Asked by: Rehman Chishti (Conservative - Gillingham and Rainham)
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 support the new NHS England commissioning model in the provision of highly specialised mental health care focusing on complex and challenging conditions.
Answered by Gillian Keegan
All appropriate specialised mental health, learning disability and autism services, including those focusing on complex and challenging conditions, will be managed through a National Health Service-led provider collaborative by 2023/24. These collaboratives are focused on improving care pathways for people who use specialised services and provide care closer to home by investing in community alternatives. There are currently 48 active collaboratives.
This model brings together commissioning skills, experts by experience, clinical leaders and provider organisations. NHS England and NHS Improvement remain accountable for commissioning specialised services and delegate specific commissioning responsibilities to the NHS lead provider within each collaborative. Integrated care systems will now develop provider collaboratives for local mental health and learning disability and autism pathways.
Asked by: Rehman Chishti (Conservative - Gillingham and Rainham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans NHS England has to change the commissioning model for mental health services.
Answered by Gillian Keegan
All appropriate specialised mental health, learning disability and autism services, including those focusing on complex and challenging conditions, will be managed through a National Health Service-led provider collaborative by 2023/24. These collaboratives are focused on improving care pathways for people who use specialised services and provide care closer to home by investing in community alternatives. There are currently 48 active collaboratives.
This model brings together commissioning skills, experts by experience, clinical leaders and provider organisations. NHS England and NHS Improvement remain accountable for commissioning specialised services and delegate specific commissioning responsibilities to the NHS lead provider within each collaborative. Integrated care systems will now develop provider collaboratives for local mental health and learning disability and autism pathways.
Asked by: Rehman Chishti (Conservative - Gillingham and Rainham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the Integrated Commissioning for Better Outcomes framework on funding for highly specialised mental health services.
Answered by Gillian Keegan
No specific assessment has been made.
Asked by: Rehman Chishti (Conservative - Gillingham and Rainham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will provide a longer-term funding commitment for the School Games and primary PE and Sport Premium.
Answered by Will Quince
The department is considering arrangements for the primary physical education and sport premium for the 2022/23 academic year and future academic years. We will confirm our position in due course.
The government can confirm that funding for the School Games Organisers will be available for the full 2022/23 financial year. The government is considering arrangements for the School Games Organiser network beyond that point and will confirm its position as soon as possible.
Asked by: Rehman Chishti (Conservative - Gillingham and Rainham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the implications for its policies of the report by Missing People entitled, The multi-agency response for adults missing from health and care settings: A national framework for England, published in October 2020.
Answered by Gillian Keegan
Providers registered under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 must notify the Care Quality Commission (CQC) about unauthorised absences of people detained or liable to be detained under the Mental Health Act 1983 (the Act).
In addition, the Mental Health Act Code of Practice requires all hospital managers to ensure that there is a clear written policy about the action to be taken when a detained patient, or a patient on a Community Treatment Order, goes missing. All relevant staff should be familiar with this policy and hospital managers should agree their policy with other agencies – such as the police and ambulance services – as necessary.
The Code of Practice also requires that the police are informed immediately if a patient is missing who is considered to be particularly vulnerable, dangerous, and/or is subject to restrictions under Part III of the Act.
With the exception of NHS trusts, providers registered with CQC also need to inform it about police involvement. However, all providers are responsible for providing CQC with information about safeguarding incidents through its statutory notifications which could include risks to people who go missing from a service.
No formal assessment has been made of the implications of the report by Missing People.
Asked by: Rehman Chishti (Conservative - Gillingham and Rainham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what requirements his Department places on hospitals and healthcare settings in respect of (a) preventing and (b) responding to missing persons episodes.
Answered by Gillian Keegan
Providers registered under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 must notify the Care Quality Commission (CQC) about unauthorised absences of people detained or liable to be detained under the Mental Health Act 1983 (the Act).
In addition, the Mental Health Act Code of Practice requires all hospital managers to ensure that there is a clear written policy about the action to be taken when a detained patient, or a patient on a Community Treatment Order, goes missing. All relevant staff should be familiar with this policy and hospital managers should agree their policy with other agencies – such as the police and ambulance services – as necessary.
The Code of Practice also requires that the police are informed immediately if a patient is missing who is considered to be particularly vulnerable, dangerous, and/or is subject to restrictions under Part III of the Act.
With the exception of NHS trusts, providers registered with CQC also need to inform it about police involvement. However, all providers are responsible for providing CQC with information about safeguarding incidents through its statutory notifications which could include risks to people who go missing from a service.
No formal assessment has been made of the implications of the report by Missing People.
Asked by: Rehman Chishti (Conservative - Gillingham and Rainham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people have been reported missing from (a) hospitals and (b) other healthcare settings in each of the last ten years.
Answered by Gillian Keegan
The information requested is shown in the attached table.
Asked by: Rehman Chishti (Conservative - Gillingham and Rainham)
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 increase the availability of the flu vaccine by early December.
Answered by Jo Churchill
General practitioners and community pharmacists are directly responsible for ordering flu vaccine from suppliers, which are used to deliver the national flu programme to adults, with deliveries phased through the season.
NHS England and NHS Improvement are working with local areas to ensure that local providers are supported to meet increased demand for the flu vaccination this winter. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency has granted dispensation to allow the movement of vaccines locally between practices and other National Health Service provider organisations this season, to help address local shortages.
In addition, the Department has procured additional doses of adult seasonal flu vaccine to ensure more flu vaccines are available.
Asked by: Rehman Chishti (Conservative - Gillingham and Rainham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what discussions she has had with her French counterpart on the regulatory framework on the registration of small vessels and the enforcement of those regulations in the context of preventing small vessels being used in illegal Channel crossings.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
Small boats used by migrants to cross the Channel are varied in type, origin and seaworthiness. While there is attraction in any enterprise which offers to reduce the supply of craft for these dangerous, illegally-facilitated and unnecessary crossings, we are not of the view that these proposals would materially affect the threat. This is because many of these vessels are insubstantial; a good number are stolen or otherwise misappropriated from legitimate owners; and the origin of these vessels is not confined to France. Therefore, any adoption of such an increased regulatory posture is viewed as a disproportionate and less effective approach to reducing supply of boats and opportunity for crossings.
We are engaged with the French in minimising supply - and are seeing results, with crossings per calm weather day down by 60% since September 2020, thanks to law enforcement work on both sides of the Channel. We have not discussed the proposal with the French and have no plans to do so at this time but will keep it under review.
Asked by: Rehman Chishti (Conservative - Gillingham and Rainham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of increasing regulation of the registration of small vessels to help counter illegal Channel crossings.
Answered by Chris Philp - Shadow Home Secretary
Small boats used by migrants to cross the Channel are varied in type, origin and seaworthiness. While there is attraction in any enterprise which offers to reduce the supply of craft for these dangerous, illegally-facilitated and unnecessary crossings, we are not of the view that these proposals would materially affect the threat. This is because many of these vessels are insubstantial; a good number are stolen or otherwise misappropriated from legitimate owners; and the origin of these vessels is not confined to France. Therefore, any adoption of such an increased regulatory posture is viewed as a disproportionate and less effective approach to reducing supply of boats and opportunity for crossings.
We are engaged with the French in minimising supply - and are seeing results, with crossings per calm weather day down by 60% since September 2020, thanks to law enforcement work on both sides of the Channel. We have not discussed the proposal with the French and have no plans to do so at this time but will keep it under review.