Asked by: Paul Uppal (Conservative - Wolverhampton South West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will take steps to ensure that funding is available for schools to enable them to maintain the variety of A-levels they offer.
Answered by David Laws
For the academic year 2015/16, the Department for Education has maintained the base rate of funding for 16- to 19-year-olds in schools and colleges at £4,000 for full-time 16- and 17-year-olds, and £3,300 for 18-year-olds. This is sufficient to fund a study programme of 600 hours, which is enough for students to take three A levels and one AS level, plus around 150 hours of enrichment or tutorial activity across each two-year course. It is for schools to determine what they offer their students, taking into account the needs and aspirations of their students as well as the overall budget available to the school.
Asked by: Paul Uppal (Conservative - Wolverhampton South West)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure that funding is available to schools to enable pupils to continue at A-level subjects they took at GCSE.
Answered by David Laws
Funding for 16- to 19-year-olds is sufficient for students to take three A levels and one AS level, plus around 150 hours of enrichment or tutorial activity across each two-year course. It is up to individuals to choose which subjects they wish to take at A level and not all students will choose to continue to study the same subjects they took at GCSE. It is for schools to determine what they offer their students, taking into account the needs and aspirations of their students as well as the overall budget available to the school.
Asked by: Paul Uppal (Conservative - Wolverhampton South West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment he has made of trends in youth unemployment.
Answered by Esther McVey
Youth unemployment has fallen 175,000 since 2010, and the youth claimant count is the lowest since the 1970s.
In Wolverhampton South West, the youth claimant count has nearly halved since 2010 – falling by over 400.
Asked by: Paul Uppal (Conservative - Wolverhampton South West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how the findings of the friends and family test are being used to improve patient safety in the NHS.
Answered by Dan Poulter
The Friends and Family Test (FFT) was implemented as a mechanism to provide near real-time feedback to identify both good and poor quality patient experience. Whilst the FFT aims to capture overall patient experience, part of the experience that patients may choose to comment on is whether they felt their care was safe. This information can then be used by providers to consider what they do well and make improvements where feedback is less positive. Commissioners and regulators monitor the results of the FFT and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) uses the data - together with other data such as mortality rates and ‘never events’ - as part of its new ‘Hospital Intelligence Monitoring’. The monitoring service gives the CQC an understanding of areas of care that need to be further investigated by inspectors:
http://www.cqc.org.uk/public/hospital-intelligent-monitoring
In April 2014, the Staff FFT was introduced to allow staff feedback on NHS Services based on recent experience. The Staff FFT asks staff to rate and comment on where they work as a place to work and as a place of care. This information can then be used by employers to consider what they do well and make improvements where feedback is less positive.
Commissioners and regulators also monitor the results of the Staff FFT, and the CQC uses this data as part of their Intelligent Monitoring system. The response to this question is also displayed as a key patient safety indicator on NHS Choices:
http://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/thenhs/patient-safety/Pages/patient-safety-indicators.aspx
In addition, hospital boards and other providers and commissioners of services can consider the results of the FFT to consider the implications for quality and safety. A NHS England review of the FFT found that it is performing well as a service improvement tool, with 85% of trusts reporting that it is being used to improve patient experience, and 78% saying that FFT has increased the emphasis placed on patient experience in their trusts.
Asked by: Paul Uppal (Conservative - Wolverhampton South West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what progress he has made on implementing the recommendations of the Berwick report into Improving the Safety of Patients in England, published in August 2013.
Answered by Dan Poulter
The Government has put in place a number of measures to support National Health Service orgnisations to respond positively to the Berwick Report ‘Improving the Safety of Patients in England’’ including greater transparency, openness and candour; ensuring safe staffing levels; creating a culture of learning and development with the establishment of 15 Patient Safety Collaboratives; and making patient safety a primary goal with a new ambition to halve avoidable harm and save 6,000 lives over the next three years, underpinned by the Sign up to Safety campaign.
Asked by: Paul Uppal (Conservative - Wolverhampton South West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the rates of (a) pulmonary embolism, (b) blood-stream infection and (c) foreign body left in after procedure has been in England in each year since 2000.
Answered by Dan Poulter
The Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) has provided data on (a) a count of finished admission episodes (FAEs) where there was a primary diagnosis of pulmonary embolism and the number of FAEs as a rate per 100,000 of the total number of FAEs and (b) a count of finished consultant episodes (FCEs) with a primary or secondary diagnosis of pulmonary embolism and the number of FCEs as a rate per 100,000 of the total number FCEs, for the years 2000-01 to 2012-13.
This is summarised in the following table:
Year | FAEs with primary diagnosis of "pulmonary embolism" | Rate per 100,000 of total FAEs | FCEs with primary or secondary diagnosis of "pulmonary embolism" | Rate per 100,000 of total FCEs |
2000-01 | 15,179 | 136.5 | 32,937 | 268.6 |
2001-02 | 14,735 | 133.0 | 33,537 | 271.8 |
2002-03 | 15,536 | 136.6 | 37,093 | 291.8 |
2003-04 | 16,095 | 136.3 | 39,196 | 294.8 |
2004-05 | 15,621 | 129.1 | 40,059 | 292.3 |
2005-06 | 16,347 | 128.9 | 43,360 | 300.6 |
2006-07 | 16,629 | 128.1 | 46,685 | 315.8 |
2007-08 | 16,948 | 125.7 | 49,114 | 319.8 |
2008-09 | 18,214 | 128.7 | 56,029 | 345.2 |
2009-10 | 19,763 | 135.9 | 62,367 | 371.1 |
2010-11 | 20,908 | 140.4 | 67,477 | 390.7 |
2011-12 | 21,525 | 143.3 | 70,466 | 403.5 |
2012-13 | 23,578 | 155.7 | 79,058 | 446.3 |
Public Health England (PHE) collects data on blood stream infections caused by bacteria (bacteraemia) relating to specific organisms as part of its mandatory Healthcare Associated Infection surveillance programmes.
Microbiology laboratories in England, Wales and Northern Ireland also voluntarily submit data to PHE relating to episodes of bacteraemia and blood stream infections caused by fungi (fungaemia).
The data summarised in Tables 1-3, taken from PHE’s mandatory surveillance programmes, represent bacteraemia cases reported in England resulting from: Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA); Methicillin-susceptible Staphylococcus aureus (MSSA) and E.coli where comparable data is available. Rates of all reported cases per 100,000 population are included, where available.
Table 1a: All reported cases of MRSA bacteraemia (April 2007-March 2014)
| |||||||
Financial year | April 2007 to March 2008 | April 2008 to March 2009 | April 2009 to March 2010 | April 2010 to March 2011 | April 2011 to March 2012 | April 2012 to March 2013 | April 2013 to March 2014 |
Count | 4,451 | 2,935 | 1,898 | 1,481 | 1,116 | 924 | 862 |
Rate per 100,000 population |
|
| 3.6 | 2.8 | 2.1 | 1.7 | 1.6 |
Note: Data is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/mrsa-bacteraemia-annual-data
Table 2: All reported cases of MSSA bacteraemia (April 2011 - March 2014)
| |||
Financial year | April 2011 to March 2012 | April 2012 to March 2013 | April 2013 to March 2014 |
Count | 8,767 | 8,812 | 9,290 |
Rate per 100,000 population | 16.5 | 16.5 | 17.4 |
Note: Data is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/mssa-bacteraemia-annual-data
Table 3: All reported cases of E. coli bacteraemia (April 2012-March 2014)
| ||
Financial year | April 2012 to March 2013 | April 2013 to March 2014 |
Count | 32,309 | 34,275 |
Rate per 100,000 population | 60.4 | 64.1 |
Note: Data is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/escherichia-coli-e-coli-bacteraemia-annual-data
The data summarised in Table 4, taken from PHE’s voluntary surveillance database, represents all voluntarily reported patient episodes involving either bacteraemia and/or fungaemia for the period of January 2008 to December 2012 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Table 4: Patient episodes involving either bacteraemia and/or fungaemia 2008-2012, England, Wales and Northern Ireland
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Calendar Year | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 |
Count | 95,931 | 94,190 | 92,867 | 94,166 | 95,647 |
Note: Data extracted from the Public Health England (PHE) voluntary surveillance database, LabBase2, on 3 December 2013.
Before 2009, information was not collated on foreign bodies retained after procedures (which is classed as a ‘never event’) and so we are unable to provide data for the period prior to 2009.
In 2009-10, there were nine retained foreign objects post procedure reported during this period.
In 2010-11, there were 67 retained foreign object never events reported to Strategic Executive Information System (STEIS) and 22 reported to the National Reporting and Learning Service (NRLS).
In 2011-12, there were 161 retained foreign object never events reported to STEIS and 86 reported to the NRLS in 2011-12.
In 2012-13, there were 130 retained foreign object never events reported to STEIS and 124 reported to the NRLS in 2012-13 (please note incidents are potentially reported to both systems but the exact degree of overlap of reported incidents during the period 2010-11 and 2011-12 is unclear).
Since April 2013 reports made to the NRLS and STEIS have been directly reconciled to provide a single total and provisional data published by NHS England shows 123 retained object never events were reported in 2013-14 and 44 in the six months to September 2014:
http://www.england.nhs.uk/ourwork/patientsafety/never-events/ne-data/
Methods for identifying and collating the data from two systems (NRLS and STEIS) have changed over the years, with specific reporting fields for Never events replacing keyword searches, and year-end attempts to reconcile events reported in both systems replaced with direct communication as and when incidents were reported. This is a further reason why events from the earlier years are not directly comparable. The numbers of Never Events reported for 2010-11 and 2011-12 were reported in Annex A of the ‘The never events policy framework: An update to the never events policy’
It should be noted that the updated policy expanded the list of never events from 8 to 25 in 2012 and the detail of definitions of retained foreign objects was also clarified in The never events list; 2013/14 update:
http://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/nev-ev-list-1314-clar.pdf.
Note numbers in different years are not directly comparable due to these definitional changes.
Asked by: Paul Uppal (Conservative - Wolverhampton South West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many hospitals have been rated poor with regards to open and honest reporting of patient safety incidents in each month since May 2010.
Answered by Dan Poulter
As at 28 November 2014, 91 trusts were recorded as poor (red) against the open and honest reporting indicator. Data prior to June 2014 is not available in this form.
Asked by: Paul Uppal (Conservative - Wolverhampton South West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many patient safety incidents have been reported to the National Reporting and Learning System in each month since May 2010.
Answered by Dan Poulter
We do not hold information on the number of patient safety incidents that have occurred in England in each year since 2000. Patient Safety Incidents occurring in the National Health Service are reported to the National Reporting and Learning System (NRLS) whose primary purpose is to enable learning from patient safety incidents. The NRLS was established in late 2003 as a largely voluntary scheme for reporting patient safety incidents, and therefore it does not provide the definitive number of patient safety incidents occurring in the NHS. However, from 1 April 2010 it became mandatory for all providers registered with the Care Quality Commission (including all NHS trusts and foundation trusts) in England to report all serious patient safety incidents to the Care Quality Commission. To avoid duplication of reporting, providers of NHS services are encouraged to report all incidents resulting in death or severe harm to the NRLS which then reports them to the Care Quality Commission.
At present, more than 100,000 patient safety incidents (including those resulting in no harm) are reported to the NRLS each month. However, these data are collated on a quarterly, rather than monthly basis. Detailed breakdowns on incidents reported are published twice-yearly and can be accessed via the following link:
http://www.nrls.npsa.nhs.uk/resources/collections/quarterly-data-summaries/
The most recent spreadsheet providing quarterly data for the number of patient safety incidents reported to the NRLS from October 2003 to June 2014 is attached.
The NRLS is a dynamic reporting system, and the number of incidents recorded as occurring at any point in time may increase as a greater proportion of incidents are reported. Experience in other industries has shown that as an organisation’s reporting culture matures, staff become more likely to report incidents.
Asked by: Paul Uppal (Conservative - Wolverhampton South West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many patient safety alerts have occurred in each month since May 2010.
Answered by Dan Poulter
Patient safety alerts are a crucial part of NHS England’s work to alert the healthcare system rapidly to risks and provide guidance on preventing potential incidents that may lead to harm or death. They are publications providing urgent information to healthcare providers via the Central Alerting System. Prior to the establishment of NHS England, patient safety alerts were issued by the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA).
We do not record the number of patient safety alerts issued by month; however, a list of alerts with their issue dates for the period 2013-2014 is attached.
A full list of alerts issued by NPSA from 2002-2012 can be viewed at:
http://www.nrls.npsa.nhs.uk/alerts/
Asked by: Paul Uppal (Conservative - Wolverhampton South West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent assessment he has made of the uptake of the Sign up to Safety campaign in each (a) region and (b) clinical commissioning group area.
Answered by Dan Poulter
As at the end of October 2014, a total number of 136 organisations have agreed to participate in the Sign up to Safety campaign. A breakdown by Academic Health Science Network (AHSN) is as follows:
By AHSN region | |
Yorkshire and Humber | 9 |
West of England | 7 |
West Midlands | 8 |
Wessex | 4 |
London | 24 |
South West Peninsula | 5 |
Oxford | 4 |
North West Coast | 15 |
North East and North Cumbria | 8 |
Kent, Surrey and Sussex | 13 |
Greater Manchester | 9 |
Eastern | 11 |
East Midlands | 16 |
Other | 3 |
136 |
The information has not been split by clinical commissioning group. However 16 clinical commissioning groups have signed up to the campaign to date.