Asked by: George Howarth (Labour - Knowsley)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of changes in the level of violence against Christians in Turkey.
Answered by Leo Docherty
We support the rights of all minority groups in Turkey, including Christians, and note that the right to freedom of religion and belief is clearly enshrined in the Turkish constitution. Our travel advice for Turkey notes that terrorists may target places of worship. The UK stands with Turkey against terrorism, and we welcome the Turkish authorities' swift response to security threats, such as the fatal shooting at Santa Maria Church in Istanbul on 28 January.
Asked by: George Howarth (Labour - Knowsley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an assessment of the implications for her policies of the report by Together for Short Lives entitled The deep disparity in NHS funding for children who need hospice care, published on 13 December 2023.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Transport
The Government recognises that access to high-quality, palliative and end of life care can make all the difference to individuals and their loved ones. The commissioning of children and young people’s palliative and end of life care services is the statutory duty of integrated care boards (ICBs). ICBs must commission palliative and end of life care services in response to the needs of their population, provided by a range of local organisations with the experience and skills to meet those needs.
Whilst the majority of palliative and end of life care is provided by National Health Service staff and services, we recognise the vital part that voluntary sector organisations, including hospices, also play in providing support to people at end of life and their families. Most hospices are charitable, independent organisations which receive some statutory funding for providing NHS services. The amount of funding hospices receive is dependent on many factors, including what other statutory services are available within the ICB footprint. Charitable hospices are autonomous organisations that provide a range of services which go beyond that which statutory services are legally required to provide. Consequently, the funding arrangements reflect this.
Due to the way the hospice movement organically grew, hospice locations were largely not planned with geographic or demographic purposes as a driving force. Therefore, there are inequalities with access to hospice services, especially for those living in rural or socio-economically deprived areas. It is therefore vital that hospices and statutory services work together to provide ensure their populations have access to palliative and end of life care when they need it.
At a national level, in line with the NHS Long Term Plan commitment, NHS England (NHSE) has provided circa £12 million match-funding to participating ICBs (and formerly clinical commissioning groups) between 2020/21 and 2023/24 which committed to invest in children and young people’s palliative and end of life care, including children and young people’s hospices, giving a total investment of £24 million. In addition, NHSE supports palliative and end of life care for children and young people through the Children and Young People’s Hospice Grant. NHSE has confirmed that it will be renewing the grant for 2024/25, once again allocating £25 million grant funding for children’s hospices using the same prevalence-based allocation approach as in 2022/23 and 2023/24. This prevalence-based approach ensures funding matches local need.
NHSE’s palliative and end of life care team has recently engaged with 24 ICBs to understand how to better support commissioners and has also reviewed all 42 ICB Joint Forward Plans for their inclusion of palliative and end of life care, with 69% of those plans making a specific mention. Further analysis is ongoing, but the intention is to use this information to help shape and focus support to ICBs.
Palliative and end of life care has been added to the agenda for Regional Quality and Performance meetings. Additionally, NHSE has commissioned the development of a palliative and end of life care dashboard, which brings together all relevant local data in one place. The dashboard helps commissioners understand the palliative and end of life care needs of those their local population, including the ability to filter the available information, such as by deprivation or ethnicity, thereby, enabling ICBs to put plans in place to address and track the improvement of health inequalities.
Asked by: George Howarth (Labour - Knowsley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate her Department has made of the number of closures of community pharmacies in the current Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework period.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom
The NHS Business Services Authority publishes official statistics which includes the number of pharmacies opening and closing in each financial year. The following table shows how many pharmacies opened or closed within the last five years:
Financial Year | Pharmacies opened | Pharmacies closed |
2018/2019 | 220 | 347 |
2019/2020 | 239 | 405 |
2020/2021 | 236 | 451 |
2021/2022 | 308 | 418 |
2022/2023 | 297 | 388 |
Community pharmacies are private businesses that receive funding to provide pharmaceutical services for the National Health Service. The decision to close, divest or consolidate is a commercial decision made by the business owner. The Department is monitoring changes to the market closely. Access remains good, with 80% of people in England living within a 20 minutes’ walk from a local pharmacy, and with twice as many pharmacies in deprived areas.
Asked by: George Howarth (Labour - Knowsley)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 12 December 2023 to Question 5745 on Ministry of Justice: Communication, if he will publish the (a) policies, (b) procedures and (c) service standards for (i) his Department, (ii) HM Courts and Tribunals Service and (iii) the Judicial Office; and if he will publish provide contact details for raising concerns over compliance with each.
Answered by Mike Freer
There are a number of polices, procedures and service standards for communication that are used across the Ministry of Justice and the agencies within it which can differ due to the broad range of work and activities undertaken across the department.
Within HM Courts & Tribunals Service if any user wants to provide feedback or raise a complaint about the service HMCTS provides, there is a formal procedure in which to do so that is published on the HMCTS section on Gov.uk: Complaints procedure - HM Courts & Tribunals Service - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). The complaints procedure is three staged and allows for a review and appeal if a user is not satisfied with the initial response received. There is also the option to ask the Member of Parliament for the user’s constituency to refer the case to the Parliamentary & Health Service Ombudsman if the user remains unsatisfied following exhausting all stages of the HMCTS complaints process.
Any matter relating to Judicial Office policies, procedures or service standards would be for that organisation and not for Government. The Judicial Office supports the judiciary of England and Wales and is independent from the machinery which supports Ministers. Its officials are accountable to the Lady Chief Justice and the Senior President of Tribunals.
Asked by: George Howarth (Labour - Knowsley)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 12 December 2023 to Question 5765 on HM Courts and Tribunals Service: Standards, whether his Department is taking steps to help ensure that (a) HMCTS personnel are aware that complaints and feedback can be provided in person at HMCTS premises, (b) a remedy is provided to people who have been misinformed of this right by officials, and (c) HMCTS personnel facilitate in person complains and feedback at HMCTS premises.
Answered by Mike Freer
HMCTS personnel follow the complaints procedure which is published on Gov.UK: Complaints procedure - HM Courts & Tribunals Service - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). Complaints and feedback can be provided in person at HMCTS premises. Where a user of HMCTS services is not satisfied, they can speak to a member of staff and a record will be made on HMCTS complaints handling system OPTIC.
HMCTS will not be able to identify people who have been misinformed of the option to raise a complaint in person. However, if it is clear when handling complaints or feedback that someone has been refused the opportunity to provide it in person, without a valid reason, they will be given an apology. Where possible HMCTS personnel will take down in person complaints and feedback at HMCTS premises – which will then be followed by a response in writing.
There will be some instances where it’s not possible to take feedback in person. This is where officials believe that the person giving the feedback is a risk to staff or other court users, is being deliberately disruptive or is using the opportunity to revisit complaints that have already been answered through the administrative complaints process. In those instances, other communication channels will still be open to them to use.
Asked by: George Howarth (Labour - Knowsley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she plans to increase services offered by community pharmacies.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom
Pharmacies across England, including in Knowsley, can already choose to deliver a wider range of NHS funded services including for example providing advice on newly prescribed medicines for long term conditions, blood pressure checks, oral contraception consultations and minor illness referrals from GPs, NHS111 and Urgent and Emergency Care. Early in 2024 we will expand the NHS funded service offer in community pharmacy and launch Pharmacy First. The service will enable community pharmacists to manage seven common conditions including the supply of prescription-only medicines without a prescription from a GP. The seven conditions are: sinusitis, sore throat, earache, infected insect bite, impetigo, shingles and uncomplicated urinary tract infections in women.
Asked by: George Howarth (Labour - Knowsley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an assessment of the potential implications for her Department's policies of trends in the level of demand for pharmacy services during winter 2023-24.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom
Every year in winter, demand for services in the National Health Service increases and community pharmacies are playing a growing role in supporting the NHS to meet this demand. Pharmacies in England already deliver a wider range of NHS services including advice on newly prescribed medicines for long-term conditions, blood pressure checks, oral contraception consultations and minor illness referrals from general practitioners (GPs), NHS 111 and urgent and emergency care. We are investing in community pharmacy to enable them to support more patients in winter by launching Pharmacy First this year. Pharmacy First will enable community pharmacists to manage seven common conditions including the supply of prescription-only medicines without referring them on to a GP for a prescription
Asked by: George Howarth (Labour - Knowsley)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, pursuant to the Answer of 18 December 2023 to Question 6413 on Government Legal Department, what the composition is of (a) her Department's Legal Advisers and (b) the Government Legal Department Litigation Group; and what (i) their legal qualifications and (ii) the professional standards to which they are required to adhere are.
Answered by Robert Courts
The composition of the Ministry of Justice Legal Advisers Team, a division of the Government Legal Department (GLD), is as follows:
Description | Staff numbers |
Head of Division/Director (Senior Civil Service Pay Band 2) | 1 |
Deputy Director (Senior Civil Service Pay Band 1) | 6 |
Senior Lawyer (Grade 6) | 23 |
Lawyer (Grade 7) & Junior Lawyer (Legal Officer) | 37 |
Senior Executive Officer, Higher Executive Officer | 0 |
Legal Trainee, Executive Officer, Administrative Officer | 10 |
The composition of the GLD's Litigation Group is as follows:
Description | Staff numbers |
Head of Division/Director (Senior Civil Service Pay Band 2) | 1 |
Deputy Director (Senior Civil Service Pay Band 1) | 30 |
Senior Lawyer (Grade 6) | 136 |
Lawyer (Grade 7) & Junior Lawyer (Legal Officer) | 336 |
Senior Executive Officer, Higher Executive Officer | 51 |
Legal Trainee, Executive Officer, Administrative Officer | 203 |
These civil servants act on behalf of and in the name of the Treasury Solicitor, and pursuant to section 88 of the Solicitors Act 1974 are not required to be admitted or enrolled as a legal practitioner. They predominantly comprise of solicitors and barristers, the majority of which are admitted to practice in England and Wales, although some are qualified to practice in other jurisdictions.
The Costs Litigation Team includes qualified costs lawyers, in addition to which a small number of qualified legal executives are also employed in the Litigation Group. The balance of staff comprises legal trainees, apprentices, paralegals, and business support staff.
Qualified lawyers are required to adhere to the professional standards of their respective profession (solicitor, barrister, costs lawyer, or legal executive), and all staff are required to comply with the Civil Service Code.
Asked by: George Howarth (Labour - Knowsley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Department has carried out analysis on the long-term financial viability of community pharmacies.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom
NHS England has commissioned an economic analysis of the cost of providing pharmaceutical services. That analysis is ongoing and will inform any future decision on the funding of community pharmacies.
Asked by: George Howarth (Labour - Knowsley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans does her Department have to increase public awareness of the Pharmacy First scheme.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom
The launch of Pharmacy First early in 2024 will be supported by a public-facing mass media campaign to help raise awareness of Pharmacy First in England.