Asked by: Andrew Love (Labour (Co-op) - Edmonton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many GP practices (a) closed and (b) opened in (i) England, (ii) Greater London and (iii) Enfield in each of the last five years; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Dan Poulter
The Health and Social Care Information Centre collect information on the number of practices opened and closed, which is contained in the attached table.
It is important to note that these figures also include practice mergers and takeovers and do not provide an accurate representation of activity or service provision. In many cases, practices listed in these figures as having closed, will have in fact merged and will continue to see patients. In addition, in this time period the definition of general practice has changed to become a more stringent classification.
Asked by: Andrew Love (Labour (Co-op) - Edmonton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the average GP list size was in (a) England, (b) Greater London and (c) Enfield in each of the last five years; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Dan Poulter
The requested information is contained in the following table:
Average GP practice list size by selected areas in England, 2009-2013
| 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 |
England
| 6,637 | 6,610 | 6,651 | 6,891 | 7,034 |
London Area
| 5,706 | 5,774 | 5,789 | 6,113 | 6,213 |
Enfield Clinical | 4,775 | 4,667 | 4,904 | 5,617 | 5,798 |
Notes: 1 Workforce data is available by National Health Service organisation only, not geographical regions such as Greater London. Greater London is captured by London Area Team and Enfield by Enfield Clinical Commissioning Group. Prior to 2013, the area of London was serviced by London Strategic Health Authority and Enfield was serviced by Enfield Primary Care Trust. There is no break in the data as the old and new London organisations are coterminous and therefore the data is still comparable over the years provided.
As per the latest GP contract, patients register with a GP practice and are attributed to the practice, not a specific GP.
Data quality: The Health and Social Care Information Centre seeks to minimise inaccuracies and the effect of missing and invalid data, but responsibility for data accuracy resides with the organisations providing the data. Methods are continually being updated to improve data quality where changes impact on figures already published. This is assessed, but unless it is significant at national level, figures are not updated. Impact at detailed or local level is footnoted in relevant analyses.
Source: The Health and Social Care Information Centre General and Personal Medical Statistics. Patient registration information taken from National Health Application and Infrastructure Services Exeter GP payments system.
Asked by: Andrew Love (Labour (Co-op) - Edmonton)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment he has made of the likelihood of use by Israeli forces of equipment containing UK components in breaches of international humanitarian law in the West Bank and Gaza Strip; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Tobias Ellwood
We reviewed all existing export licences to Israel during Operation Protective Edge. We found that the vast majority of exports currently licensed for Israel were not for items that could be used by Israeli forces in operations in Gaza in response to attacks by Hamas.
On 12 August, the Government announced that twelve licences were identified for components which could be part of equipment used by the Israel Defence Forces in Gaza. As we were unable to clarify whether export licence criteria was being met, we took the decision to suspend this small number of export licences if there was a resumption of significant hostilities.
We monitored the situation closely and assessed that the resumption of hostilities when Hamas later broke the ceasefire was not enough to warrant a suspension.
Asked by: Andrew Love (Labour (Co-op) - Edmonton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what information is required by his Department to allow the payment of universal credit into a credit union account; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Esther McVey - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
Universal Credit can currently be paid into a Credit Union current account and claimants would need to provide an individual account number and sort code. We plan to be in a position to make UC payments into any type of Credit Union account at a future date.
Asked by: Andrew Love (Labour (Co-op) - Edmonton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what arrangements are in place to allow for the payment of universal credit to those without a bank or building society account; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Esther McVey - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
For those without a bank or building society, the Department can pay Universal Credit into a Credit Union current account, Post Office card account or by Simple Payment.
A Simple Payment is a cash transfer service, which has been designed to pay those people who DWP cannot pay into any type of account.
Asked by: Andrew Love (Labour (Co-op) - Edmonton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what arrangements are in place to allow people who do not have access to a computer or the internet to claim universal credit; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Mark Harper - Secretary of State for Transport
Support is available through our own Jobcentre network where we are introducing 6,000 additional web access devices to improve digital access by Autumn. Claimants can be given access to the internet through these devices to make a claim and support will be given where necessary if they are not familiar with digital services.
DWP already works in partnership with local authorities who can also provide digital access and digital support for claimants through existing outlets.
DWP also provides a telephony service to support those unable to use the digital channel.
Asked by: Andrew Love (Labour (Co-op) - Edmonton)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what representations he has made to his Israeli counterpart on the killing of two Palestinian teenagers at Ofer on 15 May 2014; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Hugh Robertson
Officials from our Embassy in Tel Aviv raised the use of lethal force in this case with both the Israel Defence Force and the Israeli Border Police on 16 May.
On 21 May, the local EU missions in Jerusalem and Ramallah issued a local statement expressing deep concern about the deaths of two Palestinian youths on 15 May in the West Bank and emphasising the importance of such incidents being investigated thoroughly. They reiterated the need for security forces, whether Israeli or Palestinian, to refrain from the use of lethal force, except in cases where there is a real and imminent threat to life.
Asked by: Andrew Love (Labour (Co-op) - Edmonton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to raise awareness among health professionals of the symptoms of brain tumours and their effects on children; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Jane Ellison
Improving Outcomes: A Strategy for Cancer, published in January 2011, committed over £450 million up to 2014-15 to achieve earlier diagnosis of cancer, including improving direct general practitioner (GP) access to key diagnostic tests, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans to support the diagnosis of brain tumours. In 2012, the Department published ‘Direct access to diagnostic tests for cancer: best practice referral pathways for general practitioners' to provide criteria for accessing key diagnostic tests including MRI brain scans. The guide aims to raise awareness of the symptoms that require urgent referral to specialists and sets out where a direct referral for an MRI brain scan may benefit patients through achieving a faster diagnosis. NHS England monitors the use of these diagnostic tests through the Diagnostic Imaging Dataset.
To increase GP awareness of brain tumours in children, in 2012, the Department funded British Medical Journal Learning to provide an e-learning module for GPs on diagnosing osteosarcoma and brain tumours in children. One part of the module supports GPs to understand the main types of brain tumours in children and young people, their common symptom presentations and to recognise when patients need urgent referral, the other deals with communication barriers, and provides potential ways to address these barriers in GP consultations.
In addition to this, since 2005, the Referral Guidelines for Suspected Cancer, published by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has supported GPs to identify patients with the symptoms of suspected cancer, including brain tumours, and urgently refer them as appropriate. NICE is in the process of updating this guidance to ensure that it reflects the latest evidence and the anticipated publication date for the revised guidelines is May 2015.
I have also recently written to all Health and Wellbeing boards to make them aware of the briefing material developed by the “Headsmart” charity, which aims to increase awareness of the symptoms of brain tumours among parents, schools and health professionals.
Asked by: Andrew Love (Labour (Co-op) - Edmonton)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what the five most common causes of infant mortality have been over the last five years; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Nick Hurd
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.