Asked by: Matt Rodda (Labour - Reading Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much funding (a) his Department has allocated and (b) was confirmed by the Treasury by 31 July 2024 for the (i) rebuild of Royal Berkshire Hospital and (ii) New Hospitals Programme.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The standard process confirming the total funding amount for major infrastructure projects involves review and approval of a Full Business Case. All trusts in the Programme have previously received indicative funding allocations to support planning, however these are commercially sensitive. The New Hospital Programme had confirmed £3.7 billion in funding up to the end of 2024/25.
Up to the end of 2023/24, the total amount received by Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust in funding for their new hospital scheme is more than £20 million. The breakdown of how much the trust received for their new hospital scheme is published annually as part of the Department’s Annual Reports and Accounts, with Public Dividend Capital to individual Trusts included in the Financial Assistance Report under section 40 of the National Health Service Act 2006. The 2022/23 report is available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dhsc-annual-report-and-accounts-2022-to-2023
The Trust is currently at Pre-Consultation Business Case stage for the Royal Berkshire Hospital and is at Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) stage 0.
Asked by: Matt Rodda (Labour - Reading Central)
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 cost of rebuilding the Royal Berkshire Hospital.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The standard process confirming the total funding amount for major infrastructure projects involves review and approval of a Full Business Case. All trusts in the Programme have previously received indicative funding allocations to support planning, however these are commercially sensitive. The New Hospital Programme had confirmed £3.7 billion in funding up to the end of 2024/25.
Up to the end of 2023/24, the total amount received by Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust in funding for their new hospital scheme is more than £20 million. The breakdown of how much the trust received for their new hospital scheme is published annually as part of the Department’s Annual Reports and Accounts, with Public Dividend Capital to individual Trusts included in the Financial Assistance Report under section 40 of the National Health Service Act 2006. The 2022/23 report is available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dhsc-annual-report-and-accounts-2022-to-2023
The Trust is currently at Pre-Consultation Business Case stage for the Royal Berkshire Hospital and is at Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) stage 0.
Asked by: Matt Rodda (Labour - Reading Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much funding the scheme to rebuild the Royal Berkshire Hospital has received up to the end of the 2023-24 financial year.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The standard process confirming the total funding amount for major infrastructure projects involves review and approval of a Full Business Case. All trusts in the Programme have previously received indicative funding allocations to support planning, however these are commercially sensitive. The New Hospital Programme had confirmed £3.7 billion in funding up to the end of 2024/25.
Up to the end of 2023/24, the total amount received by Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust in funding for their new hospital scheme is more than £20 million. The breakdown of how much the trust received for their new hospital scheme is published annually as part of the Department’s Annual Reports and Accounts, with Public Dividend Capital to individual Trusts included in the Financial Assistance Report under section 40 of the National Health Service Act 2006. The 2022/23 report is available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dhsc-annual-report-and-accounts-2022-to-2023
The Trust is currently at Pre-Consultation Business Case stage for the Royal Berkshire Hospital and is at Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) stage 0.
Asked by: Matt Rodda (Labour - Reading Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the (a) business case status and (b) RIBA stage is of the scheme to rebuild the Royal Berkshire Hospital.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The standard process confirming the total funding amount for major infrastructure projects involves review and approval of a Full Business Case. All trusts in the Programme have previously received indicative funding allocations to support planning, however these are commercially sensitive. The New Hospital Programme had confirmed £3.7 billion in funding up to the end of 2024/25.
Up to the end of 2023/24, the total amount received by Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust in funding for their new hospital scheme is more than £20 million. The breakdown of how much the trust received for their new hospital scheme is published annually as part of the Department’s Annual Reports and Accounts, with Public Dividend Capital to individual Trusts included in the Financial Assistance Report under section 40 of the National Health Service Act 2006. The 2022/23 report is available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dhsc-annual-report-and-accounts-2022-to-2023
The Trust is currently at Pre-Consultation Business Case stage for the Royal Berkshire Hospital and is at Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) stage 0.
Asked by: Matt Rodda (Labour - Reading Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the guidance by the Central Digital and Data Office entitled Guidance on the Legacy IT Risk Assessment Framework, published on 29 September 2023, how many red-rated IT systems are used by their Department.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
As of 21 November 2023, the Department has no red-rated legacy information technology (IT) systems as defined in the Central Digital and Data Office Legacy IT Risk Assessment Framework. The IT systems provided by the Department are wholly in the public cloud.
Asked by: Matt Rodda (Labour - Reading Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much their Department spent on (a) current and (b) legacy IT infrastructure (i) in total and (ii) purchased in 2013 or earlier in each of the last three years.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
The following table shows the Department’s total spend on its core information technology (IT) systems, services and infrastructure for the last three years up to 21 November 2023, as well as the portion of this spend on legacy IT infrastructure:
Financial Year | Total IT spend | Spend on legacy infrastructure |
2021/22 | £13,060,129 | £500,000 |
2022/23 | £39,712,764 | £500,000 |
2023/24 | £12,286,521 | £250,000 |
Notes:
Asked by: Matt Rodda (Labour - Reading Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to help support young people with eating disorders in Reading East constituency.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
In September we announced ‘Our Plan for Patients’, which outlines how we will increase access to National Health Service mental health and eating disorder services, including in Reading East. Ensuring easier access to general practice will expand this route to access mental health services.
Through the NHS Long Term Plan, we are investing an additional £2.3 billion a year by 2023/24 to expand these services for adults, children and young people in England, including in Reading East. We will invest approximately £1 billion in community mental health care for adults with severe mental illness, including eating disorders, by 2023/24 and an additional £53 million per year in children and young people's community eating disorder services to increase capacity in the 70 community eating disorder teams.
Asked by: Matt Rodda (Labour - Reading Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to help improve access to mental health services in Reading East constituency.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
In September we announced ‘Our Plan for Patients’, which outlines how we will increase access to National Health Service mental health and eating disorder services, including in Reading East. Ensuring easier access to general practice will expand this route to access mental health services.
Through the NHS Long Term Plan, we are investing an additional £2.3 billion a year by 2023/24 to expand these services for adults, children and young people in England, including in Reading East. We will invest approximately £1 billion in community mental health care for adults with severe mental illness, including eating disorders, by 2023/24 and an additional £53 million per year in children and young people's community eating disorder services to increase capacity in the 70 community eating disorder teams.
Asked by: Matt Rodda (Labour - Reading Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent estimate her Department has made of the number of residential care homes that have closed in Reading East constituency since 1 January 2017.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
The Care Quality Commission records care homes which have closed as ‘deactivated’. Since 2017, care homes in Reading East have been deactivated. The ‘deactivated’ locations exclude care homes where the provider continues to operate under a new, separate registration, which may be due to a change in legal entity or provider.
Some care homes have both types of care home service with nursing and care home service without nursing and in these cases, the home is classified as a nursing home. A residential home is a care home service without nursing.
Asked by: Matt Rodda (Labour - Reading Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if her Department will take steps to increase the availability of face-to-face GP appointments in Reading East constituency.
Answered by Will Quince
On 22 September 2022, we announced ‘Our plan for patients’, which contains measures to assist people make an informed choice on their general practitioner (GP) practice, book an appointment more easily, benefit from more care options and increase the diversity of general practice teams. This aims to increase the availability of appointment types, such as face-to-face, in England, including in Reading East.
NHS England’s guidance states that GP practices must provide face to face appointments and remote consultations and should respect preferences for face-to-face care unless there are good clinical reasons to the contrary. While remote consultations can provide additional choice, flexibility and convenience for patients, this is not suitable for all patients or in all circumstances.