Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department plans to review current practices for commissioning of foster care services.

Answered by David Johnston

The Independent Review of Children’s Social Care and the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) recommended that the government introduces a network of Regional Care Cooperatives (RCCs) to plan, commission and deliver children’s social care placements in fostering, children’s homes and secure homes on a regional basis. The department has committed to trialling this approach with two RCC pathfinders to build an evidence base before future rollout.

The department’s long-term vision is that RCCs will help improve commissioning and sufficiency, and better enable local authorities to meet the needs of the children in their care, whilst reforming foster parent recruitment and retention.

In addition, the department is investing £36 million to deliver a fostering and retention programme so foster care is available for more children who need it. This will boost approvals of foster carers, as well as taking steps to retain existing foster carers. Darlington local authority, as part of the North East pathfinder, were one of the first local authorities to take part in this programme.

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 ensure that PrEP is available in all parts of the UK.

Answered by Andrea Leadsom

We remain committed to achieving equitable provision of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) irrespective of gender, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, geographic area of residence, or socio-economic background. The HIV Action Plan Implementation Steering Group (ISG) published a roadmap in February 2024 to help guide efforts to improve access, uptake, and use of PrEP amongst key population groups at significant risk of HIV in England. An implementation working group of key delivery partners is being set up, which will monitor progress on actions and report back to the ISG.

Devolved administrations are responsible for developing and implementing their own public health strategies. Colleagues in England meet regularly with their counterparts in the devolved administrations, to share information and best practice on our response to HIV, including provision of PrEP.

Our commitment to PrEP as part of a combination approach is emphasised by our investment in the successful rollout of PrEP across England, where PrEP is routinely available in specialist sexual health services since March 2020, and we invested more than £34 million in PrEP in 2020/21 and 2021/22. PrEP funding has now been included within the Public Health Grant (PHG) since 2022/23, and funds appointments and testing in sexual health services, whilst NHS England covers the costs of the drug itself. The PHG is funded at £3.6 billion for 2024/25.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Department is taking steps to identify people that have been diagnosed with HIV but are not accessing treatment.

Answered by Andrea Leadsom

As part of the HIV Action Plan, we are committed to ensuring adequate support for those diagnosed and living with HIV. The most recent monitoring and evaluation report of the HIV Action Plan, published by the UK Health Security Agency, shows that in 2022, 76% of adults first diagnosed with HIV in England were linked to HIV care within two weeks, 87% within one month, and 93% within three months. This is an improvement compared to 2019.

NHS England’s specification for adult HIV services states that these services must have a policy describing how they aim to ensure retention in care, and re-engage those lost to care. A subgroup, Retention and Re-engagement in Care Task and Finish Group, of the HIV Action Plan Implementation Steering Group (ISG) is providing advice on increasing the number of people retained and re-engaged in care and receiving effective medical care, which will be considered by the ISG in due course.

As part of the HIV Action Plan, the NHS England HIV opt-out testing programme in emergency departments has identified 384 people previously diagnosed with HIV but who disengaged from care in the first 21 months, providing opportunities to re-engage those individuals in care. Given its success, the Department has recently committed an additional £20 million for new research, which will involve an expansion and evaluation of the programme in 47 additional emergency departments in local areas with high HIV prevalence, across England.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she has made of the current levels of syphilis recorded; and what steps she is taking to tackle it.

Answered by Andrea Leadsom

Both gonorrhoea and syphilis have returned to, and exceeded, the high levels reported in 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Between 2021 and 2022, gonorrhoea increased in all age-groups, with the largest rise among young people aged 15 to 24 years old. Over the same period, infectious syphilis increased among gay, bisexual, or other men who have sex with men, and heterosexuals.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) conducts comprehensive surveillance of sexually transmitted infections and supports local authorities and sexual health services in using this data to inform sexual health service delivery. The UKHSA is undertaking work with partner organisations to identify the best use of existing and emerging preventative interventions, to address the increase in gonorrhoea and syphilis.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she has made of the levels of Gonorrhea recorded; and what steps she is taking to reduce it.

Answered by Andrea Leadsom

Both gonorrhoea and syphilis have returned to, and exceeded, the high levels reported in 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Between 2021 and 2022, gonorrhoea increased in all age-groups, with the largest rise among young people aged 15 to 24 years old. Over the same period, infectious syphilis increased among gay, bisexual, or other men who have sex with men, and heterosexuals.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) conducts comprehensive surveillance of sexually transmitted infections and supports local authorities and sexual health services in using this data to inform sexual health service delivery. The UKHSA is undertaking work with partner organisations to identify the best use of existing and emerging preventative interventions, to address the increase in gonorrhoea and syphilis.

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 collect data on people admitted to hospital for palliative care in order to understand the (a) demand and (b) needs for palliative care.

Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions

NHS England collects data on the number of people admitted to hospital with a palliative care diagnosis. However, this does not clearly indicate the reason for admission. The following table shows the numbers of patients identified as being admitted to hospital and having a palliative care diagnosis, for each of the past five years:

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when she plans to extend the opt-out HIV testing programme.

Answered by Andrea Leadsom

As part of the HIV Action Plan, NHS England made an initial £20 million available over three years up to 2025 for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) opt-out testing in 34 emergency departments in areas with extremely high HIV prevalence, with five or more HIV cases per 1,000 residents aged 15 to 59 years old. This includes Blackpool at 4.9 HIV cases in 2019, and the whole of London, including some local areas with high HIV prevalence, specifically with two to five HIV cases per 1,000 residents aged 15 to 59 years old, with additional funding from NHS London.

The programme shows extremely encouraging outcomes and in the first two years, it has preliminarily delivered nearly 1.9 million HIV tests, and helped find more than 1,000 people with undiagnosed or untreated HIV.

In November 2023, the Department announced a new research project to evaluate an expansion of HIV opt-out testing in emergency departments in England. Backed by a further £20 million of funding from the National Institute for Health and Care Research, the research project will evaluate the testing programme in 47 new sites across England, where HIV prevalence is high. The research project is currently in its set-up phase and will run until the end of 2025/26, with sites receiving twelve months of funding for testing.

Decisions on whether to continue offering opt-out HIV testing in emergency departments in local areas with extremely high and high HIV prevalence will be based on outcomes of the current opt-out HIV testing programme and research project, as well as available funding.

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what progress the Government Property Agency has made on the erection of hoarding for the Brunswick site of the Darlington economic campus.

Answered by Alex Burghart - Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster

Like my Honourable Friend I am very keen to see the hoarding at the Brunswick site erected as soon as possible.

We have recently appointed Kier for precontract (design) services.

One of the first tasks they will undertake is the completion of the hoarding design.

We aim to have the hoarding proposals in place so that we may commence installation as soon as planning permission is granted.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what support his Department provides for (a) injured and (b) disabled police officers.

Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary

The wellbeing of our police is a priority for this Government, and we want to ensure that all officers have the appropriate support in place to thrive in their careers and continue to serve the public.

Through the Police Covenant, we have appointed the first Chief Medical Officer for policing who is developing a national health strategy for all staff and officers. We have also improved occupational health standards across all forces, introduced pre-deployment mental health training and continue to fund the National Police Wellbeing Service. The Service provides evidence-based guidance, advice, tools and resources to support forces and individual officers.

The Government also continues to work with the College of Policing, National Police Chiefs’ Council and senior leaders to ensure the right support is in place for officers with additional needs, disabilities or other health conditions by effectively adopting flexible work practices and workplace adjustments. The College of Policing has already provided specific support for line managers when considering reasonable adjustments, including a toolkit for forces to support the development of flexible and/or part-time working pathways, a Workplace Adjustment Toolkit and a disability passport.

Where an officer is assessed as permanently medically unfit and leaves the service, there are a range of benefits that may be payable under the occupational pension and injury benefit schemes, depending on the particular circumstances.

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