Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the oral contribution of the Minister for Disabled People of 2 July 2019, Official Report column 1180, what the outcome is of his discussions with the Office for National Statistics on including the numbers of autistic people in work as part of the labour force survey.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The Office for National Statistics is currently testing the addition of a measure of autism to the Labour Force Survey. Should the testing be successful, it is anticipated that it will be added to the survey in early 2020. This will give us a better understanding of the employment status for many autistic people of working age.
Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Timpson Review of School Exclusion, what progress has been made on updating guidance for head teachers on their powers to exclude pupils; and when a consultation on that revised guidance will be published.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department is taking forward an ambitious programme of reform which will respect head teachers’ powers to use exclusion, while equipping schools to support children at risk of exclusion and ensuring excluded children continue to receive a good education.
As part of this, the Department will re-write guidance on exclusions and behaviour to offer clearer, more consistent guidance to schools on managing behaviour, the use of in-school units, managed moves and the circumstances where it may be appropriate to use exclusion.
The Department is engaging with stakeholders including schools and local authorities on this ambitious programme of action, and it will publish guidance by summer 2020.
Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many children aged five-years old and under with a special educational need arising from autism or autism spectrum disorder had (a) an Education, Health and Care Plan and (b) received SEN support in each English region in each year since 2010.
Answered by Michelle Donelan - Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology
The information requested has been provided in the attached table.
The analysis includes all children aged 5 years old and under in state-funded primary and special schools. The information requested is not available for children with Education, Health and Care Plans who are not in school.
Further information can be found in the annual 'Special educational needs in England' statistical releases published at the following link, including national figures by all primary SEN types and age (Table B): https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-special-educational-needs-sen.
Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, in which areas of England has the Starting Well Core scheme been made available to NHS dental practices.
Answered by Seema Kennedy
The Starting Well Core initiative has been developed by NHS England to promote early preventative care for children aged 0-2 as well as increasing dental access and attendance. The initiative has been made available to all local National Health Service commissioning teams in England for local use. Decisions about whether or not to adopt the Starting Well Core initiatives is a local decision and based on local need.
Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the number of (a) practices participating in and (b) children who have benefitted from the Starting Well scheme since its launch in spring 2018.
Answered by Seema Kennedy
The Starting Well programme was established by NHS England to reach out to children not regularly being seen by a dentist in 13 high needs areas. NHS England has advised that there are currently over 200 practices participating in the programme. However, data is not held about the number of children who have benefitted since its launch.
NHS England has advised that the Starting Well programme board has taken a decision not to publish an interim report but anticipates that the full report will be published by the end of this year.
NHS England has also developed Starting Well Core, an offer made available to all local dental commissioners in England. The aim is to promote early preventative care for children aged 0-2 as well as increasing dental access and attendance. NHS England has confirmed that as of 31 March 2019, approximately 1,400 NHS England dental practices were participating in Starting Well Core. NHS England advises that participation has been defined as any practice holding a contract to deliver primary care dental services where the local commissioning team had varied the contract to remunerate for Units of Dental Activity delivered in excess of 102% (up to a maximum of 104%) of the National Health Service contract value, attributable to children aged 0-2 years, for the 2018/19 financial year.
Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when the interim evaluation of the Starting Well Scheme will be published.
Answered by Seema Kennedy
The Starting Well programme was established by NHS England to reach out to children not regularly being seen by a dentist in 13 high needs areas. NHS England has advised that there are currently over 200 practices participating in the programme. However, data is not held about the number of children who have benefitted since its launch.
NHS England has advised that the Starting Well programme board has taken a decision not to publish an interim report but anticipates that the full report will be published by the end of this year.
NHS England has also developed Starting Well Core, an offer made available to all local dental commissioners in England. The aim is to promote early preventative care for children aged 0-2 as well as increasing dental access and attendance. NHS England has confirmed that as of 31 March 2019, approximately 1,400 NHS England dental practices were participating in Starting Well Core. NHS England advises that participation has been defined as any practice holding a contract to deliver primary care dental services where the local commissioning team had varied the contract to remunerate for Units of Dental Activity delivered in excess of 102% (up to a maximum of 104%) of the National Health Service contract value, attributable to children aged 0-2 years, for the 2018/19 financial year.
Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of children under the age of five were seen by an NHS dentist in England in (a) 2016-17, (b) 2017-18 and (c) 2018-19.
Answered by Seema Kennedy
The following table shows the number and proportion of children under the age of five seen by a National Health Service dentist in the last 12 months, in England, in 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19.
End of year | Number of children 0-4 years old seen in the last 12 months | Total population of children 0-4 years old | Proportion of children 0-4 years old seen in the last 12 months |
March 2017 | 1,135,028 | 3,434,680 | 33.0% |
March 2018 | 1,159,889 | 3,429,046 | 33.8% |
For March 2019, data will be published in August 2019.
Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the number of dental practices who have participated in the Starting Well Core scheme since its launch.
Answered by Seema Kennedy
The Starting Well programme was established by NHS England to reach out to children not regularly being seen by a dentist in 13 high needs areas. NHS England has advised that there are currently over 200 practices participating in the programme. However, data is not held about the number of children who have benefitted since its launch.
NHS England has advised that the Starting Well programme board has taken a decision not to publish an interim report but anticipates that the full report will be published by the end of this year.
NHS England has also developed Starting Well Core, an offer made available to all local dental commissioners in England. The aim is to promote early preventative care for children aged 0-2 as well as increasing dental access and attendance. NHS England has confirmed that as of 31 March 2019, approximately 1,400 NHS England dental practices were participating in Starting Well Core. NHS England advises that participation has been defined as any practice holding a contract to deliver primary care dental services where the local commissioning team had varied the contract to remunerate for Units of Dental Activity delivered in excess of 102% (up to a maximum of 104%) of the National Health Service contract value, attributable to children aged 0-2 years, for the 2018/19 financial year.
Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure all local authorities in England take part in Public Health England’s Oral Health Survey of five-year-old children 2019.
Answered by Seema Kennedy
In England local authorities have the statutory duty to commission or undertake oral health surveys. Public Health England published a toolkit in 2016 to support local authorities to meet this responsibility and works locally with them to deliver the surveys. The toolkit is available at the following link:
Asked by: Julie Cooper (Labour - Burnley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate his Department has made of the administrative cost to the NHS Business Services Authority Loss Recovery Service of checking claims for free prescriptions.
Answered by Seema Kennedy
For the financial period 2017-18, the cost to the NHS Business Services Authority for the running of the full Prescription Exemption Checking Service which includes checking prescription form exemption declarations, issuing Penalty Charge Notices and managing associated customer contact, was £6.8 million.