Asked by: Nadine Dorries (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many trains were cancelled on the Govia Thameslink rail line due to driver shortage in the most recent four time periods for which figures are available.
Answered by Claire Perry
Figures for driver attributed cancellations the whole of the TSGN franchise in the last four periods are below. This data represents the first four periods since Southern Railway joined Govia Thameslink Railway at the end of July. This data does not differentiate between cancellations due to driver shortage and operational issues.
Rail Period 1605 26/7-22/8 | Rail Period 1606 23/8-19/9 | Rail Period 1607 20/9-17/10 | Rail Period 1608 18/10-14/11 | |
Full cancellations | 1093 | 1331 | 723 | 706 |
Part cancellations | 458 | 410 | 406 | 411 |
Total | 1551 | 1741 | 1129 | 1117 |
The Department does not hold information on cancellations due to sickness.
Asked by: Nadine Dorries (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many trains were cancelled on the Govia Thameslink rail line due to driver shortage in the most recent period for which figures are available.
Answered by Claire Perry
Figures for driver attributed cancellations the whole of the TSGN franchise in the last four periods are below. This data represents the first four periods since Southern Railway joined Govia Thameslink Railway at the end of July. This data does not differentiate between cancellations due to driver shortage and operational issues.
Rail Period 1605 26/7-22/8 | Rail Period 1606 23/8-19/9 | Rail Period 1607 20/9-17/10 | Rail Period 1608 18/10-14/11 | |
Full cancellations | 1093 | 1331 | 723 | 706 |
Part cancellations | 458 | 410 | 406 | 411 |
Total | 1551 | 1741 | 1129 | 1117 |
The Department does not hold information on cancellations due to sickness.
Asked by: Nadine Dorries (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to require improvement of the punctuality and reliability of Govia Thameslink train services.
Answered by Claire Perry
I am chairing a monthly meeting involving Network Rail, Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR), Southeastern and Transport Focus to monitor and co-ordinate improvements in both performance and passenger experience in the South East. This work builds upon the Joint Improvement Plan that was developed in the Spring. This Group is absolutely committed to see improvement and, crucially, to make sure that rail customers see the benefits of these improvements.
GTR failed to meet their benchmark for cancellations set out in their Franchise Agreement and in the view of the Secretary of State they are also likely to exceed their delay minutes benchmark in the near future. In order to address their poor performance and hold them to account we issued them with a Remedial Plan Notice that requires them to set out the measures they will take to improve their performance. GTR have submitted their plan and once the measures are agreed by the Secretary of State they will become contractually binding through a Remedial Agreement. Officials regularly monitor GTR’s performance and this will include the delivery of the measures and performance improvements agreed through the Remedial Plan. Non-compliance may result in further enforcement action in line with the Franchise Agreement should the need arise.
Network Rail’s performance is regulated by the Office of Rail and Road, who have recently agreed a £4.1m package of improvements to be delivered by Network Rail on the Southern part of GTR franchise area in order to address performance issues.
Asked by: Nadine Dorries (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to improve reliability and punctuality of the Govia Thameslink rail line.
Answered by Claire Perry
I am chairing a monthly meeting involving Network Rail, Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR), Southeastern and Transport Focus to monitor and co-ordinate improvements in both performance and passenger experience in the South East. This work builds upon the Joint Improvement Plan that was developed in the Spring. This Group is absolutely committed to see improvement and, crucially, to make sure that rail customers see the benefits of these improvements.
GTR failed to meet their benchmark for cancellations set out in their Franchise Agreement and in the view of the Secretary of State they are also likely to exceed their delay minutes benchmark in the near future. In order to address their poor performance and hold them to account we issued them with a Remedial Plan Notice that requires them to set out the measures they will take to improve their performance. GTR have submitted their plan and once the measures are agreed by the Secretary of State they will become contractually binding through a Remedial Agreement. Officials regularly monitor GTR’s performance and this will include the delivery of the measures and performance improvements agreed through the Remedial Plan. Non-compliance may result in further enforcement action in line with the Franchise Agreement should the need arise.
Network Rail’s performance is regulated by the Office of Rail and Road, who have recently agreed a £4.1m package of improvements to be delivered by Network Rail on the Southern part of GTR franchise area in order to address performance issues.
Asked by: Nadine Dorries (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what discussions Ministers have had with Govia Thameslink on improving the punctuality and reliability of that company's train service in the last six months.
Answered by Claire Perry
I am chairing a monthly meeting involving Network Rail, Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR), Southeastern and Transport Focus to monitor and co-ordinate improvements in both performance and passenger experience in the South East. This work builds upon the Joint Improvement Plan that was developed in the Spring. This Group is absolutely committed to see improvement and, crucially, to make sure that rail customers see the benefits of these improvements.
GTR failed to meet their benchmark for cancellations set out in their Franchise Agreement and in the view of the Secretary of State they are also likely to exceed their delay minutes benchmark in the near future. In order to address their poor performance and hold them to account we issued them with a Remedial Plan Notice that requires them to set out the measures they will take to improve their performance. GTR have submitted their plan and once the measures are agreed by the Secretary of State they will become contractually binding through a Remedial Agreement. Officials regularly monitor GTR’s performance and this will include the delivery of the measures and performance improvements agreed through the Remedial Plan. Non-compliance may result in further enforcement action in line with the Franchise Agreement should the need arise.
Network Rail’s performance is regulated by the Office of Rail and Road, who have recently agreed a £4.1m package of improvements to be delivered by Network Rail on the Southern part of GTR franchise area in order to address performance issues.
Asked by: Nadine Dorries (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many harassment cases were reported to the police in (a) 2011-12, (b) 2012-13 and (c) 2013-14.
Answered by Rob Wilson
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.
Asked by: Nadine Dorries (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department has taken to work with local councils to improve their recording and reporting of complaints against providers of social care.
Answered by Norman Lamb
Each local authority is responsible for the quality of social care services it commissions. There is no national register or oversight of complaints in social care. However, local authorities are required, pursuant to the Local Authority Social Services and National Health Service (England) Regulations 2009, to keep a record of each complaint received, the subject matter and outcome and timescales for responding.
They are also obliged to make a summary of this information available to the public via an annual report. The Government believes that we should be committed to ensuring the system for resolving complaints about care is compassionate, personal, responsive, timely and ensures lessons are learned.
The Department established a national complaints programme board in December 2013. A comprehensive programme has been developed with national partners, including the Care Quality Commission (CQC), NHS England, Healthwatch England, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, the Local Government Ombudsman, the Local Government Association, Monitor and the NHS Trust Development Association, to bring about important changes to the way complainants are supported and complaints are handled across the health and social care systems.
We are informed by the CQC that it is committed to strengthening its approach to assessing complaints and concerns during inspections. During an inspection, CQC inspectors will use key lines of enquiry to ascertain the standard of care. A mandatory key line of enquiry used during inspections of adult social care is whether the service routinely listens and learns from people’s experiences, concerns and complaints.
Under the Care Act, local authorities will have a new market shaping duty, meaning that they should work with local people and communities and engage with their local care providers to facilitate a diverse supply of high quality services.
The Care Act reforms should increase transparency and support more effective competition in local care markets. This will help providers of high quality care to attract more people, and to grow and diversify their share in the market.
We have just issued statutory guidance to local authorities about their new market shaping duties. Together with Association of Directors of Adult Social Services and the Local Government Association, we are developing a series of commissioning standards to improve local authority commissioning practices and encourage more flexibility, allowing providers to engage with them in new ways. We are keen to move commissioning from a “time and task” based to an outcomes-driven activity.
Asked by: Nadine Dorries (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what plans he has to increase standards of social care; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Norman Lamb
In July 2012, the Government set out its vision of the development of high quality care services in the White Paper, Caring for our future: Reforming care and support. This was reinforced in the Care Act. It set out clearly the care and support system we want to achieve – with the support of care and support organisations, charities, carers, volunteers and the public. The Adult Social Care Workforce programme supports delivery of this vision, through increasing capacity, improving capability and developing leadership.
On the recommendation of the Cavendish report into the failings at Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, we are introducing the new Care Certificate, to help ensure that healthcare assistants, social care support workers and their employers can deliver a consistently high quality standard of care.
Health Education England, Skills for Care and Skills for Health launched the pilot for the Care Certificate on 28 April 2014. The pilot is taking place across a range of health and social care settings, and, subject to evaluation, the national introduction of the Care Certificate is planned for March 2015.
In order to make sure that people are held to account for the quality of care they provide, we are introducing measures to ensure that company directors who consent or turn a blind eye to poor care will be liable for prosecution. In the future, they and provider organisations could face unlimited fines if found guilty.
To ensure that social care providers and services employ and are run by people with the right values and skills, we are introducing a ‘fit and proper person’ test for Directors. Where the Care Quality Commission (CQC) considers a Director not to be fit to run a provider organisation, it will be able to insist on his or her removal.
The Government realised that the regulation and inspection of social care provision needed to improve. As a result, the CQC has introduced a new system of inspection of social care providers, backed by new fundamental standards of care. This new system of inspection is based on five important questions that matter most to people: whether services are safe, caring, effective, well-led and responsive to their needs. CQC inspections now result in a provider being rated on a four-point scale - ‘outstanding’, ‘good’, ‘requires improvement’ and ‘inadequate’, for each of the five domains that it inspects. This results in clear, straightforward information that commissioners of services and the public can understand.
The new inspections are carried out by expert inspection teams, which include people who have personal experience of care. The CQC piloted the new approach from April 2014 and began to inspect and rate all providers against the new standards in October.
Under the Care Act, local authorities will have a new market shaping duty, meaning that they should work with local people and communities and engage with their local care providers to facilitate a diverse supply of high quality services.
The Care Act reforms should increase transparency and support more effective competition in local care markets. This will help providers of high quality care to attract more people and to grow and diversify their share in the market.
We have just issued statutory guidance to local authorities about their new market shaping duties. Together with Association of Directors of Adult Social Services and the Local Government Association, we are developing a series of commissioning standards to improve local authority commissioning practices and encourage more flexibility, allowing providers to engage with them in new ways. We are keen to move commissioning from a “time and task” based to an outcomes-driven activity.
Employers are responsible for ensuring that any potential employee has the required level of communication skills for their role. It is essential that a workers’ command of English should be considered as part of the recruitment process. Under CQC’s current approach to inspection and regulation, it is stipulated that workers in adult social care should be able to communicate effectively with people who use services and other staff and to ensure that care, treatment and support of service users is not compromised. This applies to all workers, whatever their background or nationality.
Asked by: Nadine Dorries (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what central records are kept of complaints against social care providers; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Norman Lamb
Each local authority is responsible for the quality of social care services it commissions. There is no national register or oversight of complaints in social care. However, local authorities are required, pursuant to the Local Authority Social Services and National Health Service (England) Regulations 2009, to keep a record of each complaint received, the subject matter and outcome and timescales for responding.
They are also obliged to make a summary of this information available to the public via an annual report. The Government believes that we should be committed to ensuring the system for resolving complaints about care is compassionate, personal, responsive, timely and ensures lessons are learned.
The Department established a national complaints programme board in December 2013. A comprehensive programme has been developed with national partners, including the Care Quality Commission (CQC), NHS England, Healthwatch England, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, the Local Government Ombudsman, the Local Government Association, Monitor and the NHS Trust Development Association, to bring about important changes to the way complainants are supported and complaints are handled across the health and social care systems.
We are informed by the CQC that it is committed to strengthening its approach to assessing complaints and concerns during inspections. During an inspection, CQC inspectors will use key lines of enquiry to ascertain the standard of care. A mandatory key line of enquiry used during inspections of adult social care is whether the service routinely listens and learns from people’s experiences, concerns and complaints.
Under the Care Act, local authorities will have a new market shaping duty, meaning that they should work with local people and communities and engage with their local care providers to facilitate a diverse supply of high quality services.
The Care Act reforms should increase transparency and support more effective competition in local care markets. This will help providers of high quality care to attract more people, and to grow and diversify their share in the market.
We have just issued statutory guidance to local authorities about their new market shaping duties. Together with Association of Directors of Adult Social Services and the Local Government Association, we are developing a series of commissioning standards to improve local authority commissioning practices and encourage more flexibility, allowing providers to engage with them in new ways. We are keen to move commissioning from a “time and task” based to an outcomes-driven activity.
Asked by: Nadine Dorries (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what plans his Department has put in place to improve the level of English language proficiency required for providers of social care.
Answered by Norman Lamb
In July 2012, the Government set out its vision of the development of high quality care services in the White Paper, Caring for our future: Reforming care and support. This was reinforced in the Care Act. It set out clearly the care and support system we want to achieve – with the support of care and support organisations, charities, carers, volunteers and the public. The Adult Social Care Workforce programme supports delivery of this vision, through increasing capacity, improving capability and developing leadership.
On the recommendation of the Cavendish report into the failings at Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, we are introducing the new Care Certificate, to help ensure that healthcare assistants, social care support workers and their employers can deliver a consistently high quality standard of care.
Health Education England, Skills for Care and Skills for Health launched the pilot for the Care Certificate on 28 April 2014. The pilot is taking place across a range of health and social care settings, and, subject to evaluation, the national introduction of the Care Certificate is planned for March 2015.
In order to make sure that people are held to account for the quality of care they provide, we are introducing measures to ensure that company directors who consent or turn a blind eye to poor care will be liable for prosecution. In the future, they and provider organisations could face unlimited fines if found guilty.
To ensure that social care providers and services employ and are run by people with the right values and skills, we are introducing a ‘fit and proper person’ test for Directors. Where the Care Quality Commission (CQC) considers a Director not to be fit to run a provider organisation, it will be able to insist on his or her removal.
The Government realised that the regulation and inspection of social care provision needed to improve. As a result, the CQC has introduced a new system of inspection of social care providers, backed by new fundamental standards of care. This new system of inspection is based on five important questions that matter most to people: whether services are safe, caring, effective, well-led and responsive to their needs. CQC inspections now result in a provider being rated on a four-point scale - ‘outstanding’, ‘good’, ‘requires improvement’ and ‘inadequate’, for each of the five domains that it inspects. This results in clear, straightforward information that commissioners of services and the public can understand.
The new inspections are carried out by expert inspection teams, which include people who have personal experience of care. The CQC piloted the new approach from April 2014 and began to inspect and rate all providers against the new standards in October.
Under the Care Act, local authorities will have a new market shaping duty, meaning that they should work with local people and communities and engage with their local care providers to facilitate a diverse supply of high quality services.
The Care Act reforms should increase transparency and support more effective competition in local care markets. This will help providers of high quality care to attract more people and to grow and diversify their share in the market.
We have just issued statutory guidance to local authorities about their new market shaping duties. Together with Association of Directors of Adult Social Services and the Local Government Association, we are developing a series of commissioning standards to improve local authority commissioning practices and encourage more flexibility, allowing providers to engage with them in new ways. We are keen to move commissioning from a “time and task” based to an outcomes-driven activity.
Employers are responsible for ensuring that any potential employee has the required level of communication skills for their role. It is essential that a workers’ command of English should be considered as part of the recruitment process. Under CQC’s current approach to inspection and regulation, it is stipulated that workers in adult social care should be able to communicate effectively with people who use services and other staff and to ensure that care, treatment and support of service users is not compromised. This applies to all workers, whatever their background or nationality.