Asked by: Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat - Honiton and Sidmouth)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate her Department has made of the number of people affected by a shortage of insulin.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
We are aware of a supply disruption affecting Tresiba (Insulin degludec) FlexTouch 100 units per millilitre solution for injection three millilitre pre-filled pens. While we do not hold information on number of people affected by this issue, we have worked with industry to identify suitable alternatives and can confirm that Tresiba Penfill cartridges are available and can fully support the increase in demand.
A National Patient Safety Alert was issued for Tresiba Flextouch pens on Friday 8 December 2023, providing updates to the National Health Service about the supply issue and providing advice for healthcare professionals on how to manage patients during the supply disruption. Any patient who is concerned should speak to their clinician.
There is a team within the Department that deals specifically with medicine supply problems. It has well-established tools and processes to manage medicine supply issues, working closely with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the pharmaceutical industry, NHS England and others operating in the supply chain to help prevent shortages and expedite resupply as soon as possible to ensure that the risks to patients are minimised. Information on the number of people affected by the supply issue is not held.
Asked by: Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat - Honiton and Sidmouth)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to the recent negotiations in the United States Congress on the allocation of funding for military support for Ukraine, whether he has had recent discussions with his NATO counterparts on the implications for their policies of the United States' potential decision to withdraw military support for Ukraine.
Answered by James Heappey
The Secretary of State for Defence regularly holds discussions with his NATO counterparts, including the US, on a range of issues. They will discuss NATO support to Ukraine at the upcoming NATO Defence Ministers Meeting on 15 February. The UK and US together will continue to urge our NATO allies to make the commitments that Ukraine needs to gain a vital edge on the battlefield.
Asked by: Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat - Honiton and Sidmouth)
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 with local authorities to increase levels of social care provision.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Transport
Local authorities are tasked with the duty to shape their care market and deliver a range of care and support services to meet the diverse needs of local people. To support with this, the Government has made a total of nearly £2 billion available to local authorities over two years through the Market Sustainability and Improvement Fund (MSIF) and MSIF Workforce Fund. Both are designed to support increased adult social care capacity, and support local authorities to make improvements to adult social care services.
Asked by: Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat - Honiton and Sidmouth)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will take steps to help support people to regain access to their Government Gateway accounts who do not have the necessary physical documentation.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Shadow Financial Secretary (Treasury)
Users may regain access to their Government Gateway account by following a simple online process to recover their Government Gateway user ID and, if necessary, reset their password. Access to the email account used to set up the Government Gateway account is required to complete this process, but no documentation is required.
Asked by: Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat - Honiton and Sidmouth)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what assessment she has made of the impact of the withdrawal of the Warm Homes Discount on (a) people in receipt of disability benefits and (b) other vulnerable people.
Answered by Amanda Solloway
I refer the hon. Member to the answer my noble Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Efficiency and Green Finance gave on 17 April 2023 to Question HL7050.
In addition, the Government produced impact assessments for the consultation in 2021 on expanding and reforming the Warm Home Discount scheme in England and Wales and for the publication of the Government Response in 2022, which are available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/warm-home-discount-better-targeted-support-from-2022
Asked by: Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat - Honiton and Sidmouth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average waiting time was for probate cases to be processed in (a) 2021-22, (b) 2022-23 and (c) in the latest period for which data is available.
Answered by Mike Freer
The average mean length of time taken for a grant of probate, following receipt of the documents required, is:
a) 7.3 weeks in 2021-22
b) 7.8 weeks in 2022-23
c) 12.5 weeks during July to September 2023
The majority of grants issued (digital, non-stopped) in July to September were completed within 7 weeks on average. HMCTS is focused on reducing the time for all types of applications to bring down the overall average waiting times.
Average waiting times for probate grants are routinely published on gov.uk via Family Court Statistics Quarterly and currently cover the period up to September 2023.
HMCTS are aware of the impact that timeliness has on the financial well-being of recipients and has increased staffing levels, streamlined internal processes and continued to invest in further improving the digital service.
As a result, grant output for recent months has been at record levels, with over 12,000 more grants issued than applications received during the last three months (September to November) using more recent management information published by HMCTS (which does not go through the same level of quality assurance and analysis as the Family Court Statistics Quarterly).
Asked by: Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat - Honiton and Sidmouth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will make an assessment of the impact of trends in average waiting times for processing probate applications on the financial well-being of recipients.
Answered by Mike Freer
The average mean length of time taken for a grant of probate, following receipt of the documents required, is:
a) 7.3 weeks in 2021-22
b) 7.8 weeks in 2022-23
c) 12.5 weeks during July to September 2023
The majority of grants issued (digital, non-stopped) in July to September were completed within 7 weeks on average. HMCTS is focused on reducing the time for all types of applications to bring down the overall average waiting times.
Average waiting times for probate grants are routinely published on gov.uk via Family Court Statistics Quarterly and currently cover the period up to September 2023.
HMCTS are aware of the impact that timeliness has on the financial well-being of recipients and has increased staffing levels, streamlined internal processes and continued to invest in further improving the digital service.
As a result, grant output for recent months has been at record levels, with over 12,000 more grants issued than applications received during the last three months (September to November) using more recent management information published by HMCTS (which does not go through the same level of quality assurance and analysis as the Family Court Statistics Quarterly).
Asked by: Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat - Honiton and Sidmouth)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to help ensure that health and social care staff continue to have access to free covid-19 testing.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
From 1 April 2023, the Government implemented changes to COVID-19 testing. These changes aligned COVID-19 more closely with the management of other respiratory infections. As part of this change, routine symptomatic testing of staff in high-risk settings ended. Staff testing has continued in a limited number of the most high-risk settings to protect particularly vulnerable people. This includes hospice staff with symptoms and some National Health Service staff with symptoms, working on inpatient wards with severely immunosuppressed patients. Information on testing in these settings is available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/covid-19-testing-during-periods-of-low-prevalence
Asked by: Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat - Honiton and Sidmouth)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she has made a recent assessment of the impact of covid-19 infection rates among health and social care staff on the delivery of frontline health and social care services.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
Sickness absence rates, including COVID-19 absence, among National Health Service staff are currently collected and published by NHS England. Data is published monthly in their COVID-19 data release and also weekly, for a subset of providers within the Urgent and Emergency Care Situation Reports for 2023/24. The monthly and weekly data sets, respectively, are available at the following links:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-hospital-activity/
Similarly for adult social care settings, data on staff absences due to COVID-19 related reasons are collected by the Department and published monthly, and are available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/monthly-statistics-for-adult-social-care-england
However, whilst rates are collected and monitored both centrally and locally, there has been no specific recent assessment of the impact of COVID-19 infection rates among health and social care staff on the delivery of frontline health and social care services.
Asked by: Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat - Honiton and Sidmouth)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, whether she is taking steps to provide support for for households who no longer qualify for the Warm Homes Discount due to changing eligibility criteria.
Answered by Amanda Solloway
Following public consultation in the summer of 2021, the Government expanded and reformed the Warm Home Discount in England and Wales from 2022.
We reformed the scheme to standardise the criteria, provide the majority of rebates automatically, and focus the support on households in fuel poverty. We recognise the cost-of-living challenges families are facing, which is why we are spending £104 billion supporting households with bills.