Asked by: Luciana Berger (Liberal Democrat - Liverpool, Wavertree)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the NHS target to reduce the number of children and young people being held in assessment and treatment units by 50 per cent, by what date he expects that target to be achieved.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
On 21 May 2019, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) published its ‘Interim Report: Review of restraint, prolonged seclusion and segregation for people with a mental health problem, a learning disability and or autism.’ The Government has accepted all five of the recommendations in the CQC’s interim report including the recommendation that an expert group, that includes clinicians, people with lived experience and academics, should be convened to consider what would be the key features of a better system of care for this specific group of people (that is those with a learning disability and/or autism whose behaviour is so challenging that they are, or are at risk of, being cared for in segregation).
The target in the NHS Long Term Plan is to reduce the number of children with a learning disability, autism or both in a specialist inpatient unit to a level equivalent to no more than 12 to 15 children per one million children in England by 2023-24.
Asked by: Luciana Berger (Liberal Democrat - Liverpool, Wavertree)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the NHS workforce strategy will priorities the specialist training required for people working with people with complex needs.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The interim People Plan, published on 3 June 2019, recognises the need to move to a multi-disciplinary model of care, particularly for people with more complex health and care needs, and places general practitioners at the heart of this model.
In advance of publishing the final People Plan, NHS England will work to implement the plan set out in Health Education England and NHS Improvement’s report, ‘Maximising the Potential: essential measures to support SAS doctors’, published in February 2019.
The aim is to provide further support and flexible training for specialty and associate specialist doctors, and establish a national programme board to address geographical and specialty shortages in medicine. The report can be accessed here:
https://www.hee.nhs.uk/sites/default/files/documents/SAS_Report_Web.pdf
Skills for Care and Health Education England are working to ensure that the health and social care workforce have the skills and training they need, including when working with people with complex needs.
Asked by: Luciana Berger (Liberal Democrat - Liverpool, Wavertree)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of asylum decision makers left their jobs within the first 12 months of employment in Asylum Operations Offices in (a) Bootle, (b) Croydon, (c) Leeds, (d) Liverpool, (e) Newcastle and (f) Solihull in each of the last three years.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
The Home Office is unable to report how many and what proportion of asylum decision makers left their jobs within the first 12 months of employment, to obtain this information would require a manual trawl of staffing records and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
The Home Office can provide the total headcount of decision makers that left Asylum Operations Offices in (a) Bootle, (b) Croydon, (c) Leeds, (d) Liverpool, (e) Newcastle and (f) Solihull over the past three years.
This is broken down in the table below:
| Year | Bootle* | Croydon** | Leeds | Liverpool | Newcastle | Solihull | Total |
| Apr 16-Mar 17 | N/a | 39 | 16 | 11 | 1 | 27 | 94 |
| Apr 17-Mar 18 | 33 | 50 | 8 | 30 | 2 | 23 | 146 |
| Apr 18-Mar 19 | 71 | 39 | 13 | 15 | 1 | 8 | 147 |
| Total | 104 | 128 | 37 | 56 | 4 | 58 | 387 |
*Bootle established April 2017
** Croydon – includes Third Country Unit (TCU) Decision Makers however TCU was not included in decision makers data in 2016
Asked by: Luciana Berger (Liberal Democrat - Liverpool, Wavertree)
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 retain nursing staff.
Answered by Stephen Hammond
NHS Improvement is leading a national retention programme across the National Health Service with an initial focus on improving retention of the nursing workforce, as well as the mental health clinical workforce.
To date 110 trusts have completed the NHS Improvement Direct Support Programme. NHS Improvement is currently working with an additional 35 trusts and will be expanding the programme across the NHS and providing support to all remaining NHS trusts in England.
The latest data from the University and College Admissions Service (February 2019) shows that there has been a 4.5% increase in applicants to nursing or midwifery courses at English universities when compared to this time last year (2018).
The NHS Long Term Plan, published on 7 January 2019, sets out a vital strategic framework to ensure that over the next 10 years the NHS will have the staff it needs. This will ensure that nurses are able to offer the expert compassionate care that they are committed providing. To ensure a detailed plan that everyone in the NHS can get behind my Rt. hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has asked Baroness Harding to lead an inclusive programme of work to set out a detailed workforce implementation plan to be published in due course.
Asked by: Luciana Berger (Liberal Democrat - Liverpool, Wavertree)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the effect of the removal of the nursing bursary on the recruitment of nurses.
Answered by Stephen Hammond
NHS Improvement is leading a national retention programme across the National Health Service with an initial focus on improving retention of the nursing workforce, as well as the mental health clinical workforce.
To date 110 trusts have completed the NHS Improvement Direct Support Programme. NHS Improvement is currently working with an additional 35 trusts and will be expanding the programme across the NHS and providing support to all remaining NHS trusts in England.
The latest data from the University and College Admissions Service (February 2019) shows that there has been a 4.5% increase in applicants to nursing or midwifery courses at English universities when compared to this time last year (2018).
The NHS Long Term Plan, published on 7 January 2019, sets out a vital strategic framework to ensure that over the next 10 years the NHS will have the staff it needs. This will ensure that nurses are able to offer the expert compassionate care that they are committed providing. To ensure a detailed plan that everyone in the NHS can get behind my Rt. hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has asked Baroness Harding to lead an inclusive programme of work to set out a detailed workforce implementation plan to be published in due course.
Asked by: Luciana Berger (Liberal Democrat - Liverpool, Wavertree)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the report entitled Far less than they deserve published by the Children’s Commissioner on 20 May 2019, what plans he has to publish a national strategy to replace Transforming Care.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
‘Building the right support’, published in 2015 by NHS England, the Local Government Association (LGA) and the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) is the national plan in England for reducing the number of people with learning disabilities or autistic people who are inpatients in mental health hospitals. It set out a clear framework for commissioners to reduce inpatient capacity by developing more community services for people with learning disabilities or autistic people with behaviour that challenges. The expectation was for a reduction in inpatient numbers of between 35 and 50% by March 2019.
By the end of April 2019, inpatient numbers had reduced by 22%. National Health Service planning guidance for 2019/20 requires a 35% reduction in inpatients compared to 2015 no later than the end of 2019/20. The LGA and ADASS, as key delivery partners of the Transforming Care programme, will continue to support work to improve provision of suitable accommodation and services in the community and the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Education will remain accountable for ensuring that children and young people receive the support they need.
The NHS Long Term Plan prioritises services for children and young people, providing a clear focus on improving the health and wellbeing of children and young people with learning disabilities and/or autism, as well as committing to implementing ‘Building the right support’ in full, achieving at least a 50% reduction in the number of people with a learning disability or autism who are inpatients, compared to the figure in 2015, by the end of 2023/24.
The Long Term Plan sets out specific commitments to achieve this by developing new models of care to provide care closer to home and investing in intensive, crisis and forensic community support. By 2023/24 children and young people with a learning disability, autism or both with the most complex needs will also have a designated keyworker. These will be initially provided to children and young people who are inpatients or at risk of being admitted to hospital.
Local health systems have been asked to develop plans for implementing the Long Term Plan’s commitments. These plans will be brought together in a national implementation programme for the Long Term Plan to 2023-24, and an NHS workforce implementation plan, by the end of 2019.
Asked by: Luciana Berger (Liberal Democrat - Liverpool, Wavertree)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how much money from the public purse the Government has spent on delivering the commitments made in the Loneliness Strategy entitled, A connected society: a strategy for tackling loneliness. Click save
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The cross-government loneliness strategy, launched in October 2018, contained 60 new commitments from nine government departments. It included a range of new policies as well as threading consideration of loneliness through a wide range of government’s work , such as expanding social prescribing and public messaging on loneliness.
Alongside the policy commitments made in the strategy, the Building Connections Fund launched in 2018 totalled £11.5million, made up of government, Big Lottery Fund and Co-op Foundation funding. It funds 126 projects.
Asked by: Luciana Berger (Liberal Democrat - Liverpool, Wavertree)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how much the Government has spent from the public purse on initiatives to tackle loneliness and social isolation in 2018-19. Click save
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The cross-government loneliness strategy, launched in October 2018, contained 60 new commitments from nine government departments. It included a range of new policies as well as threading consideration of loneliness through a wide range of government’s work , such as expanding social prescribing and public messaging on loneliness.
Alongside the policy commitments made in the strategy, the Building Connections Fund launched in 2018 totalled £11.5million, made up of government, Big Lottery Fund and Co-op Foundation funding. It funds 126 projects.
Asked by: Luciana Berger (Liberal Democrat - Liverpool, Wavertree)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 30 April 2019 to Question 247685 on Suicide, how many local authorities have policies to tackle financial difficulty in their suicide prevention plans.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
The Government consulted on the Breathing Space programme between October 2018 and January 2019. Breathing Space is a statutory debt repayment plan which aims to give people in problem debt the opportunity to take control of their finances and put them on a sustainable footing. The scheme includes a specific mechanism to make it easier for people experiencing a mental health crisis to access support. A response to the consultation will be published in due course.
The National Suicide Prevention Strategy highlights groups that need tailored approaches to address their mental health needs to reduce their suicide risk, including people who are vulnerable due to social or economic circumstances. We are working with the local government sector to assess the effectiveness of those plans, and a report will be published shortly that highlights areas of best practice and areas for improvement. This report will include an analysis of the extent to which local authority plans are addressing high risk groups.
Asked by: Luciana Berger (Liberal Democrat - Liverpool, Wavertree)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of Clinical Commissioning Groups have put in place plans to identify avoidable deaths.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The information requested is not collected centrally.