Asked by: Alistair Burt (Conservative - North East Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans his Department has to allocate funding to IT connectivity for primary care optical practices to ensure safe and efficient referrals to hospital eye departments.
Answered by Seema Kennedy
The Department has no plans to allocate funding to enable IT connectivity between primary care optical practices and hospital eye departments. NHS England is continuing to work with the eye care sector and other key stakeholders on this area of work and will be considering priorities for IT investment later this year.
Asked by: Alistair Burt (Conservative - North East Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the level of reserves held by The Caxton Foundation were, prior to their winding up in 2018; and how those reserves were distributed.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
For the cessation period which ended 16 August 2018, closing reserves were £203,657 which was returned to the Department, as the Founder, at close on 16 August 2018, in line with the requirements of the Trust Deed.
The Department has since directly financed the NHS Business Services Authority to administer the England Infected Blood Support Scheme to provide discretionary ex gratia financial assistance, to those individuals who have been shown to be infected or affected, by hepatitis C and HIV throughout the 1980s and 1990s. On 30 April 2019, the Department committed to increase the total amount of financial support for these individuals from £46 million to £75 million.
Asked by: Alistair Burt (Conservative - North East Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what plans he has to expand health services in North East Bedfordshire to meet growing demand as a result of additional houses being built.
Answered by David Mowat
This information is not held centrally. Decisions regarding the planning of services in a local area are the responsibility of individual clinical commissioning groups.
Asked by: Alistair Burt (Conservative - North East Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what progress has been made on incorporating current discretionary support payments into the new scheme for victims of contaminated blood; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
The new infected blood payment scheme will contain a discretionary element.
The three existing discretionary schemes will remain in place until the new scheme administrator is in place later in 2017. This will ensure a smooth handover of the discretionary elements under the new scheme.
Further details of the discretionary support scheme will be provided in advance of the new scheme being set up.
Asked by: Alistair Burt (Conservative - North East Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to decrease the number of people missing hospital appointments.
Answered by Philip Dunne
Information published by NHS England shows that the proportion of hospital outpatient appointments that were missed by patients has decreased from 10.3% in 2009-10 to 8.9% in 2015-16.
It is the responsibility of National Health Service hospital trusts to make their own arrangements for reducing the number of missed appointments. Intensive Support Teams within NHS Improvement have published an information sheet1 containing a range of initiatives that NHS hospital trusts should consider.
The Department, in conjunction with behavioural scientists at Imperial College, has conducted randomised controlled trials at Barts Hospitals NHS Trust into the content of the most effective text reminder. The results were published in an online academic journal2 in September 2015 and summarised on the Department’s website3 in January 2016.
The NHS e-Referral Service replaced Choose and Book in June 2015. From 2016-17, as well as booking appointments, patients have been able to change or cancel their appointment on a smartphone, tablet or computer.
The NHS Constitution is clear that patients have responsibilities too, including “to keep appointments, or cancel within a reasonable time.”
References:
2 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0137306
3 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reducing-missed-hospital-appointments-using-text-messages
Asked by: Alistair Burt (Conservative - North East Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, when he plans to announce details of the discretionary support scheme for people affected by contaminated blood.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
As part of the wider reforms of the Infected Blood Payment support schemes in England, a new discretionary scheme is in design and will be delivered once a new scheme administrator is established in 2017/18. Details of the discretionary support scheme will be provided at that stage. A new discretionary scheme will replace the existing three discretionary schemes.
Asked by: Alistair Burt (Conservative - North East Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the average time was for the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman to allocate an assessor to a health case in (a) February 2015, (b) August 2014, (c) February 2014 and (d) 2010.
Answered by George Freeman
The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman is independent of Government, accountable directly to Parliament. The Department does not, therefore, hold this information. However, we understand that the Ombudsman will be writing directly to the hon. Member with further detail on the question raised.
Asked by: Alistair Burt (Conservative - North East Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what change there has been in the salary of the Chief Executive of the Macfarlane Trust and Caxton Foundation since her appointment in 2013.
Answered by Jane Ellison
The amount of time that each member of staff spends working on either Macfarlane Trust business or Caxton Foundation business is given in the following table:
| % of time spent on Caxton Foundation | % of time spent on Macfarlane Trust |
Chief Executive | 48 | 48 |
Director of Finance | 27 | 27 |
Finance Assistant | 32 | 32 |
Director of Operations | 47 | 47 |
Support Services Officer | 0 | 100 |
Welfare Assistant | 100 | 0 |
Office Manager | 50 | 50 |
IT Manager | 13 | 13 |
The Caxton Foundation cannot provide details of the salaries of these individuals because salaries are personal information under section 1 of the Data Protection Act 1998. However, as with all charities, the pay bands of the highest paid members of staff are a matter of public record. The Caxton Foundation’s annual report and accounts for 2013-14, state that one member of staff received a salary in the pay band of £70,001 - £80,000. That salary was paid in respect of work for both the Caxton Foundation and the Macfarlane Trust. All employees of who were employed at 1 April 2014 received a 1% salary increase. That is the only pay increase that the Chief Executive has received since her appointment in 2013.
Asked by: Alistair Burt (Conservative - North East Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many staff are employed by the (a) Macfarlane Trust and (b) Caxton Foundation; and what their (i) posts and (ii) current salaries are.
Answered by Jane Ellison
The amount of time that each member of staff spends working on either Macfarlane Trust business or Caxton Foundation business is given in the following table:
| % of time spent on Caxton Foundation | % of time spent on Macfarlane Trust |
Chief Executive | 48 | 48 |
Director of Finance | 27 | 27 |
Finance Assistant | 32 | 32 |
Director of Operations | 47 | 47 |
Support Services Officer | 0 | 100 |
Welfare Assistant | 100 | 0 |
Office Manager | 50 | 50 |
IT Manager | 13 | 13 |
The Caxton Foundation cannot provide details of the salaries of these individuals because salaries are personal information under section 1 of the Data Protection Act 1998. However, as with all charities, the pay bands of the highest paid members of staff are a matter of public record. The Caxton Foundation’s annual report and accounts for 2013-14, state that one member of staff received a salary in the pay band of £70,001 - £80,000. That salary was paid in respect of work for both the Caxton Foundation and the Macfarlane Trust. All employees of who were employed at 1 April 2014 received a 1% salary increase. That is the only pay increase that the Chief Executive has received since her appointment in 2013.
Asked by: Alistair Burt (Conservative - North East Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many people were registered with (a) the Macfarlane Trust, (b) the Skipton Fund and (c) the Caxton Foundation in each year since 2011.
Answered by Jane Ellison
The number of people registered with the Macfarlane Trust, the Skipton Fund and the Caxton Foundation, from 2011-12 to the most recent full year for which the Department has figures are as follows:
| 2011-12 | 2012-13 | 2013-14 |
Skipton Fund | 4,908 | 5,038 | 5,132 |
Caxton Foundation | 505 | 555 | 695 |
Macfarlane Trust | 549 | 608 | 599 |
The Skipton Fund figures relate to successful stage 1 applications in respect of infected claimants, but it is not known how many of these people are currently still alive. The Caxton Foundation and Macfarlane Fund figures are the number of living beneficiaries at 31 March in each of the specified years, and includes both infected and uninfected beneficiaries.