Readout of the Prime Minister, Chancellor and Business Secretary’s roundtable with the electricity sector

News story

Below is a readout and quotes following the Prime Minister, Chancellor and Business Secretary’s roundtable with the electricity sector this morning.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said:

Countries around the world are feeling the impact of Putin’s damaging war in Ukraine. We know that this will be a difficult winter for people across the UK, which is why we are doing everything we can to support them and must continue to do so.

Following our meeting today, we will keep urging the electricity sector to continue working on ways we can ease the cost of living pressures and to invest further and faster in British energy security.

We are continuing to roll out government support over the coming months, including the second £324 instalment of the cost of living payment for vulnerable households, extra help for pensioners and those with disabilities, and the £400 energy bills discount for all households.

Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nadhim Zahawi, said:

This morning I hosted industry leaders from the electricity sector to discuss what more they can do to work with Government and act in the interest of the country in the face of rising prices caused by Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.

We have already acted to protect households with £400 off energy bills and direct payments of £1,200 for 8 million of the most vulnerable British families. In the spirit of national unity, they agreed to work with us to do more to help the people who most need it.

Readout:

This morning the Prime Minister, Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi and Business and Energy Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng met industry leaders from the electricity sector to discuss what more they can do to help people struggling with rising energy prices.
The Prime Minister, Chancellor, Business and Energy Secretary stressed the need to act in the interest of the country in the face of rising energy prices caused by Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine and how vital it was that the Western world continued to stand by the Ukrainian people during their battle for survival.
The Chancellor and energy firms agreed to work closely over the coming weeks to ensure that the public, including vulnerable customers, are supported as unprecedented global events drive higher energy costs.
Government support worth £37 billion is being provided this year to help people with the rising cost of living, including £1,200 for the most vulnerable households over the course of the year and £400 discounted off everyone’s energy bills from October.
It was noted that the market is not always functioning for consumers, and extraordinarily high bills will ultimately damage energy companies.
As set out in the Energy Security Strategy, the Government has launched a consultation to drive forward market reforms and ensure the market works better for consumers. Discussion focussed on how Government and industry can collectively drive forward reforms to ensure the market delivers lower prices.
The Prime Minister, Chancellor and Business and Energy Secretary emphasised the importance of investing in North Sea oil and gas, renewables, biomass and nuclear to strengthen our domestic energy security.
The Chancellor added the Government continues to evaluate the extraordinary profits seen in certain parts of the electricity generation sector and the appropriate and proportionate steps to take.
The Prime Minister set out that it will be for the next Prime Minister to make significant fiscal decisions.

The meeting was attended by representatives from:

EDF
RWE
E.ON
Drax
Orsted
Uniper
National Grid
SSE
ScottishPower
Centrica
Octopus Energy
Vitol
Intergen
Greencoat Capital
Energy UK

Published 11 August 2022

Views being sought to tackle inequality in medical devices

Contributions will inform an independent review into potential bias in all types of medical devices and the impact on patients from different socio-demographic groups
The call aims to collect evidence and insights regarding potential and known equity issues and solutions to these issues across the entire life cycle of medical devices
Academics, researchers, health professionals, engineers and device developers, as well as patients and general public, are invited to contribute

The Independent Review has launched a call for evidence to gather insights from experts and organisations, as well as patients and the general public, on the potential racial and gender bias of medical devices.

Through commissioning the Independent Review on Equity in Medical Devices led by Professor Dame Margaret Whitehead, the government is seeking to tackle disparities in healthcare. This consultation will support this by gathering new evidence on if and how medical devices and technologies may be biased against patients of different ethnicities, genders and other socio-demographic groups, and what solutions could mitigate these biases.

Through the call for evidence, which will be open for 8 weeks, it hopes to hear from those who work most closely with medical devices such as oxygen measuring devices and infrared scanners and other medical software and hardware, including databases and instructions for medical devices. This applies across a device’s entire life cycle – from evaluation to marketing and implementation – to identify potential biases and solutions at each and every stage.

For example, some devices employing infrared light or imaging may not perform as well with patients with darker skin pigmentation, which has not been accounted for in the development and testing of the devices when patients with only a limited range of lighter skin tones were recruited.

The independent review, which the call for evidence will feed into, aims to improve equity in medical devices and help tackle existing healthcare disparities, ensuring people can receive the best-possible care throughout their patient experience regardless of their ethnicity or gender.

Health Minister Gillian Keegan said:

I am committed to ensuring all patients receive high-quality, innovative healthcare without discrimination.

The independent review is part of our vital work to tackle healthcare inequalities, and I invite the industry to share their expertise in the call for evidence so we can ensure medical devices are free of any form of bias.

Members of expert and professional groups and organisations, including academics, researchers, engineers, healthcare professionals and industry representatives, are invited to submit evidence and insights regarding potential disparities and proposed solutions, with this evidence informing the independent review.

Members of the public, patients and carers can also contribute their views and insights on these topics.

Research suggests the way some medical devices are designed and used may be failing to account for differences related to ethnic background, gender or other characteristics – potentially exacerbating existing inequalities in healthcare.

While current UK regulations set out clear expectations on medical devices and technologies, they do not currently include provisions to ensure that medical devices are working equally well for different groups in the population based on their social or demographic characteristics.

The independent review will cover different types of medical devices, including devices enabled by artificial intelligence (AI) used in diagnosing illness and determining therapy pathways, as well as risk-scoring systems using genomics to make decisions about personalised medicine.

It will consider in what ways existing or future regulations could successfully address any biases in medical devices that arise at any stage of their design, development, evaluation, implementation and use.

Patients can be reassured that the NHS is expert in providing the best possible care, and the review is intended to accelerate the process of improving the quality and availability of medical devices to diverse communities.

Professor Dame Margaret Whitehead, chair of the independent review, said:

We aim to establish where and how potential ethnic and other unfair biases may arise in the design and use of medical devices, and what can be done to make improvements.

We especially encourage patients and members of the public, as well as health, technology and industry experts and researchers to share their views and any evidence concerning medical devices in order to help us tackle inequalities in healthcare.

The review chair will issue the panel’s report to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care setting out clear options for consideration by spring 2023 with interim findings expected in winter 2022.

Call for evidence: Equity in medical devices: independent review call for evidence.

See Equity in medical devices: independent review for the review’s terms of reference, biographies of the panel members and details on how to contribute to the review outside of the call for evidence through the review mailbox.

Update on DBS customer contact centre services – 15 to 20 August

News story

Planned industrial action by staff from contractors Hinduja Global Solutions is set to affect DBS customer contact centre services from 15 August to 20 August.

Decorative — Update on DBS customer contact centre services

Customers contacting the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) between Monday 15 to Saturday 20 August by telephone, email or webchat may face some disruption and delays. This is due to industrial action by staff working for Hinduja Global Solutions (HGS). HGS is contracted to provide DBS customer contact centre services as well as a certain number of DBS administrative functions.

During the industrial action, HGS is putting additional resources in place to try and minimise the inconvenience to customers as much as possible.

The industrial action is not expected to have any significant impact on turnaround times for DBS checks or barring decisions. Our core services will not be affected and employers and customers should continue to access them as normal.

Service operating hours 15 to 20 August

During the industrial action, the times of the customer contact centre will be reduced to:

Monday 15 August to Friday 19 August – 9am to 5pm
Saturday 20 August – closed

Webchat services will still be available to customers in normal operating hours (Monday to Friday, from 10am to 4pm). Webchat becomes available to customers when they access online services such as applying for a DBS check, making a barring referral or signing in to the Update Service.

Published 11 August 2022

Near miss with track workers at Penkridge

News story

Investigation into a near miss with track workers at Penkridge, Staffordshire, 11 July 2022.

Forward-facing CCTV from the train involved in the near miss (courtesy of GB Railfreight)

At around 00:06 hrs on Monday 11 July 2022, two track workers were almost struck by a freight train travelling at 61 mph (98 km/h) just south of Penkridge station, Staffordshire. The track workers moved clear of the path of the train less than one second before it reached their position. Another train was passing the track workers on an adjacent line as the freight train approached them.

At the time of the incident, the track workers involved were investigating an ongoing fault with the overhead line equipment which was preventing trains with electric traction from using this section of line, causing significant levels of disruption to train services in the area.

Our investigation will seek to identify the sequence of events which led to the incident and will include consideration of:

the actions of those involved
the arrangements to protect the track workers from moving trains
the roles, responsibilities and working patterns of relevant staff
how the competence of staff was managed
any relevant underlying factors.

Our investigation is independent of any investigation by the railway industry or by the industry’s regulator, the Office of Rail and Road.

We will publish our findings, including any recommendations to improve safety, at the conclusion of our investigation. This report will be available on our website.

You can subscribe to automated emails notifying you when we publish our reports.

Published 11 August 2022

PM call with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed: 11 August 2022

Press release

Prime Minister Boris Johnson spoke to His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, UAE.

The Prime Minister spoke to His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, UAE, today.

The leaders thanked one another for their support and friendship. They agreed that great strides have been made in the UK-UAE relationship in recent years.

The Prime Minister praised the Crown Prince’s success in bringing prosperity to both the UAE and the Gulf more generally. The Crown Prince paid tribute to the role the Prime Minister has played in driving trade and investment between our countries.

The Prime Minister said UK-UAE cooperation on global priorities including Ukraine, regional stability and climate change is hugely important for the world. He expressed his confidence that this cooperation will continue in the years ahead.

Published 11 August 2022