Asked by: Connor Rand (Labour - Altrincham and Sale West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many clinical nurse specialists are currently working in the NHS.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department does not hold the information requested.
Asked by: Connor Rand (Labour - Altrincham and Sale West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many psycho-oncologists are currently working in the NHS.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department does not hold the information requested.
Asked by: Connor Rand (Labour - Altrincham and Sale West)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, if his Department can publish a sectoral breakdown of shared parental leave take up in the last 12 months.
Answered by Justin Madders - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Information provided by employers to HMRC shows that in 2023/24 (the latest year for which full year data is available), 17,200 individuals were in receipt of Statutory Shared Parental Pay. Data for earlier years was published as part of the Shared Parental Leave evaluation. Data collected using HMRC Real Time Information is subject to revision.
This data provides a broad indication of take-up but does not include anyone taking unpaid leave. Information on the sector or industry worked in by the recipient of Shared Parental Pay is not available.
The Government commissioned the Parental Rights Survey as part of the Shared Parental Leave (SPL) evaluation which provides information on the sector parents taking SPL work in. Findings from the evaluation are available here (see figure 4.10 for sector information) - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/shared-parental-leave-spl-evaluation
Asked by: Connor Rand (Labour - Altrincham and Sale West)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, how many people used shared parental leave in the last year.
Answered by Justin Madders - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Information provided by employers to HMRC shows that in 2023/24 (the latest year for which full year data is available), 17,200 individuals were in receipt of Statutory Shared Parental Pay. Data for earlier years was published as part of the Shared Parental Leave evaluation. Data collected using HMRC Real Time Information is subject to revision.
This data provides a broad indication of take-up but does not include anyone taking unpaid leave. Information on the sector or industry worked in by the recipient of Shared Parental Pay is not available.
The Government commissioned the Parental Rights Survey as part of the Shared Parental Leave (SPL) evaluation which provides information on the sector parents taking SPL work in. Findings from the evaluation are available here (see figure 4.10 for sector information) - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/shared-parental-leave-spl-evaluation
Asked by: Connor Rand (Labour - Altrincham and Sale West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if the child poverty taskforce will examine food insecurity.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We are committed to tackling poverty and reducing mass dependence on emergency food parcels.
Our Ministerial Taskforce, jointly chaired Work and Pensions and Education Secretaries, has started urgent work on an ambitious Child Poverty Strategy and will explore all available levers to drive forward actions across government to reduce child poverty, tackle its root causes and give every child the best start in life. The Strategy will be published in Spring 2025.
We have already spoken to food poverty experts at a roundtable hosted by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on 30th July, to understand the priorities in this area.
Alongside the Child Poverty Taskforce, our initial steps to support families and children include free breakfast clubs in every primary school, so children don’t go hungry, protecting renters from arbitrary eviction and banning exploitative zero hours contracts. Good work will be the foundation of our approach and the New Deal for Working People will ensure the minimum wage is a genuine living wage, and reformed employment support will mean that many more people will benefit from the dignity and purpose of employment.
Asked by: Connor Rand (Labour - Altrincham and Sale West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to improve the dietary health of young children from financially deprived backgrounds.
Answered by Andrew Gwynne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to creating the healthiest generation of children ever, as set out in our Child Health Action Plan. The Healthy Start scheme was introduced in 2006 to encourage a healthy diet for pregnant women, babies, and young children under four years old from very low-income households. It can be used to buy, or can be put towards the cost of, fruit, vegetables, pulses, milk, and infant formula. Healthy Start beneficiaries have access to free Healthy Start Vitamins for pregnant women and children aged under four years old.
The NHS Business Services Authority (NHS BSA) delivers the scheme on behalf of the Department. The NHS BSA is committed to increasing uptake of the Healthy Start scheme to ensure as many children as possible have a healthy start in life.
The NHS BSA promotes the Healthy Start scheme through its digital channels and has created free tools to help stakeholders promote the scheme locally. The NHS BSA has also reached out to stakeholders to see how it can support them in promoting the scheme.
Asked by: Connor Rand (Labour - Altrincham and Sale West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to improve the take up of the Healthy Start Scheme.
Answered by Andrew Gwynne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to creating the healthiest generation of children ever, as set out in our Child Health Action Plan. The Healthy Start scheme was introduced in 2006 to encourage a healthy diet for pregnant women, babies, and young children under four years old from very low-income households. It can be used to buy, or can be put towards the cost of, fruit, vegetables, pulses, milk, and infant formula. Healthy Start beneficiaries have access to free Healthy Start Vitamins for pregnant women and children aged under four years old.
The NHS Business Services Authority (NHS BSA) delivers the scheme on behalf of the Department. The NHS BSA is committed to increasing uptake of the Healthy Start scheme to ensure as many children as possible have a healthy start in life.
The NHS BSA promotes the Healthy Start scheme through its digital channels and has created free tools to help stakeholders promote the scheme locally. The NHS BSA has also reached out to stakeholders to see how it can support them in promoting the scheme.
Asked by: Connor Rand (Labour - Altrincham and Sale West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if his Department will take steps to obtain contact data for those who are eligible for but not accessing the Healthy Start scheme .
Answered by Andrew Gwynne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The NHS Business Services Authority (NHS BSA) runs the Healthy Start scheme on behalf of the Department. The Department of Health and Social Care is working closely with the NHS BSA and the Department for Work and Pensions, to enable the NHS BSA to receive the personal data for those potentially eligible citizens from the Department for Work and Pensions, as soon as possible. The NHS BSA will use this data to reach out to those eligible, who are not currently in receipt of Healthy Start, to encourage them to apply for the Healthy Start scheme.
Asked by: Connor Rand (Labour - Altrincham and Sale West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many referrals have been accepted by Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services in Trafford in each of the last five years.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The following table shows the number of referrals to Trafford mental health services for those aged 17 years old and under, as well as the number of those referrals who received first contact, in each of the last five years:
Year | Referrals | Referrals who received first contact |
2019/20 | 3,987 | 1,868 |
2020/21 | 4,852 | 2,559 |
2021/22 | 6,677 | 3,362 |
2022/23 | 4,835 | 3,132 |
2023/24 | 4,982 | 2,798 |
Source: data taken from the Mental Health Services Dataset, published by NHS England.
Asked by: Connor Rand (Labour - Altrincham and Sale West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and what proportion of children (a) with an education, health and care plan and (b) who had previously been identified in the SEN Support category by their school were not in school in Trafford in each of the last five years.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
The department publishes statistics on education, health and care (EHC) plans at local authority level. This includes information on children and young people not in school or further education, for example those awaiting provision, in elective home education, in other arrangements, having had notice of their plan to cease, or not in education, employment or training. The number and proportion of children and young people with an EHC plan who were elsewhere than at school in Trafford from 2020 to 2024, which is the last five years of data available, can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/6cdcf6c0-e28a-4a72-68e5-08dca70c1109.
The data collection for EHC plans does not include information on previous special educational needs (SEN) support identification.
Wider data on SEN, including information on the total number of pupils with EHC plans and SEN support at local authority level, is available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/special-educational-needs-in-england.