Asked by: Lord Taylor of Goss Moor (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what was the average waiting time for an ambulance (1) in the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust, and (2) across all NHS trusts in England, in each year since 2000.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Ambulance response time standards were reformed following the recommendations of the Ambulance Response Programme in 2017, including the publication of average response times.
We recognise the pressures the ambulance service is facing which is why we published our Recovery Plan for Urgent and Emergency Care Services. The ambition is to deliver one of the fastest and longest sustained improvements in emergency waiting times in the National Health Service's history. We aim to reduce average Category 2 response times to 30 minutes this year with further improvements towards pre-pandemic levels next year.
Ambulance response times are recorded at an ambulance trust level. Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust is served by South West Ambulance Service. The following table shows the South West Ambulance Service average response time since the introduction of the standards in August 2017.
South West Ambulance Service average response times (hh:mm:ss)
Year | Category 1 mean | Category 2 mean | Category 3 mean | Category 4 mean |
2017/18 (August-March) | 00:09:42 | 00:33:22 | 01:15:30 | 02:00:33 |
2018/19 | 00:07:18 | 00:27:26 | 01:12:09 | 02:06:25 |
2019/20 | 00:07:03 | 00:28:38 | 01:17:17 | 01:33:56 |
2020/21 | 00:07:35 | 00:23:30 | 01:00:03 | 01:23:46 |
2021/22 | 00:10:20 | 1:01:57 | 02:44:01 | 02:53:39 |
2022/23 | 00:11:05 | 1:09:04 | 02:41:37 | 02:45:25 |
2023/24 (so far) | 00:09:27 | 00:40:40 | 01:46:15 | 02:02:26 |
The following table shows the National average ambulance response time since the introduction of the standards in August 2017.
Year | Category 1 mean | Category 2 mean | Category 3 mean | Category 4 mean |
2017/18 (August-March) | 00:08:23 | 00:25:51 | 01:04:36 | 01:30:32 |
2018/19 | 00:07:18 | 00:21:47 | 01:01:46 | 01:25:42 |
2019/20 | 00:07:18 | 00:23:50 | 01:11:04 | 01:26:09 |
2020/21 | 00:07:03 | 00:20:57 | 00:54:41 | 01:22:51 |
2021/22 | 00:08:39 | 00:41:18 | 02:13:39 | 03:07:10 |
2022/23 | 00:09:18 | 00:50:01 | 02:35:19 | 03:07:43 |
2023/24 (so far) | 00:08:25 | 00:34:25 | 01:57:07 | 02:24:33 |
Asked by: Emma Hardy (Labour - Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to her Department's press release entitled Multi-billion pound investment as government unveils new long-term plan to tackle flooding, published on 14 July 2020, how much of the up to £170 million she planned to spend to accelerate work on shovel-ready flood defence schemes that would begin construction in 2020 or 2021 (a) has been spent and (b) remains to be spend as of November 2023.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The £170m investment for work on shovel-ready schemes was commenced in 2021, as part of a package of investment measures by Government to boost the economic recovery following the covid pandemic. All 23 projects that form part of this scheme are underway and funding is being invested into these. Between 1 April 2020 and 31 March 2022 the Government invested £87m into these schemes. The data from 1 April 2022 has not been classified to the sufficient level of detail to provide a response in the time frame of a Parliamentary Question. Please write to the Environment Agency directly if you still require this information.
Further details on the current investment programme and projects completed can also be found in the Flood and coastal erosion risk management report: 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Matt Hancock (Independent - West Suffolk)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department is taking steps to increase the reach of the Nuffield Early Language Intervention programme for the purposes of supporting covid-19 education recovery.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Nuffield Early Language Intervention (NELI) programme, part of the Department’s education recovery response, has played an important role in improving children’s language and communication skills following the COVID-19 pandemic.
In September 2023, the Education Endowment Foundation published an independent evaluation of the programme’s effects in 2021/22. This demonstrated that children who received the programme made the equivalent of four months’ progress in language skills, on average, compared to children who did not receive NELI. Pupils eligible for free school meals made additional progress on average of seven months.
Since the programme was launched in 2020, just over 11,100 schools (over two thirds of all primaries) have signed up to deliver NELI. To increase the reach of the programme, the Department has confirmed it will be funding all registered schools to continue delivering the programme in the 2023/24 academic year. To promote uptake, the delivery partner will be engaging all registered schools through a mixture of regular communications, support, and targeted outreach.
Asked by: Matt Hancock (Independent - West Suffolk)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps the Government is taking to promote the uptake of the Nuffield Early Language Intervention programme by state primary schools.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Nuffield Early Language Intervention (NELI) programme, part of the Department’s education recovery response, has played an important role in improving children’s language and communication skills following the COVID-19 pandemic.
In September 2023, the Education Endowment Foundation published an independent evaluation of the programme’s effects in 2021/22. This demonstrated that children who received the programme made the equivalent of four months’ progress in language skills, on average, compared to children who did not receive NELI. Pupils eligible for free school meals made additional progress on average of seven months.
Since the programme was launched in 2020, just over 11,100 schools (over two thirds of all primaries) have signed up to deliver NELI. To increase the reach of the programme, the Department has confirmed it will be funding all registered schools to continue delivering the programme in the 2023/24 academic year. To promote uptake, the delivery partner will be engaging all registered schools through a mixture of regular communications, support, and targeted outreach.
Asked by: Matt Hancock (Independent - West Suffolk)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many schools have signed up to the Nuffield Early Language Intervention programme as of 13 October 2023.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Nuffield Early Language Intervention (NELI) programme, part of the Department’s education recovery response, has played an important role in improving children’s language and communication skills following the COVID-19 pandemic.
In September 2023, the Education Endowment Foundation published an independent evaluation of the programme’s effects in 2021/22. This demonstrated that children who received the programme made the equivalent of four months’ progress in language skills, on average, compared to children who did not receive NELI. Pupils eligible for free school meals made additional progress on average of seven months.
Since the programme was launched in 2020, just over 11,100 schools (over two thirds of all primaries) have signed up to deliver NELI. To increase the reach of the programme, the Department has confirmed it will be funding all registered schools to continue delivering the programme in the 2023/24 academic year. To promote uptake, the delivery partner will be engaging all registered schools through a mixture of regular communications, support, and targeted outreach.
Asked by: Matt Hancock (Independent - West Suffolk)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the Nuffield Early Language Intervention programme.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Nuffield Early Language Intervention (NELI) programme, part of the Department’s education recovery response, has played an important role in improving children’s language and communication skills following the COVID-19 pandemic.
In September 2023, the Education Endowment Foundation published an independent evaluation of the programme’s effects in 2021/22. This demonstrated that children who received the programme made the equivalent of four months’ progress in language skills, on average, compared to children who did not receive NELI. Pupils eligible for free school meals made additional progress on average of seven months.
Since the programme was launched in 2020, just over 11,100 schools (over two thirds of all primaries) have signed up to deliver NELI. To increase the reach of the programme, the Department has confirmed it will be funding all registered schools to continue delivering the programme in the 2023/24 academic year. To promote uptake, the delivery partner will be engaging all registered schools through a mixture of regular communications, support, and targeted outreach.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the average length of time is that it takes his Department to respond to Members’ correspondence.
Answered by Will Quince
The Department continues to treat correspondence from parliamentarians as a priority and the Cabinet Office standard for responses is 20 working days. Volumes continue to be higher than they were pre-pandemic, and we are working though detailed recovery plans to improve our response rates.
With regards to the timeliness of responses to enquiries received by members, the Cabinet Office published data on this for 2022 for all Government Departments on GOV.UK in March 2023, and will be publishing data for Q1 and Q2 2023 shortly. The 2022 data is available at the following link:
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps they are taking to reduce backlogs of Member correspondence in their office.
Answered by Will Quince
The Department continues to treat correspondence from parliamentarians as a priority and adhere to the Cabinet Office standard for responses in 20 working days. Volumes continue to be higher than they were pre-pandemic, and we are working though detailed recovery plans to improve our response rates.
With regards to timeliness of responses to enquiries received by members, the Cabinet Office published data on this for 2022 for all government departments on GOV.UK in March 2023 and will be publishing data for Q1 and Q2 2023 shortly. The 2022 data is available at the following link:
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what data their Department holds on the average response time to enquiries by Members; and what assessment they have made of the adequacy of that response time.
Answered by Will Quince
The Department continues to treat correspondence from parliamentarians as a priority and the Cabinet Office standard for responses is 20 working days. Volumes continue to be higher than they were pre-pandemic, and we are working though detailed recovery plans to improve our response rates.
With regards to the timeliness of responses to enquiries received by members, the Cabinet Office published data on this for 2022 for all Government Departments on GOV.UK in March 2023, and will be publishing data for Q1 and Q2 2023 shortly. The 2022 data is available at the following link:
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question
To ask the Leader of the House, further to the Written Answer by Lord True on 19 June (HL8246), what explanations he has had from the Department of Health and Social Care concerning the number of questions allocated to that department that remain unanswered after 10 working days.
Answered by Lord True - Leader of the House of Lords and Lord Privy Seal
As Leader of the House of Lords I have reiterated to all Front Bench Ministers the importance of adhering to the 10 day target for responses to questions for written answer. As stated in my response on 19 June (HL8246) the Department for Health and Social Care faced significant disruption to the delivery of parliamentary support due to the pressures they faced during the Covid-19 pandemic. They have since implemented a Written Parliamentary Question Recovery Plan to deal with the backlog of written questions. At the time of writing, DHSC’s PQ on-time rate for July is 89.6%, the highest percentage during a sitting month since early 2020.
The Permanent Secretary has further reassured me that they are committed to improving the process and have taken further steps to bring performance levels back to pre-pandemic levels including streamlining the drafting process. I will be looking for further improvements on their record as a result of the Department's Recovery plan. It is important that the highest standards are achieved by all Departments in replying to members of the House.