Asked by: Adrian Sanders (Liberal Democrat - Torbay)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many visits were made by Ministers of her Department to Torbay constituency in the 12 months to 14 October 2014; whom the invitation for each such visit was issued by; and what the cost to the public purse was of each such visit.
Answered by Karen Bradley
Home Office Ministers have regular meetings with Ministerial colleagues and others as part of the process of policy development and delivery. As was the case with previous administrations, it is not the Government's practice to provide details of all such meetings.
Asked by: Adrian Sanders (Liberal Democrat - Torbay)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many people were (a) diagnosed with and (b) living with diabetes in (i) Torbay constituency and (ii) England in each of the last five years.
Answered by Jane Ellison
Public Health England do not routinely present diabetes data by parliamentary constituency. It has produced estimates of the total number of adults with diabetes (diagnosed and undiagnosed). Across England it was estmated that there were 3,141,622 adults with diabetes (diagnosed and undiagnosed) in 2012. The estimates for 2013 and 2014 were 3,211,368 and 3,279,925 respectively. It was estimated that in Torbay Unitary Authority the total number of adults with diabetes (diagnosed and undiagnosed) was 9,589 in 2012, 9,773 in 2013 and 9,947 in 2014.
The Quality and Outcomes Framework provides data on the total number of adults aged 17 years and older who have diagnosed diabetes. This showed that in 2012 there were 2,566,436 adults with diagnosed diabetes in England. By 2013 this had increased to 2,703,044. It is not possible to provide local data for consistent areas for recent years. In 2013 there were 14,485 adults with diagnosed diabetes in South Devon and Torbay Clinical Commissioning Group. However, this covers a larger area than Torbay Unitary Authority.
The National Cardiovascular Intelligence Network will be publishing cardiovascular disease profiles by clinical commissioning group in August 2014 which will include a chapter about diabetes. These will bring together a number of key indicators about diabetes.
Asked by: Adrian Sanders (Liberal Democrat - Torbay)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to her Department's publication Statistics of Scientific Procedures on Living Animals, Great Britain 2013, published on 10 July 2014, what assessment she has made of the reasons for the large number of procedures involving (a) sheep and (b) mice relative to the number of other animals used.
Answered by Norman Baker
Mice are the most commonly used species due to long standing use in research, meaning that there is considerable existing data on the use of this species, their small size makes them convenient laboratory species, and most importantly now, is the availability of many genetically altered strains.
The vast majority of sheep are used for production of blood products, including normal blood and antisera. Their large size and ease of housing and handling make them ideal animals for the large scale production of these products (other species also used for this purpose, but to a much lesser extent, are rabbits, horses and rodents). Repeated blood sampling is often counted as a separate use, hence the large number of re-uses for this species.
Asked by: Adrian Sanders (Liberal Democrat - Torbay)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will make it his policy to allow child tax credit awards to continue for children over the age of 19 where their school education has been delayed by ill health.
Answered by Priti Patel - Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs
Child Tax Credit is payable in respect of young people in full time non-advanced education providing that it started before their 19th birthday.
Asked by: Adrian Sanders (Liberal Democrat - Torbay)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the extent to which requests made by local authorities under Part I, Chapter II of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 to date have been proportionate; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by James Brokenshire
Under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, local authorities must
follow a robust internal authorisations procedure in order to ensure that
requests for communications data are both necessary and proportionate. The
Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 also introduced judicial approval for local
authorities' requests; a Magistrate will make an additional judgement in each
case whether an application to access communications data is proportionate.
The Interception of Communications Commissioner's office has oversight of the
communications data access regime and, in the Commissioner's 2013 report, he
noted that the National Anti-Fraud Network (which provides a data acquisition
service to 85% of those authorities that used their powers that year) ‘showed
very good compliance' with the legislation.
Asked by: Adrian Sanders (Liberal Democrat - Torbay)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if his Department will re-establish the NHS Diabetes website.
Answered by Jane Ellison
NHS Improving Quality has taken over the functions of NHS Diabetes and has no plans to establish a diabetes specific website. However, the archived NHS Diabetes website can still be viewed.
NHS Improving Quality has a number of programmes of work underway to reduce premature mortality from diabetes and improve the care of people with diabetes including:
- Piloting new pathways of care to detect and manage asymptomatic coronary heart disease in patient groups with diabetic foot disease. The aim is to reduce premature mortality in this group of patients by 600 lives per year from 2015-16;
- Supporting the NHS Health Check programme's ambition to achieve a 66% uptake rate within the eligible population for 2014-15. A key component of these checks is looking for risk factors for diabetes;
- Supporting the implementation of the Cardiovascular Disease Outcomes Strategy;
- Working to achieve patient centred, co-ordinated services for people living with long term conditions, including diabetes; and
- Providing signposting and links to useful improvement resources relating to diabetes.
More information on this work can be found on the NHS Improving Quality website at:
www.nhsiq.nhs.uk
Asked by: Adrian Sanders (Liberal Democrat - Torbay)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will make it his policy to impose a duty on local authorities to commission follow-up services to the NHS Health Check.
Answered by Jane Ellison
The Government has no plans to mandate local authorities to commission follow-up services following an NHS Health Check. It is for local authorities, supported by Public Health England, to work closely with their partners across the health care system, including through Health and wellbeing Boards, to ensure the different elements of the programme, including follow-up services link together. The Department, jointly with Public Health England, have issued guidance to support local authorities in delivering NHS Health Checks, including follow up services. NHS England is also producing an action plan to improve patient management following an NHS Health Check by March 2015.
Asked by: Adrian Sanders (Liberal Democrat - Torbay)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department has taken to provide a separate follow-up service to the NHS Heath Check Programme.
Answered by Jane Ellison
The Government has no plans to mandate local authorities to commission follow-up services following an NHS Health Check. It is for local authorities, supported by Public Health England, to work closely with their partners across the health care system, including through Health and wellbeing Boards, to ensure the different elements of the programme, including follow-up services link together. The Department, jointly with Public Health England, have issued guidance to support local authorities in delivering NHS Health Checks, including follow up services. NHS England is also producing an action plan to improve patient management following an NHS Health Check by March 2015.
Asked by: Adrian Sanders (Liberal Democrat - Torbay)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to include a diabetes-related indicator in the Health Premium Incentive scheme; if he will consult the diabetes community on the design of that scheme; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Jane Ellison
The independent advisory group, the Health Premium Incentive Advisory Group (HPIAG), was set up as a sub-group of the Advisory Committee on Resource Allocation to advise Ministers on which indicators from the Public Health Outcome Framework (PHOF) would be suitable for inclusion in the Health Premium Incentive Scheme (HPIS). HPIAG developed a list of technical criteria to guide this assessment and reviewed all the indicators in the PHOF, including those indicators relevant to diabetes, against these criteria. HPIAG concluded that the diabetes related indicators did not meet the criteria and so would not be appropriate for inclusion in the HPIS. HPIAG's report showing which indicator met the criteria has been placed in the Library and can be found at:
www.gov.uk/government/groups/health-premium-incentive-advisory-group
The PHOF itself was subject to a full public consultation and the report of PHOF consultation has been placed in the library and can be found at:
www.gov.uk/government/collections/public-health-outcomes-framework
Ministers are currently considering options for introducing the scheme.
Asked by: Adrian Sanders (Liberal Democrat - Torbay)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what progress the Care Quality Commission has made in its thematic data review of diabetes care; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Norman Lamb
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of health and adult social care providers in England and has a key responsibility in the overall assurance of safety and quality of health and adult social care services.
The CQC has provided the following information.
The CQC has completed its thematic data review of diabetes care. A summary report which includes findings of the CQC's work and that of others has been shared with the Diabetes Thematic Review External Advisory Group that is supporting the project.
The CQC's plan is to publish the key national findings from this work as a short standalone report this summer.
Results from the data review will be used to inform the CQC's regular inspection regimes. The second phase will begin later in 2014 and will involve inspection activities and bespoke information gathering to follow up on the findings from the data review. It will also explore at the local level the causes behind variations in care and outcomes for different people.