Asked by: Tom Clarke (Labour - Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether it is his policy that local authorities should be required to provide appropriate support where it is identified through an official safeguarding inquiry that further support is needed to protect a person from the risk of abuse or neglect.
Answered by Norman Lamb
The Care Act 2014 clarifies and strengthens the processes to support adults who are at risk from abuse or neglect in the following ways:
- Where local authorities have reasonable cause to expect a person is at risk of abuse or neglect they must carry out a safeguarding enquiry, consider what if any actions are needed, and who should carry these out. This makes clear that there is no eligibility threshold and allows authorities flexibility to respond to a safeguarding issue appropriately, which may be through the authority or one of its partners such as the police.
- The statutory Care Act guidance clarifies that where a local authority has started a safeguarding enquiry but identifies a potential need for a care and support service, it should continue the needs assessment for care and support in parallel, and determine whether the person has eligible needs which it must meet. The eligibility criteria is based upon whether the person’s needs have a significant impact on their wellbeing, which includes abuse and neglect. While the authority is likely to have already identified any safeguarding issues earlier and made an enquiry, it would still consider these at the eligibility determination as it would clearly impact on the person’s wellbeing.
- The care and support system should support the above by having a comprehensive preventative strategy that promotes wellbeing and independence, and one that does not wait to respond when people reach a crisis point.
Asked by: Tom Clarke (Labour - Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to the Supreme Court decision on the Abortion Act 1967 in relation to staff of NHS Greater Glasgow and North Clyde in December 2014, if he will take steps to protect individual rights of conscience for administrative personnel in the NHS and ensure that the decisions of those who do not wish to be involved in any aspect of abortion procedures are respected; and if he will bring forward legislative proposals to clarify the legal rights of healthcare workers across the UK in relation to this issue.
Answered by Jane Ellison
The recent Supreme Court decision upholds the long standing interpretation of Section 4 of the Abortion Act that the right to object to participate in abortion treatment is limited to those staff who actually take part in treatment administered in a hospital or other approved place.
Asked by: Tom Clarke (Labour - Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many NHS Foundation Trusts have self-certified to Monitor in their quarterly return for January to March 2014 that they are not compliant with the criteria in the Monitor risk assessment framework, relating to meeting health needs of people with a learning disability.
Answered by Jane Ellison
No NHS foundation trusts self-certified to Monitor in their quarterly return for January to March 2014 that they were not compliant with the criteria in the Monitor risk assessment framework, relating to meeting health needs of people with a learning disability.
Asked by: Tom Clarke (Labour - Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to the contribution by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health of 7 November 2014, Official Report, column 1118, what the evidential basis is for the statement that the Off-patent Drugs Bill will impede the uptake of innovative medicines by making doctors feel that they should not use medicines except for their licensed indications.
Answered by George Freeman
Under current arrangements clinicians can prescribe for their patients the medicine which best meets their clinical needs, including medicines outside their licensed indications. The Bill proposes changes to these arrangements by introducing, for the first time, a duty to apply for a licence when a new indication for an off-patent drug becomes apparent. We are concerned this will carry a message that off-label prescribing is not allowed without a licence and thus end the current flexibility that allows clinicians to make their patients’ needs their first concern.
Asked by: Tom Clarke (Labour - Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what medical research charities he has met to discuss the Off-patent Drugs Bill.
Answered by George Freeman
We will be discussing a number of issues the Bill raises at a roundtable stakeholder event in the new year and which will include a number of representatives from medical research charities.
Asked by: Tom Clarke (Labour - Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he plans to take to ensure the routine availability of raloxifene to reduce the risk of breast cancer developing in high-risk women.
Answered by George Freeman
I refer the hon. Member to the Answer I gave the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) on 19 November 2014 to Question 213936.
Asked by: Tom Clarke (Labour - Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department plans to take to use the Care Act 2014 to promote the provision of low-level support to people with autism.
Answered by Norman Lamb
The Care Act will be implemented from April 2015.
A period of consultation is underway until 19 December on revised statutory guidance for local authorities and the NHS to implement Think Autism, the 2014 update to the 2010 Adult Autism Strategy. This includes coverage of preventing, delaying or reducing the care needs of adults with autism or their carers by providing low level preventative support and enabling people with autism to be connected with peers and with local community groups in line with the duties of the Care Act. The statutory guidance when it is issued in February 2015 will complement the existing Care Act guidance on prevention.
Asked by: Tom Clarke (Labour - Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many deaths of people with a learning disability there have been in (a) assessment and treatment units and (b) other inpatient units in the last five years.
Answered by Norman Lamb
Information about deaths of people with a learning disability in assessment and treatment units is not collected centrally by the Department, NHS England or the Care Quality Commission.
The Health and Social Care Information Centre collects hospital episode statistics data. These data identify the number of hospital episodes where a patient had a primary or secondary diagnosis of a learning disability where the patient died.
From 2008-09 to 2012-2013 there were a total of 817 deaths for admitted patients at all hospitals in England. This number includes all deaths from all causes while a hospital patient.
The breakdown for each of the last five years is in the following table.
Year | Number of deaths |
2008-09 | 123 |
2009-10 | 168 |
2010-11 | 162 |
2011-12 | 172 |
2012-13 | 192 |
Total | 817 |
Source: Hospital Episode Statistics, Health and Social Care Information Centre
These data are not available by individual departments or units within hospitals. They also do not represent the deaths of people with learning disabilities where learning disability is not recorded as a primary or secondary diagnosis.
NHS England is setting up a National Learning Disability Mortality Review to better understand what causes people who have a learning disability to die, on average, at a younger age than other people; and to learn from what has happened to ensure that NHS services improve the way they care for people with a learning disability.
Asked by: Tom Clarke (Labour - Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what proportion of the £2.7 million announced for learning disability in the recently published NHS England business plan for 2014-15 will be spent on the proposed premature mortality review function.
Answered by Norman Lamb
NHS England has made £1.5 million available in 2014-15 to undertake the work required to establish a national learning disability mortality review function by the end of March 2015. NHS England is currently undertaking work to define the detail of how the review function will operate. However, NHS England is clear that the starting point will be the proposals put forward by the Confidential Inquiry into Premature Deaths of People with Learning Disabilities team and will aim to develop proposals with input from a range of partners.
Asked by: Tom Clarke (Labour - Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, when he expects the premature mortality review function for people with a learning disability, announced in the NHS England business plan 2014-15, to become fully operational; whether the data from that review will be analysed at a national level; and when he expects initial findings from that review to become available.
Answered by Norman Lamb
NHS England has made £1.5 million available in 2014-15 to undertake the work required to establish a national learning disability mortality review function by the end of March 2015. NHS England is currently undertaking work to define the detail of how the review function will operate. However, NHS England is clear that the starting point will be the proposals put forward by the Confidential Inquiry into Premature Deaths of People with Learning Disabilities team and will aim to develop proposals with input from a range of partners.