Debbie Abrahams

HMT’s recent distributional analysis released in March 2021 showed that Government interventions in response to Covid-19 are supporting the poorest working households the most (excluding any earnings gains). The poorest 10% of working households had seen no loss to household income as of November 2020. This is available here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/966207/DA_Document_Budget_2021.pdf

The information requested for Universal Credit and Employment and Support Allowance is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost. However, the latest Universal Credit statistics: user engagement survey report does include a statement, in section 4, regarding the development of Universal Credit flows data, as part of the Universal Credit statistics release strategy.

The Department publishes ESA quarterly caseload figures and UC monthly caseload figures and these can be found at:

https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/

Guidance for users is available at:

https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Getting-Started.html

Table 1 below shows the number of claimants receiving PIP who ceased their PIP claim each month from March 2020 to October 2020, the latest data available, who were receiving PIP at the end of the previous month.

Table 1: Number of PIP claimants who ceased their PIP claim, March 2020 – October 2020

Source: PIP Atomic Data Store

Notes:

• This is unpublished data. It should be used with caution and it may be subject to future revision. In particular, it may take some time for a death to be notified to the Department, so the figure for October 2020 is likely to increase with the inclusion of future data.
• Volumes of off-flows have fluctuated due to the Operational measures implemented in response to Covid-19. In particular, due to the suspension of Department instigated Reassessment and Review activity from March 2020 to July 2020. Planned Award Reviews restarted in July 2020.
• These data include claimants whose claim ceased as the result of an Award Review, Change of Circumstances or the claimant’s death as well as for other reasons. Claimants may see their PIP claim resume as a result of a mandatory reconsideration or appeal.
• PIP data includes claimants awarded both under normal rules and special rules for terminally ill claimants.
• Claimants receiving PIP include those whose claims are in payment and those whose payment is suspended or part-suspended.
• Data covers Great Britain only.

The number of people who have received an Access to Work payment broken down by financial year up to 2019/20 is available in Table 6 of the Access to Work statistics publications.

The information requested for 2020/21 is intended for future release in the 2020/21 Official Statistics publication.

The latest Access to Work official statistics can be found here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/access-to-work-statistics

(a)Universal Credit can be claimed by a range of working age people, some of whom have health conditions or disabilities, which may be degenerative or life limiting. The decision to claim Universal Credit can be prompted by a range of a factors, including when someone is terminally ill, so mortality figures should not be viewed in isolation.

Between 1st March 2020 and 30th November 2020, 12,600 or 0.2 per cent of Universal Credit claimants died. The number of people who received Universal Credit at any point during this period was 6.2million.

(b) The information requested for Employment and Support Allowance is not readily available and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.

(c)Personal Independence Payment (PIP) is claimed by people with a range of health conditions and disabilities, many of which are degenerative or life limiting and the Department treats the death of any claimant sympathetically. The cause of death of claimants on PIP is not collated centrally by the Department. The decision to claim PIP can be prompted by a range of a factors, including when someone is terminally ill, so mortality figures should not be viewed in isolation.

Table 1 below shows the number of claimants receiving PIP who died each month from March 2020 to October 2020, the latest data available, who were receiving PIP at the end of the previous month. Note that the numbers of PIP claimant deaths in March and April 2020 here differ to those presented previously in PQ 59467, due to a methodological update.

Table 1: Number of PIP claimants with entitlement who died each month from March 2020 – October 2020

Source: PIP ADS and Customer Information System

Notes:

• This is unpublished data. It should be used with caution and it may be subject to future revision.
• PIP data includes claimants awarded both under normal rules and special rules for terminally ill claimants.
• Claimants receiving PIP include those whose claims are in payment and those whose payment is suspended or part-suspended.
• Claimants’ dates of death are as recorded on the system at 5^th February 2021 and may be subject to change retrospectively.
• Data covers Great Britain only.

Under the Social Security (Notification of Deaths) Regulations 2012 and s125 of Social Security Administration Act 1992 date of death is provided to the Department for all registered deaths. Additionally, next of kin also provide information on the date of death of an individual and this information is used appropriately in the administration of Departmental benefits.

The information requested on number of applications received is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate costs.

However, the Access to Work statistics includes how many applications result in provision being approved from 2007/08 to 2019/20. Please see Table 3 of the Access to Work statistics.

The latest Access to Work statistics can be found here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/access-to-work-statistics-april-2007-to-march-2020

In April 2020, legacy benefits were increased by £600m (1.7%), and, as part of the Government’s annual up-rating exercise, we will ensure that benefits retain their value against prices by raising benefits by a further £100m (0.5%) from April, in line with CPI

This Government is committed to supporting disabled people affected by the COVID-19 outbreak and has delivered an unprecedented package of support, injecting billions into the welfare system. We continue to monitor the impact on disabled people using existing and new data sources, whilst ensuring that they are able to access the support they need.

We are ensuring that disabled people continue to have access to disability benefits and other financial support, the food and essential goods that they need, as well as accessible communications and guidance during the COVID-19 outbreak. The Government continues to support disabled employees to access assistive technology and other forms of support they need to remain in work.

Access to Work prioritises applications from disabled people who have a job to start within 4 weeks of their application. Recognising the impact of COVID-19 has had on disabled people, Access to Work has expanded the prioritisation to include those in the Clinically Extremely Vulnerable group, keyworkers and introduced a new more flexible package of support to enable flex to work from more than one location, the workplace and home.

The disability benefits are not means–tested, non-contributory and thus paid regardless of any income or savings. They are also tax-free and worth up to £151.40 a week. PIP and DLA were not subject to the benefits freeze and were most recently uprated by 1.7 per cent from 6 April 2020.

The Government has introduced temporary measures to support those hardest hit, including the furlough scheme, self-employed income support scheme, and the £20 UC uplift. We spend over £55 billion a year on benefits to support disabled people and people with health conditions – This is around 2.6% of GDP. We have (up until the 20/21 year):

o Increased Employment and Support Allowance for people with the greatest needs – with the Support Group rate up by around £870 per year since 2010.

o Increased the higher rate of Attendance Allowance for people over State Pension Age who need someone to care for them – meaning around an additional £923 a year for disabled people since 2010.

o Increased Carer’s Allowance for those people who care for someone – meaning nearly an additional £700 a year for carers since 2010.

o Increased the rate of DLA paid to the most disabled children by over £130 a month since 2010, and spending more than ever on DLA for disabled children.

o Increased the enhanced rates of PIP which helps people meet the on-going costs of their disability – up by over £880 a year since its introduction in 2013.

o And there is a higher proportion of people on the top rates of Personal Independence Payment than there were on DLA – 33 per cent vs 15 per cent.

Our priorities are people’s safety and ensuring that they receive the support they are entitled to. We will contact anyone who has not engaged in a telephone Work Capability Assessment arranged since 2 November 2020 to establish if they have a good reason for not attending or participating. Claimants will be given the opportunity to explain why they did not, or could not attend or participate in the telephone assessment and where good cause is provided and accepted, support will continue

We have interpreted your question (a) as being failed to attend and the case returned to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). From the introduction of telephony Work Capability Assessments to 6 November 2020, 38 Universal Credit (UC) cases have been returned to the DWP due to failure of the customer to attend their telephone assessment.

We are unable to provide a figure for how many people have failed to participate in a telephone assessment because the information requested is not available.

Our priorities are people’s safety and ensuring that they receive the support they are entitled to. We will be contacting anyone who did not engage in a telephone appointment for a Work Capability Assessment arranged since 2 November 2020, to establish if they have a good reason for not attending or participating. Claimants will be given the opportunity to explain why they did not, or could not attend or participate in the telephone assessment and where good cause is provided and accepted, they will be given a further opportunity to take part in an assessment.

We have interpreted your question (a) as being failed to attend and the case returned to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). From the introduction of telephony Work Capability Assessments to 6 November 2020, 18 Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) cases have been returned to the DWP due to failure of the customer to attend their telephone assessment.

We are unable to provide a figure for how many people have failed to participate in a telephone assessment because the information requested is not available.

This information is not readily available and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.

Personal Independence Payment (PIP) is claimed by people with a range of health conditions and disabilities, many of which are degenerative or life limiting and the Department treats the death of any claimant sympathetically. The cause of death of claimants to PIP is not collated centrally by the Department.

Table 1 below shows for each month from March 2019 – May 2019 and March 2020 – April 2020: (a) The number of PIP claimants with entitlement to PIP who died having had entitlement on the last day of each month.

(b) The total number of PIP claims with entitlement on the last day each month.

(c) The percentage of claimants entitled to PIP who died in each month which is calculated by dividing (a) the number of claimant deaths in each month by (b) the total number of PIP claims with entitlement in the same month.

Note that April 2020 is the latest month for which data is available.

Table 1: Summary of PIP claimants with entitlement who died from March 2019 – May 2019 and March 2020 – April 2020

Source: PIP ADS and Customer Information System and Stat-Xplore

Notes:

• This is unpublished data. It should be used with caution and it may be subject to future revision.
• PIP data includes normal rules and special rules for the terminally ill claimants, and is for both new claims and DLA reassessment claims.

• Data for the number of claimant deaths has been sourced from the PIP ADS and the Customer Information System and data for the number of total PIP claims with entitlement has been sourced from Stat-Xplore.
• Number of claimants has been rounded to the nearest 10 and the data for the death rate of claimants has been rounded to the nearest 0.01%.
• Claimants’ dates of death are as recorded on the system at 12^th June 2020 and may be subject to retrospection.

• GB only

Under the Social Security (Notification of Deaths) Regulations 2012 and s125 of Social Security Administration Act 1992 date of death is provided to the Department for all registered deaths. Additionally, next of kin also provide information on the date of death of an individual and this information is used appropriately in the administration of Departmental benefits.

This information is not readily available and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.

This information is not readily available and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.

This information is not readily available and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.

Universal Credit can be claimed by a range of working age people, some of whom have health conditions or disabilities, which may be degenerative or life limiting. The decision to claim Universal Credit can be prompted by a range of a factors, including when someone is terminally ill, so mortality figures should not be viewed in isolation.

Between 1st March 2019 and 31st May 2019, 1,600, or less than 0.1 per cent, applications were made to Universal Credit where the claimant died. Over the same period the volume of people on Universal Credit stood at 2.3 million.

Between 1st March 2020 and 31st May 2020, 2,700, or less than 0.1 percent, applications were made to Universal Credit where the claimant died. Over the same period the volume of people on Universal Credit stood at 4.9 million.

NHS England publish weekly data on the number of social care staff who are eligible for vaccination and the number of vaccines delivered to social care staff. The data is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-vaccinations/

The Department does not hold data on the number of care homes currently allowing a named family member to visit residents. New visiting arrangements will come into effect on 8 March. From that date, every care home should ensure that each resident can nominate one named person who can have regular, indoor visits.

We will work with the sector to support care homes to provide the visiting opportunities set out in our guidance. Each residents’ circumstances will be different and decisions on visiting will need to be taken in agreement between the care home, the resident and family.

Multi-disciplinary teams use patient tracking lists to ensure patients receive timely treatment and NHS England and NHS Improvement use a variety of data sources to calculate the number of patients waiting longer than a certain period for treatments, as well as informing action to reduce these numbers. This data includes published cancer waiting times data on activity, referrals and waiting times, as well as management information which can give a week to week view of activity and the current scale of the waiting list. Any decision to reschedule cancer surgery will be a last resort and patients will be given the dates for their new treatment at the earliest opportunity.

The key aims of the Cancer Recovery Plan is to restore urgent referrals at least to pre-pandemic levels, to reduce the number of people waiting over 62 days from urgent referral. By ensuring sufficient capacity to meet demand and re-establishing COVID-19 secure cancer hubs and consolidating cancer surgery, prioritising people for surgery centrally on the basis of clinical need and drawing on the independent sector (IS) to increase capacity, urgent cancer surgery patients are the first priority for accessing IS services.

Information is not available in the format requested.

No recent estimate has been made.

It is a requirement for hospital trusts to report on new diagnoses of recurrent and metastatic breast cancer. Public Health England reports data on recurrent and metastatic breast cancer to National Health Service trusts to support improved data quality and ascertainment. Non-compliance with data standards is monitored through the local clinical commissioning groups.

No recent estimate has been made.

It is a requirement for hospital trusts to report on new diagnoses of recurrent and metastatic breast cancer. Public Health England reports data on recurrent and metastatic breast cancer to National Health Service trusts to support improved data quality and ascertainment. Non-compliance with data standards is monitored through the local clinical commissioning groups.

Public Health England produces comprehensive training and information materials for COVID-19 vaccinators. This includes information about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccines and key messages for healthcare professionals to convey to those being vaccinated. All vaccinating staff involved in the deployment programme are required to complete training that includes modules on the safety and effectiveness of vaccines. Communicating about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine is a component of the process for gaining informed consent.

As COVID-19 app users are anonymous, we cannot determine who has or has not been contacted by Test and Trace contact tracers as well as receiving an app notification to self-isolate as a contact of a positive case.

From 10 December, app users who are identified as a contact of a positive case have been eligible to apply for the NHS Test and Support payment by exiting the app and registering with Test and Trace.

On 8 June new rules for international travellers were introduced in order to reduce the risk of new COVID-19 cases from abroad. An exemption to the requirement to self-isolate was added to allow registered health and care staff to return to England to provide essential healthcare, helping to strengthen the country’s response to the coronavirus outbreak and save lives.

On 30 July the Government removed the exemption for registered health and care staff, thereby requiring them to self-isolate for 14 days on return from a non-exempt country or territory. The removal of this exemption ensure consistency with wider self-isolation measures and continue to protect public health.

The Health Protection (Coronavirus, International Travel) (England) Regulations 2020 are clear in that they include an exemption for registered healthcare professionals from the requirement to quarantine, if they are required to return to, or start work within 14 days of arrival in the United Kingdom, if they are staying in England, Wales or Northern Ireland.

These regulations and the exemptions are kept under constant review. The regulations make no exemption for direct care workers from the requirement to quarantine for 14 days.

We have no plans to publish an implementation plan for the review of the Challenge on Dementia 2020.

We will be setting out our plans on dementia for England for the period 2020-2025 later this year.

In 2018 we undertook a review of the progress made in implementing the Challenge on Dementia 2020. This was informed by a call for evidence. Respondents told us that we were largely on track to meet our commitments. In a small number of areas additional or refined actions were identified to help ensure that commitments could be met. The report of the review was published on 22 February 2019 and is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dementia-2020-challenge-progress-review

Implementation of the Challenge on Dementia 2020 actions is overseen by the Department‘s Dementia Programme Board which brings together all Delivery Partners and is chaired by myself.

We continue to make significant progress in meeting the commitments made in the Challenge.

The amount of expenditure for adult social care by local authority is not available in the format requested. Funding for adult social care comes from several sources, including central Government grants, council tax revenue, business rates, and National Health Service funding through the Better Care Fund. Local authorities are responsible for setting their own overall budgets for adult social care.

The attached table from the NHS Digital Activity and Finance Report 2018-19 provides an overview of expenditure in England on adult social care including a number of sources of funding. However, these are not available at the local authority level.

A local authority level timeseries breakdown is not compiled centrally. However, raw data for local authority level breakdowns of expenditure is available on the NHS Digital website in their social care collections. Not all sources of funding are available at local authority level, such as the Better Care Fund. Links to the reports are below and include 2009-10 to 2018-19.

2016/17 to 2018/19

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/adult-social-care-activity-and-finance-report

Before 2016/17

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/personal-social-services-expenditure-and-unit-costs

In September 2019 Public Health England published an evidence review of medicines associated with dependence or withdrawal, including benzodiazepines and z drugs. The report is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/prescribed-medicines-review-report

Alongside ongoing improvements to medicines safety and the use of prescribed drugs, NHS England is reviewing the recommendations from this review and other evidence to develop a set of actions to reduce and treat prescription medicine dependency.

A national review of overprescribing in the National Health Service is being led by Chief Pharmaceutical Officer Dr Keith Ridge and will be published in 2020. This will focus on people who take multiple medicines to ensure patients are receiving the most appropriate treatment for their needs. The review will consider how to improve management of non-reviewed repeat prescriptions including prescriptions beyond guidelines, and the role of digital technologies in reducing overprescribing.

The Government is committed to growing the workforce by 6,000 more doctors in general practice and 6,000 more primary care professionals, including pharmacists. This is on top of the additional 20,000 primary care professionals NHS England are providing funding towards recruiting. Community pharmacists have a key role in monitoring the care and treatment of patients, and would be in a position to review a patient’s medication usage and prescriptions.

In September 2019 Public Health England published an evidence review of medicines associated with dependence or withdrawal, including benzodiazepines and z drugs. The report is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/prescribed-medicines-review-report

Alongside ongoing improvements to medicines safety and the use of prescribed drugs, NHS England is reviewing the recommendations from this review and other evidence to develop a set of actions to reduce and treat prescription medicine dependency.

A national review of overprescribing in the National Health Service is being led by Chief Pharmaceutical Officer Dr Keith Ridge and will be published in 2020. This will focus on people who take multiple medicines to ensure patients are receiving the most appropriate treatment for their needs. The review will consider how to improve management of non-reviewed repeat prescriptions including prescriptions beyond guidelines, and the role of digital technologies in reducing overprescribing.

The Government is committed to growing the workforce by 6,000 more doctors in general practice and 6,000 more primary care professionals, including pharmacists. This is on top of the additional 20,000 primary care professionals NHS England are providing funding towards recruiting. Community pharmacists have a key role in monitoring the care and treatment of patients, and would be in a position to review a patient’s medication usage and prescriptions.

The Department does not hold the information requested as the NHS Business Services Authority does not capture the duration for which a prescription is intended to be used.

In September 2019 Public Health England published an evidence review of medicines associated with dependence or withdrawal, including benzodiazepines and z drugs. The report is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/prescribed-medicines-review-report

Alongside ongoing improvements to medicines safety and the use of prescribed drugs, NHS England is reviewing the recommendations from this review and other evidence to develop a set of actions to reduce and treat prescription medicine dependency.

A national review of overprescribing in the National Health Service is being led by Chief Pharmaceutical Officer Dr Keith Ridge and will be published in 2020. This will focus on people who take multiple medicines to ensure patients are receiving the most appropriate treatment for their needs. The review will consider how to improve management of non-reviewed repeat prescriptions including prescriptions beyond guidelines, and the role of digital technologies in reducing overprescribing.

The Government is committed to growing the workforce by 6,000 more doctors in general practice and 6,000 more primary care professionals, including pharmacists. This is on top of the additional 20,000 primary care professionals NHS England are providing funding towards recruiting. Community pharmacists have a key role in monitoring the care and treatment of patients, and would be in a position to review a patient’s medication usage and prescriptions.