Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of the prevalence of mental health first aid in (a) the community and (b) the NHS workforce.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
No specific assessment has been made.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment of the outcomes for people discharged from mental health wards.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
No specific assessment has been made. We are working with the National Health Service to improve inpatient mental health care and subsequent patient outcomes. The NHS Long Term Plan commits to expanding and transforming NHS mental health services by March 2024, including those provided in an inpatient setting.
Where the quality or safety of inpatient care falls short, it is important that we learn from any mistakes to improve care across the NHS and protect patients in the future. This is why we have conducted a rapid review into mental health inpatient settings, with a specific focus on how we use data and evidence, including complaints, feedback and whistleblowing alerts, to identify risks to safety and bring about improvements to outcome-based, therapeutic care. The review’s report is expected to be published shortly.
NHS England has also established a three-year quality transformation programme, which seeks to tackle the root causes of unsafe, poor-quality inpatient care in mental health, learning disability and autism settings.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress his Department has made on implementing the Building the Right Support Action Plan.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
Significant progress has been made in implementing the Building the Right Support (BtRS) Action Plan. Since its publication in July 2022, the majority of the commitments due to complete to date, 19 of 22, have now been delivered and there are mitigations in place for those that have not.
For commitments with upcoming completion dates, the majority are on track to be delivered as expected. Mitigations are in place for the small number of commitments that are currently off track to be delivered by their expected completion date.
The BtRS Delivery Board, which is responsible for overseeing implementation of the BtRS Action Plan, regularly reviews progress on these commitments and takes collective action where a commitment is identified as being off track.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of (a) stillbirth and (b) neonatal death rates in (i) Feltham and Heston constituency, (ii) the London Borough of Hounslow, (iii) the area covered by the NHS NW London Integrated Care Board and (iv) Greater London.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The published data from the North West London Integrated Care Board is available at the following link:
https://timms.le.ac.uk/mbrrace-uk-perinatal-mortality/
The Government’s maternity safety ambition is to halve the 2010 rates of stillbirths, neonatal and maternal deaths and brain injuries that occur during or soon after birth and to reduce the preterm birth rate from 8% to 6% by 2025.
The Government has multiple approaches to improving maternity safety inducing clinical improvements like the expanded Saving Babies Lives Care Bundle, as well as improving learning through the maternity investigation programme which currently sits in the Healthcare Safety Investigations Branch.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 26 April 2023 to Question 181658 on Home Care Services: Pay, whether his Department plans to introduce an action plan on enforcement of the National Minimum Wage for the home care workforce.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
HM Revenue and Customs enforces the National Minimum and Living Wage (NMW) in line with the law and policy set out by the Department for Business and Trade. All businesses, irrespective of their size or business sector, are responsible for paying the correct National Living Wage (NLW) and NMW to their staff.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the impact of paying home care workers by the minute on workforce retention and staff morale.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We have no current plans to make a specific assessment.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to paragraph 205 of the third report of the Health and Social Care Committee entitled Workforce: recruitment, training and retention in health and social care, published on 25 July 2022, HC 115, what progress he has made on ensuring that the home care workforce receives at least minimum wage including travel time.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
All businesses, irrespective of their size or business sector, are responsible for paying the correct National Living Wage and National Minimum Wage to their staff.
If any care worker is concerned that they are being underpaid, including because of unpaid travel time, we strongly urge them to call the Acas helpline for free, impartial and confidential advice about their rights and entitlements. Acas officers will pass on cases to HM Revenue and Customs for further consideration where appropriate. Workers can also contact HM Revenue and Customs directly using the online form.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the impact of paying home care workers by the minute on the quality of care provided by that workforce.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We have no current plans to make a specific assessment.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
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 average wait time for a 111 call in each of the last 12 months.
Answered by Will Quince
Average NHS 111 call answer times in England in the last 12 months are displayed in the table below.
Month | Average time to answer NHS 111 call (seconds) |
Feb-22 | 267 |
Mar-22 | 396 |
Apr-22 | 368 |
May-22 | 226 |
Jun-22 | 380 |
Jul-22 | 394 |
Aug-22 | 411 |
Sep-22 | 195 |
Oct-22 | 366 |
Nov-22 | 388 |
Dec-22 | 1496 |
Jan-23 | 286 |
Source: NHS England Integrated Urgent Care Aggregate Data Collection
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an assessment of the impact of the Eat Out to Help Out scheme on covid-19 transmission rates.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
No specific assessment has been made.