and midwifery posts are not filled by a substantive member of staff - 33,000 of these are covered by bank and agency staff. This is management information data that continues to be developed.