Asked by: Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of reports that referrals to child mental health units from primary schools for pupils aged 11 and under have risen by almost 50 per cent in the last three years.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
No formal assessment has been made as comparable data is not available at a national level.
Referral data for children and young people’s mental health services is published by NHS Digital in the Mental Health Services Dataset since 2017. This shows that in 2017/18 there were 259,615 new referrals to children and young people’s mental health services for people aged 0-18 and 381,528 new referrals for the same in 2018/19.
The number of providers supplying data has increased in 2018/19 and so a direct comparison between the two years is not possible.
Asked by: Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, following the report by Dr Jermaine Ravalier, UK Social Workers: Working Conditions and Wellbeing, published in August 2018, what strategies they have considered to alleviate the workload of social workers.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
Local authorities are responsible for making best use of their social work resource, including ensuring social workers have manageable workloads and receive effective support and supervision.
The annual Social Work Health Check is a key element of the Local Government Association’s Standards for Employers and provides a national picture of social work across adult social care. Findings for the 2017/18 Health Check, which was completed by 51% of councils and three National Health Service trusts, were encouraging, with most reporting they had effective workforce planning, safe workloads and case load allocation. We are working with the Local Government Association and the sector to refresh the Standards to ensure they apply equally to all settings in which social workers are employed and to extend the Health Check to children’s social care.
Social Work England is consulting on new rules and professional standards as it prepares to become the specialist regulator for social work, ensuring that promotion of the highest standards for safe and effective practice is the heart of its role.
Asked by: Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the reduction in the number of applications by students in England for nursing and midwifery courses at British universities beginning in 2017 compared to courses beginning in 2016 reported by UCAS; and whether, in the light of the smaller reduction in such applications in Scotland and Wales where bursaries are available, they intend to reconsider the decision to abolish NHS bursaries.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
At this stage of the application cycle, based on the data the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service published on 2 February, Health Education England is confident that the National Health Service will be able to fill the number of nursing and midwifery places in England.
The intention of the reforms in England is to boost participation and secure the future supply of home-grown nurses to the NHS. They will also enable universities to create additional nursing, midwifery and allied health professional university training places in this Parliament.
Students will see an increase in the amount of living cost support they have in hand when studying. We can build on the success of the wider higher education system and support students from all backgrounds pursue their chosen health career, as well as amending access rules for those who already have a degree. More widely, we are focusing on the needs of the profession by continuing to develop options which allow a number of routes into the workforce.
Asked by: Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what resources were allocated in, or are planned for, (1) 2016–17, (2) 2017–18, (3) 2018–19, and (4) 2019–20, for (a) university social work programmes via student bursaries and the Training Support Grant; (b) the Frontline social work trainee programme; (c) the Think Ahead trainee programme; (d) the Step Up to Social Work trainee programme; (e) social work teaching partnerships; and (f) the start-up and continuing costs for the accreditation of child and family social work.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
The following table shows the funding allocated to the Frontline social work trainee programme, the Think Ahead trainee programme, the Step Up to Social Work trainee programme and social work teaching partnerships in the 2016-17 financial year.
Programme | 2016-17 £ million |
Frontline social work trainee programme Contract to deliver a national fast-track programme Pilot grant | 2.4 7.2 |
Think Ahead trainee programme | 4.6 |
Step Up to Social Work trainee programme | 11.9 |
Social work teaching partnerships | 7.0 |
The 2016-17 funding for university social work programmes via student bursaries and the Education Support Grant is currently being finalised and as such is not yet available.
The final costs of the assessment and accreditation system for child and family social workers are subject to future procurement, but will be met within the Department for Education (DfE) Spending Review settlement.
The budgets in future years for each of these programmes, with the exception of the contract with Frontline, an independent charitable organisation, to deliver a national fast-track programme, are not yet agreed and are subject to business planning in the normal way.
DfE has a protected budget of £320 million each year of the Spending Review period for children’s services and Ministers are in the process of making decisions about how best to allocate resources within this envelope. DfE programme figures in this response show the allocations which have already been made.
The following table below shows the allocations to Frontline, up to and including 2019-20, to deliver a national fast-track programme.
Programme | 2017 – 18 £ million | 2018 – 19 £ million | 2019 – 20 £ million |
Contract to deliver a national fast-track programme | 11.07 | 16.24 | 18.49 |
Asked by: Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they plan to lay regulations implementing sections 148 and 149 of the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015; and what plans they have to propose changes to existing regulations to bring student nurses in the National Health Service within the scope of the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
The Government intends to bring forward regulations to bring Section 148 of the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015 into effect from April 2016, and Section 149 by December 2015 subject to Parliamentary approval.
The Protected Disclosures (Extension of Meaning of Worker) Order 2015 (SI 2015/491) came into effect on 6 April 2015, bringing student nurses and student midwives into the definition of ‘worker’ for the purposes of Section 43K of the Employment Rights Act 1996.
This change affects those student nurses and student midwives who undertake work experience as part of a course of education or training approved by, or under arrangements with, the Nursing and Midwifery Council.
In line with the recommendation set out in the Freedom to Speak Up review the Department of Health intends to bring forward further secondary legislation to extend the definition to include other healthcare students.
Asked by: Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they plan to publish their response to their consultation on the implementation of the recommendations, principles and actions set out in the report of the Freedom to Speak Up review.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
Her Majesty’s Government’s response to the Freedom to Speak Up consultation (CM9113) was laid on Thursday 16 July 2015 and is attached.
Asked by: Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether a Government response was prepared following the submission by the Northern Regional Health Authority of its report <i>Action Taken Following the Judicial Inquiry into Child Abuse</i> in Cleveland in 1988; and, if so, what that response contained.
Answered by Earl Howe - Deputy Leader of the House of Lords
The information requested is not available. Retention of such records as were held by the Department would have expired. We are continuing to research records in order to cooperate fully with the Review of the Home Office investigations announced on 7 July 2014, and with the Inquiry Panel into child sexual abuse.