Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)
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 potential merits of providing monoclonal antibodies to prevent covid-19 in adults and children over 12 who have primary and secondary antibody deficiency and who may not produce an adequate response to covid vaccines or for those in whom vaccination is not recommended.
Answered by Maggie Throup
The RAPID C-19 collaboration reviews all promising compounds to assess whether these should be considered for potential use in the National Health Service. Currently, the evidence has most strongly supported treatment rather than prophylaxis. The evidence around preventative use will continue to be reviewed for efficacy and safety.
The Department commissioned an independent expert group to determine a list of clinically eligible patient cohorts most likely to progress towards developing severe COVID-19. These cohorts form part of an evidence based clinical policy for the treatment of COVID-19, agreed by the United Kingdom Chief Medical Officers. The treatments available include the monoclonal antibody therapy sotrovimab, as well as antiviral treatments.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to help people made redundant during the Covid-19 outbreak return to work.
Answered by Mims Davies - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department for Work and Pensions stands ready to support anyone affected by redundancy, with our Rapid Response Service (RRS) offer. This is a service designed to give support and advice to employers and their employees when faced with redundancy.
This service is co-ordinated nationally by the National Employer and Partnership Team (NEPT) and is managed by Jobcentre Plus. Delivery partners include The National Careers Service, local training providers, Money Advice Service and the skills bodies in England. These services are offered by equivalents in the devolved administrations. In Scotland this is delivered by PACE on behalf of the Scottish Government and in Wales by REACT. Redundancy support in Northern
Ireland is devolved with separate funding and delivery arrangements.
The RRS offer has been developed so it can be delivered in a variety of formats including digital and face to face depending on employers and employees requirements.
The range of support available from JCP and partners may include:
Asked by: Philip Davies (Conservative - Shipley)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure that companies issuing their own securities on blockchain are not all considered crypto asset service providers.
Answered by John Glen - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
Certain cryptoassets, offering new ways to transact and invest, are part of a trend of rapid innovation in financial technology. However, these developments also present new challenges and risks – including risks to consumers and to financial system. HM Treasury engages regularly with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) on opportunities, risks and regulatory issues posed by cryptoassets.
The Government established a Cryptoassets Taskforce in 2018, consisting of HM Treasury, the Bank of England and the FCA. The Cryptoasset Taskforce is responsible for assessing developments in the cryptoasset market, and deciding what, if any, regulation is required in response. HM Treasury and UK authorities, including the FCA, have taken a series of actions to support innovation while mitigating risks to stability, market integrity, and consumers. These include launching a new anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing regime for cryptoassets in 2020, overseen by the FCA; confirming an intention to legislate to regulate cryptoasset promotions, ensuring they are fair, clear and not misleading, the rules for which will be set by the FCA; and consulting on a proposal to ensure cryptoassets known as ‘stablecoins’ meet the same high standards expected of other payment methods. The Government will issue a response to this consultation shortly.
The Government has adopted a staged and proportionate approach to cryptoassets regulation, which is sensitive to risks posed, and responsive to new developments in the market. The Government is carefully considering what, if any, regulation might need to follow as the cryptoasset market grows and evolves in the UK.
The use of tokens to facilitate securities transactions is an important development for the financial sector. The representation of traditional securities, such as equities or debt, on a distributed ledger (the ‘tokenisation’ of assets) could have substantial implications for the way assets are traded or capital is raised. A firm or sole practitioner that issues securities on the blockchain will fall within scope of the Money Laundering Regulations (MLRs) if it provides the services of a cryptoasset exchange provider “by way of business”. To comply with the MLRs, cryptoasset firms must demonstrate systems, controls, policies and procedures adequate to deal with the particular risks of the cryptoasset market.
Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the impact on the employment rate in Newport West constituency of the Welsh-based financial services company Admiral closing its Newport office.
Answered by Mims Davies - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
No assessment has been made.
Where redundancies do occur, the Department for Work and Pensions’ Rapid Response Service (RRS) works to address the effects of job losses on individuals and on the local community. The RRS work with employers to deliver flexible, timely, and appropriate support for them and their employees and help individuals secure a job or move into self-employment quickly and ideally without the need to claim welfare benefits.
The RRS is available to private and public sector employers. Third sector employers are also eligible where the job losses affect paid workers. The RRS support can start when people are under threat of redundancy or during the period of notice.
Where individuals have not found alternative work before they lose their job, RRS support can continue for a further 13 weeks whether they make a claim for benefits or not. This is in addition to the ongoing support provided by DWP for claimants moving them forward in their journey closer to/back into employment.
DWP has provided additional support to help people into work since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, through our Plan for Jobs, including recruiting an additional 13,500 Work Coaches to provide support to unemployed people to find a job, and launching new schemes like Kickstart, Restart and Sector Work Academies Programmes.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many (a) double crewed ambulances and (b) rapid response vehicles have operated in the Yorkshire Ambulance Service in each year since 2010.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Yorkshire Ambulance Service's average response time for (a) category 1 calls, (b) category 2 calls, (c) category 3 calls and (d) category 4 calls in each year since 2010 is not available as current ambulance response time standards were introduced in 2017 by National Health Service England. Relevant data on average response times is held and published from 2017-18 onwards.
Yorkshire Ambulance Service's average response time was for (a) category 1 calls, (b) category 2 calls, (c) category 3 calls and (d) category 4 calls in each year since 2017 can be found in the table below:
Mean ambulance response time - | ||||
Category 1 | Category 2 | Category 3 | Category 4 | |
2017-18 | 00:07:48 | 00:23:57 | 00:55:04 | 01:20:41 |
2018-19 | 00:07:21 | 00:20:26 | 00:50:28 | 01:08:59 |
2019-20 | 00:07:12 | 00:20:34 | 00:48:09 | 00:52:33 |
2020-21 | 00:07:38 | 00:20:36 | 00:47:23 | 01:04:06 |
2021-22 | 00:09:13 | 00:34:32 | 01:44:42 | 02:30:26 |
Note: For the year 2017-18 this only includes figures from August 2017 to March 2018. For the year 2021-22 this only includes figures from April 2021 to November 2021 (latest published).
Source: National Health Service England
The number of a) doubled crewed ambulances and b) rapid response vehicles that have operated in the Yorkshire Ambulance Service in each year since 2010 is not held centrally.
In 2021, the Yorkshire Ambulance Service has 410 double crewed ambulances and 106 rapid response vehicles.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the Yorkshire Ambulance Service's average response time was for (a) category 1 calls, (b) category 2 calls, (c) category 3 calls and (d) category 4 calls in each year since 2010.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Yorkshire Ambulance Service's average response time for (a) category 1 calls, (b) category 2 calls, (c) category 3 calls and (d) category 4 calls in each year since 2010 is not available as current ambulance response time standards were introduced in 2017 by National Health Service England. Relevant data on average response times is held and published from 2017-18 onwards.
Yorkshire Ambulance Service's average response time was for (a) category 1 calls, (b) category 2 calls, (c) category 3 calls and (d) category 4 calls in each year since 2017 can be found in the table below:
Mean ambulance response time - | ||||
Category 1 | Category 2 | Category 3 | Category 4 | |
2017-18 | 00:07:48 | 00:23:57 | 00:55:04 | 01:20:41 |
2018-19 | 00:07:21 | 00:20:26 | 00:50:28 | 01:08:59 |
2019-20 | 00:07:12 | 00:20:34 | 00:48:09 | 00:52:33 |
2020-21 | 00:07:38 | 00:20:36 | 00:47:23 | 01:04:06 |
2021-22 | 00:09:13 | 00:34:32 | 01:44:42 | 02:30:26 |
Note: For the year 2017-18 this only includes figures from August 2017 to March 2018. For the year 2021-22 this only includes figures from April 2021 to November 2021 (latest published).
Source: National Health Service England
The number of a) doubled crewed ambulances and b) rapid response vehicles that have operated in the Yorkshire Ambulance Service in each year since 2010 is not held centrally.
In 2021, the Yorkshire Ambulance Service has 410 double crewed ambulances and 106 rapid response vehicles.
Asked by: Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (Green Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they have taken to ensure that all women's prisons have (1) paediatric, and (2) neonatal, emergency equipment; and how they intend to ensure that all healthcare staff are trained in paediatric and neonatal resuscitation.
Answered by Lord Kamall
NHS England and NHS Improvement is responsible for commissioning virtually all healthcare services in prisons in England, including clinical services for pregnant women.
Basic resuscitation equipment only is provided in prisons. NHS England and NHS Improvement has consulted experts in the field of neonatal resuscitation, following which a decision was taken not to provide neonatal resuscitation equipment in prisons due to the highly specialised nature of neonatal resuscitation, which requires specialist training, equipment and immediate access to highly qualified and skilled staff. Should these staff not be available there is a risk that the equipment could be used by untrained staff which risks harming the baby.
All healthcare staff should receive relevant first aid training, including basic adult life support and what to do in emergency situations where specialist neonatal resuscitation is required. This normally includes seeking a rapid response from the local ambulance service who can guide staff through cardiopulmonary resuscitation/rescue breaths and keeping the baby warm until the local ambulance service are in attendance.
While the training of staff employed by Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service working in prisons is a matter for that organisation, as the commissioner for NHS services in prisons, NHS England and NHS Improvement seeks evidence that commissioned healthcare providers field competent and appropriately-trained staff to fulfil specific requirements in their contractual obligations.
Asked by: Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat - North East Fife)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what guidance his Department has issued to Ambulance Services on prioritising call outs; and on what basis the priority of call outs is determined.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Department has issued no such guidance. The prioritisation of responses to 999 calls is an operational matter for National Health Service ambulance services. The following table shows the ambulance service’s categories for evaluating 999 incidents, with corresponding response time standards.
Category | Headline description | Sub description | Mean response time standard | 90th percentile response time standard |
1 | Life Threatening | A time critical life-threatening event requiring immediate intervention or resuscitation. | 7 minutes | 15 minutes |
2 | Emergency | Potentially serious conditions that may require rapid assessment and urgent on-scene intervention and/or urgent transport. | 18 minutes | 40 minutes |
3 | Urgent | An urgent problem (not immediately life threatening) that needs treatment to relieve suffering and transport or assessment and management at the scene with referral where needed within a clinically appropriate timeframe. | None | 2 hours |
4 | Less-Urgent | Problems that are less urgent but require assessment and possibly transport within a clinically appropriate timeframe. | None | 3 hours |
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what discussions he has had with (a) the employees of the energy company Green and (b) Ofgem on training and redeployment for the employees of Green following the company's exit from the energy market.
Answered by Greg Hands - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
BEIS Ministers have not met with Green Energy Company employees. Energy suppliers have a duty to inform both Ofgem and their employees before exiting the market. Government help and support, including training and finding new employment is delivered by the Job Centre Plus Rapid Response Service and is available to all employees affected by energy suppliers exiting the market. For more information on government support visit the gov.uk website at https://www.gov.uk/guidance/redundancy-help-finding-work-and-claiming-benefits.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
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 potential effect of long covid on workforce planning within the NHS; and what steps he is taking in response to that matter.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The National Health Service will continue to monitor the impact of ‘long’ COVID-19 on staff as part of operational planning for service recovery and winter. For NHS staff suffering from ‘long’ COVID-19, the support offer includes a package of comprehensive support for health and wellbeing including mental health hubs, rapid referral to services, local occupational health and online wellbeing resources.