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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maria Caulfield)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie.
I thank the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous) for securing today’s debate so efficiently ahead of International Thalassaemia Day on 8 May—we may well be prorogued by then, so it is a timely debate. Let me take the opportunity to thank him for all his work to champion the community as chair of the all-party parliamentary group for thalassaemia. I understand that the UK Thalassaemia Society is based in his constituency, and I am sure it is thankful for all his help and support.
Like sickle cell—I note the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) is here—thalassaemia is a blood disorder that affects ethnic minority communities in the UK. It is right that the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate raises the inequalities and inconsistencies around services that people with thalassaemia face. We are determined to address some of the long-standing issues in many areas.
Stewart Hosie (in the Chair)
We now resume the suspended debate. I call the Minister.
Maria Caulfield
To go back to where we were, the Government are determined to address long-standing health disparities, particularly for those with thalassaemia. The NHS Race and Health Observatory was established just over a year ago with a remit to tackle some of the issues that minority communities face, particularly in health inequalities. Last year, the Government launched the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, or OHID, which is doing huge amounts of work in these areas.
Health features quite heavily in the levelling-up White Paper. We want to reduce the gap in life expectancy between the areas with the highest and lowest, and by 2035 we want life expectancy to have risen by five years. Tackling the issues raised is key to that, particularly for the groups most at risk. I am mindful that the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East raised the “No One’s Listening” report, which features issues that those with thalassaemia face—the lack of understanding of the condition among healthcare staff and the treatment that patients need to receive. Those receiving blood transfusions might look well compared with a typical patient receiving a blood transfusion, but a three-weekly blood transfusion for life is very difficult even if things go smoothly. I want to reassure the right hon. Gentleman that we are trying to improve the experience of those with thalassaemia in a number of areas.
In 2019, NHS England concluded the review of haemoglobinopathy services, which resulted in the development of the new model that we now have, based on haemoglobinopathy co-ordinating centres and the national panel. That brings specialist services together to improve the experience of those using the services, and addresses health inequalities and improves outcomes for those with haemoglobinopathies, which includes thalassaemia patients.
To touch on thalassaemia in particular, four specific centres, alongside 10 sickle cell centres, have been commissioned to provide clinical expertise. We hope that even if patients cannot access those, the experience and good practice will ripple out across the country and improve the service and experience for patients and improve standards of care.
One of the main treatments for thalassaemia is, as the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate touched on, regular blood transfusions. We need people to donate blood, and I want to use this afternoon’s debate as an opportunity to encourage people to come forward not only to give blood but to think about stem-cell donation as well, which can be used as a treatment. Anyone interested can go on the Anthony Nolan website, which can register people and give them information about what is involved.
We also need to touch on the issue of training for healthcare staff. I am encouraged that the training curriculum for haematology set by the Joint Royal Colleges of Physicians Training Board has now included sickle cell and thalassaemia as core competencies, so we can make sure that healthcare professionals are informed. Even though these are rare diseases, they affect a significant proportion of people, particularly in certain communities.
In addition, Health Education England now provides two relevant e-learning healthcare programmes on the NHS screening programme, including sickle cell and thalassaemia and the maternity support work programme. That is important because of the breakthroughs we are making in screening everyone for both sickle cell and thalassaemia. All women should now be screened during pregnancy for thalassaemia, along with partners’ screening, and an affected pregnancy could be identified at the 12-week gestation period. That helps not just to prepare parents for their child, but to make sure that services are in place as soon as the child is born.
Nearly all sickle cell affected children born in England and the majority of thalassaemia babies will be identified by the NHS sickle cell and thalassemia screening programme, which will make a difference to the outcome for people. It will help us to co-ordinate and develop services to make sure that there is a better experience for patients going forward.
The hon. Gentleman raised the issue of treatment. I am keen to look at that because although blood transfusions are a treatment for some, ideally gene therapy is potentially curative for the affected population. I know there are ongoing issues with NICE approval for a number of drugs, and I am happy to meet him to discuss that further after this debate. I am really keen that, where we can make significant drug developments, which are available in other countries and not necessarily here, we make progress and discuss with NICE the issues that might be preventing approval or slowing down progress at the moment.
I want to also touch on some of the research being done, because that is the key to improving treatment outcomes for patients to make sure that their life chances and their experience in the health service are improved. There are a number of research studies going on. I am hopeful that we can improve their outcomes and make sure that access to research is available for patients, too.
The disease is rare; as the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate pointed out, there is only a small group of patients. We are making sure we take part in international studies and speak to bodies such as NICE to say that, although there will only ever be a small number of patients, that should not deter approval for drugs because of the difference they may make overall.
I very much take the points made by the hon. Gentleman. Following on from the recent debate on sickle cell patients, which raised very similar issues, I suggest that I meet both him and the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East to see whether we can pin down some of those issues, particularly as the health disparities White Paper is coming forward shortly. It presents a good opportunity for the communities affected by both diseases to try to iron out some of those problems.
I thank the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate for tabling today’s debate, as well as all the Members who are interested in this issue. We had a big turnout in the sickle cell debate a few weeks ago, where very similar points were made. I reassure colleagues that progress is being made, whether that is in screening, which will be a game-changer for patients; the gene therapy treatments that will come through online; or the general experience of patients being treated with dignity, respect and knowledge of their condition. I place on the record my thanks to all those working hard behind the scenes in specialist units to improve care for thalassaemia patients, and I look forward to working with the hon. Gentleman to see if we can make a difference for those patients.
Question put and agreed to.