Asked by: Tom Hunt (Conservative - Ipswich)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent comparative assessment his Department has made of the equity of statutory income allocation for children's and adult’s hospice provision; and whether it is his policy that children's hospice funding should be equitable to funding for adult hospices.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
Clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) are responsible for commissioning local services. NHS England and NHS Improvement expect CCGs to ensure that the provision of palliative and end of life care (PEoLC) services, including children’s and adult’s hospice provision, effectively meets the needs of the local population and ensures high quality personalised care.
NHS England is increasing its contribution to children’s PEoLC by match-funding CCGs which commit to increase their investment in local children’s PEoLC services, including hospices. This will increase support from £11 million to £25 million a year by 2023/24. In addition, over £400 million has been made available to adult and children’s hospices since the start of the pandemic to increase National Health Service capacity. NHS England and NHS Improvement are reviewing current models of care, commissioning pathways and financial formulas to ensure the sector support children, young people, their families and loved ones.
Asked by: Tom Hunt (Conservative - Ipswich)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to support the retention of care worker staff in (a) general and (b) trusts in which a high proportion of the workforce have left over the last 12 months.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
In September 2021, we announced an investment of at least £500 million for the adult social care workforce across three years to deliver new qualifications, progression pathways and wellbeing and mental health support. This will enable a five-fold increase in public spending on the skills, training and wellbeing of care workers, registered managers and others, with the aim of improving retention in the sector. Through the NHS People Plan we are also investing in staff wellbeing, flexible working and other retention initiatives.
To address staffing challenges this winter, on 21 October we announced a new £162.5 million Workforce Recruitment and Retention Fund for local authorities to manage workforce supply in their local areas.
Asked by: Tom Hunt (Conservative - Ipswich)
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 impact of the relative timings of lifting covid-19 restrictions for mixed-household socialising in (a) pubs and hospitality settings and (b) homes on the mental wellbeing of (i) people with autism and (ii) other vulnerable people who may find pubs and hospitality settings inaccessible environments.
Answered by Maggie Throup
We have made no specific assessment.
Throughout the pandemic, we have engaged with stakeholders to understand how the changes to COVID-19 policy and guidance impact people with autism.