Health Service Medical Supplies (Costs) Bill
(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)
Read Full debateTuesday 6th December 2016
(7 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberHealth Service Medical Supplies (Costs) Act 2017 View all Health Service Medical Supplies (Costs) Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 6 December 2016 - (6 Dec 2016)
Rob Marris
Medical supplies in this part of the Bill seem to be to do with physical equipment. But, again, what is equipment? We can refer to the definitions, which state:
‘medical supplies’ includes surgical, dental and optical materials and equipment”.
Drugs are dealt with elsewhere in the legislation.
I think the Minister has got the point, but I will repeat it very briefly. He is seeking clarification for the Wales legislation through amendment 7 when I understood him to say that he did not think such clarification was needed for the same definition contained in the legislation pertaining to England. I would like him to explain that apparent anomaly. If it is not an anomaly, perhaps he could tell the House that he is going to clarify the definition as it relates to England in the later stages of this Bill.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Mr Philip Dunne)
I rise to speak to the new clause, the Government amendments and all other amendments tabled on Report. I want to start by expressing my gratitude to the Opposition Front-Bench spokesmen, who both confirmed their intent to continue in the spirit of constructive dialogue we have had thus far in our consideration of the Bill. I am pleased that they support the Bill’s objectives, and I will seek to respond to their amendments.
Hon. Members will recall that we debated at length in Committee the issue raised in new clause 1. I want to take this opportunity to provide some additional reassurance that this is an important issue for the Government. We have already included in the illustrative regulations for both the statutory scheme, in regulation 32, and the information regulations, in regulation 14, an annual review of the regulations and a requirement to publish our report of each review. These annual reviews go further than the specific single review proposed by the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) in new clause 1, the effect of which would require the Government to only undertake a single review within six months of the Act coming into force.
We accept that reporting is an important principle. However, setting out the requirements in primary legislation is too restrictive. We believe that the proposed single review within the first six months of the Act coming into force would provide an insufficient timeframe in which to assess the impact of the provisions, whereas the annual reviews we have set out in the illustrative regulations in effect place a duty on the Government to review both the statutory scheme and the information regulations to ensure their effectiveness, and to do so every year. Of course these provisions will be subject to consultation as part of the wider consultation on the regulations.
Over time we expect that both the statutory scheme and the information requirements will be amended through their respective regulations to reflect changing circumstances. It is essential that the review and reporting arrangements are able to be similarly flexible so that they remain appropriate to the schemes in operation.
The hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston asked whether objectives should be set out before the regulations come into force. As I have said, the Government will consult on regulations before they come into force. The objectives of the regulations will be explored in the consultation and set out in the Government response to that consultation. I hope that addresses his point.
The illustrative regulations require an annual review to set out the objectives of the scheme, assess the extent to which they have been achieved, and assess whether they remain appropriate. These requirements will be tested through the consultation on the regulations, and we will of course take account of those views.
Rob Marris
First, I say again that I am very grateful to the Government for publishing the illustrative draft regulations to help us debate the Bill. Let us consider the provision of information in connection with the draft health service products regulations 2017. Regulation 14(2)(a) states that the report must in particular
“set out the objectives intended to be achieved by these Regulations”,
and then regulation 14(2)(b) says it must
“assess the extent to which these objectives are achieved.”
It seems a bit odd to say that in one review we are going to set out the objective and then decide whether the objective has been achieved or not. That seems, temporally, to be a bit wrong.
Mr Dunne
As I have indicated, we intend to undertake these reviews every year. It will probably be impossible to assess in the first review whether the objectives have been achieved—there might be some ability to assess it—but in subsequent iterations we will be able to look back and see how well they have been achieved.
I notice that the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) is heading for the exit—[Interruption.] He has now resumed his seat. This is not specifically the right point in my speech to pick up on the points he has raised, but I would like to respond to his characteristically constructive contribution on the subject of diabetes. He is the chair of the all-party group on diabetes, and he might recall that I used to be the vice-chair of that group, as I have family members with type 1 and type 2 diabetes. I have considerable sympathy with the points that he made about the importance of adequate advice for individuals who might be unaware that they have diabetes. He also talked about the importance of adopting innovation through NHS treatment of the condition. We share that objective, and nothing in the Bill will do anything other than to continue to encourage innovation. I will be making further remarks, perhaps when the right hon. Gentleman is not with us, on the subject of innovation, but I just wanted him to be aware that I had taken his points on board. He might be disappointed by my conclusion on the specific amendment, but I shall go on to explain how his point is being addressed in other ways.
Returning to new clause 1 and the question of regulations, I wish to make a further point. Much of the information provided to the Secretary of State will be commercially confidential. We touched on this in Committee. I am sure that suppliers have every confidence that the Government will maintain that confidentiality in anything we publish, but it is important to reinforce the principle. This means that there is a limit to the level of detail we are able to publish, and I am sure that the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston will appreciate the commercial sensitivity reasons involved. Any information we do publish will be at a consolidated level, protecting suppliers’ confidentiality but allowing the Secretary of State to be clear on the basis of the conclusions of his review. We will of course be able to use supporting information to evidence our conclusions.
Turning to the detail of the new clause, its requirements reflect the duties placed on the Secretary of State in the Bill, but I must be clear that the content of such a report should not be restricted and must be able to address the key issues arising during the year that may affect the operation of the schemes. The other significant element of the new clause, which I have touched on in response to the right hon. Member for Leicester East, was discussed at length in Committee. This was the question of whether it would be appropriate for such a report to address matters relating to the NHS duty to promote innovation.
The Government’s position is clear that it is not appropriate to link the measures in the Bill, which relate purely to the cost of medicines and medical supplies, to the NHS duty to promote innovation. Promoting innovation is a high priority not only for the Government and the NHS but for many other stakeholders. Promotion of innovation quite properly requires action across many different fronts, and it would not be possible to quantify the contribution of the schemes in the Bill to that endeavour in any meaningful way. The NHS is already doing great work to promote innovation, and I would like to draw hon. Members’ attention to the latest data from the innovation scorecard, a quarterly data publication showing the uptake of innovative drugs and medical technologies following NICE approval in England. This is now a nationally published statistic.
The hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Rob Marris) asked specifically about this in his remarks. I can tell him that the latest publication, on 12 October this year, shows that the rate of uptake for 85 medicines recommended by NICE is increasing, that 77% of those medicines had positive growth uptake between March 2015 and March 2016, and that 54% of the 85 medicines had a growth uptake greater than 10%. These data are made available on a quarterly basis, and hon. Members can follow their progress through the official national statistics.
The Government are taking broader action to secure the UK’s future as an attractive place for the life sciences sector, particularly in the light of the EU referendum and the consequent Brexit. We are clear in our commitment to the life sciences, and to building a long-term partnership with industry. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West also asked me to address the question of the NICE process and whether this takes evidence into account. He also asked about the process for the subsequent review of previous decisions. This is a continuous process. It does not happen for every drug all the time, but there is a routine procedure under which, on the basis of new evidence, NICE will look again at a decision and decide whether to uphold or amend it. That procedure could allow drugs that had previously not been approved to become approved on the basis of new evidence, and NICE will look at evidence from wherever it comes. I hope that that reassures the hon. Gentleman.
Dr Whitford
It is a new medicines and rare diseases fund, and it includes orphan, ultra-orphan and end of life, but it is not only about end of life.
Mr Dunne
No, it is not only for end of life, but also for rare diseases. That was my understanding, but I stand corrected. However, my main point is that it should be for clinicians to decide what is spent across the range of activity. If money is ring-fenced into a specific fund for new medicines, that might not always be the right clinical decision.
Dr Whitford
Does the Minister accept that it is a slightly bizarre public relations thing to have a medicines fund that is only for cancer, ruling out people with other life-threatening illnesses? That is the case here in England.
Mr Dunne
The new cancer drugs fund was set up specifically to provide funds to deal with one of the most common causes of mortality in the country, and was a priority of the previous Government; I will not go into the reasons for that.
Returning to amendment 8, it was suggested that what happens to the receipts is not clear, but all income generated by the voluntary and statutory schemes is reinvested in the NHS. Estimates of income from the pharmaceutical payment regulation scheme are part of the baseline used in the Department’s spending review model. The model was used to calculate the funding increase that the NHS sought at the time of the 2015 spending review, and it helped to secure the £10 billion of real-terms funding over the course of this Parliament. The income from the voluntary and statutory schemes can and does fluctuate; that is the biggest problem with ring-fencing, which could bring risks in this area. For example, the annual income from the PPRS has varied between £310 million and £839 million in a full financial year in England, so there is the potential for the income that it generates to vary widely, which could disadvantage patients by making treatment dependent on income from a pricing scheme with unsteady income generation.
Rob Marris
I understand where the Minister is going with that, but I want to caution him. He spoke earlier about flexibility—my word, not his—and his example was that a clinical commissioning group or a medical body might want to spend some of this money on staffing. Owing to the fluctuation to which he refers, however, spending funds on staffing is probably not a good idea.
Mr Dunne
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his advice, but I am afraid that I do not think it is relevant to my point about the fluctuation in income coming from the scheme. It is relevant in relation to whether NICE or politicians make such decisions. They need to be made by clinicians.
Dr Whitford
I thank the Minister for kindly giving way. The cancer drugs fund has a budget of some £350 million, so if he is saying that the money that can be retrieved varies from £300 million to over £800 million, that would allow for the expansion of a new medicines fund.
Mr Dunne
It might if the move was always in the same direction. My concern is that the amount could decline between one year and the next; it may not always go up—certainly not up in a straight line.
Separately from the Bill, the Government are taking action to secure the UK’s future as an attractive place for the life sciences sector and to support faster patient access to medical innovations. I have already touched on the recently published accelerated access review, which sets out ways to increase the speed at which 21st-century innovations in medicines, medical technologies and digital products get to NHS patients and their families. The review’s recommendations included bringing together organisations from across the system in an accelerated access partnership, and creating a strategic commercial unit within NHS England that can work with industry to develop commercial access arrangements. We are considering those recommendations with partners and will respond in due course.
NHS England and NICE are jointly consulting on several proposed changes to NICE standard technology appraisals and highly specialised technology appraisals, including around speeding up the appraisal process. The Department of Health continues to work closely with NHS England and other stakeholders to improve uptake of new medicines. A key element of that is the innovation scorecard that I have already referenced. With those comments about our concerns about what is proposed in amendment 8, I ask the hon. Member for Burnley (Julie Cooper) not to press her amendment.
Turning to amendment 9, tabled by the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire, the Government recognise that section 260 of the National Health Service Act 2006 does not explicitly state that the Government are obliged to consult industry. However, I am aware that the Act does explicitly state that there is an obligation on the Government to consult when it comes to controlling the cost of medicines. A similar amendment was tabled by the hon. Lady in Committee. I want to reiterate that I am happy to consider with her how we could best introduce a general requirement to consult industry in section 260. Indeed, my officials have been in discussions with her, and I am grateful for her time and constructive comments.
I note the hon. Lady’s reference to the effect of any pricing controls for medical supplies on maintaining the quality of those supplies. I assure her that the Government would take into account all relevant factors, including any concerns raised by industry about the quality of medical supplies, when making and consulting on any price controls for medical supplies. The Government would not however be in favour of putting one of those many factors in the Bill.
The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency is responsible for the safety, efficacy and quality of medical supplies, and the Bill will not change that. The MHRA has assured me that any use of the price control powers in the Bill would not affect any of the quality or safety requirements that must be met before medical supplies can be placed on the market.
The hon. Lady referred to the procurement system in Scotland; I assure her that the Government are committed to improving procurement across the NHS. She will be well aware of the Carter report, which concluded that there is considerable variation in the value that trusts extract from their expenditure on goods and medical supplies. NHS Supply Chain is working hard to deliver procurement efficiencies, to meet recommendations to increase price transparency, to lower costs, and to reduce the number of products and suppliers used across the NHS to deliver economies of scale. The hon. Lady referred to 600,000 products, but it has had success in reducing the range in the catalogue down to 315,000 to help NHS organisations purchase products more efficiently. It continues to work to reduce that number. I am aware of similar work in Scotland. In England, we are using the Carter review to deliver that.
While I understand the intent behind the hon. Lady’s amendment, I am not fully convinced that, as drafted, it would have the desired effect. If she will continue to work with me and my officials, the Government would be happy to consider, while the Bill is in the other place, how we could best introduce the requirement to consult into section 260. On that basis, I invite her not to press her amendment for now.
Mr Dunne
I am afraid that I must press on to cover the Government amendments.
Government amendments 1 to 5 address a possible loophole in the Bill. Clause 6 amends the National Health Service Act 2006 to give the Secretary of State the power to make regulations to obtain information from any UK producer that is not an excepted person. A “UK producer” is defined in the Bill as anyone involved in the manufacture, distribution or supply of health service medicines, medical supplies and other related products required for the purposes of the health services in the United Kingdom. An “excepted person” is defined in the Bill as any person providing pharmacy or GP services for the health services in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The purpose of these provisions was to reflect the agreement with the devolved Administrations that, for devolved purposes, they would collect information from pharmacies and GP practices in their nation. However, there may be circumstances in which a company supplies products in the devolved Administrations and also in England, and could claim that the provision, as drafted, would allow it to become an excepted person, because it was operating in the devolved Administrations. That is clearly not the intent of the Bill, so we have proposed these amendments to address this loophole.
Government amendment 6 is a minor consequential amendment that was unintentionally omitted when the Government tabled amendments in Committee. The amendment relates to clause 6, which provides the Secretary of State with the power to disclose information to the list of bodies set out in proposed new section 264B. The amendment clarifies that the list of people to whom the Secretary of State can disclose information includes those persons providing services to the Regional Business Services Organisation in Northern Ireland; it had previously been omitted. I hope that hon. Members will accept these amendments.
Mr Dunne
I would like to conclude this point for the hon. Lady, as I hope it will satisfy her. Her concern is about how the Government will behave in response to requests from devolved Administrations; we recognise that we need to give reassurance to the devolved Administrations that, in the light of the constructive conversations we have already had with them, they will have full access to all relevant data that the Government collect. We are quite happy to do that. We have indicated that we will enter into a memorandum of understanding, which will be discussed and agreed with the devolved Administrations. Those discussions will cover whether they have automatic access to this information—in real time, or in some other format—and whether that is done through giving them direct access to the systems, or by forwarding the data that we collect, immediately on request. We need to get into the detail of that in discussion on the memorandum of understanding, rather than committing that to the Bill at this stage. On that basis, I hope that the hon. Lady will not press her amendment to a vote.
Dr Whitford
I welcome the Minister’s comments, and I am happy not to press the amendment if we can reach the point of a clear memorandum of understanding. I just point out that all my amendment does is to say that the groups listed by the Bill should be able to ask for data on request; it does not add anyone else. I understand that my attempt at the amendment in Committee included groups that it should not have, but that has been corrected. This amendment does not spread confidential information any more widely.
Mr Dunne
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that clarification. I think this is best addressed through a memorandum of understanding, rather than in primary legislation, in case we need to adjust the memorandum in subsequent years.
Finally, I wish to address Government amendment 7, which provides a definition of “equipment”. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West took us through the drafting on the definition of “medical supplies”. The amendment gives a definition of “equipment” in the National Health Service (Wales) Act 2006 to ensure consistency with the National Health Service Act 2006. “Equipment” is defined as including
“any machinery, apparatus or appliance, whether fixed or not, and any vehicle”.
When taken in tandem with the common definition of “medical supplies”, the definition is broad enough to capture any medical supplies on the market, from bandages to MRI scanners. The point of distinction was not so much the definition of “medical supplies” as the definition of “equipment”, which is a subset of the medical supplies definition. I hope, therefore, that hon. Members will accept the amendment.
I have spoken at length on these amendments. I hope I have made my position clear, that Opposition Members will not press their amendments to a vote, and that the House will accept the Government amendments.
Justin Madders
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 6
Provision of information to Secretary of State and disclosure
Amendments made: 1, page 4, line 12, leave out from “products,” to end of line 13.
This amendment is linked to amendments 2 to 5. It is directly consequential on amendment 4.
Amendment 2, page 4, line 17, at end insert—
“(subject to subsection (6A)).”
This amendment is linked to amendments 1 and 3 to 5. It flags that the provision made by section 264A(2)(a) and (b) of the National Health Service Act 2006 is subject to the provision made by amendment 3.
Amendment 3, page 5, line 47, at end insert—
“(6A) Regulations under this section may not do any of the following—
(a) require any person who provides primary medical services under Part 4 of the National Health Service (Wales) Act 2006, or any person who provides pharmaceutical services under Part 7 of that Act, to record, keep or provide information relating to any Welsh health service products which are supplied by the person in providing the services in question;
(b) require any person who provides primary medical services under section 2C(1) of the 1978 Act, or any person who provides pharmaceutical care services under section 2CA(1) of that Act, to record, keep or provide information relating to any Scottish health service products which are supplied by the person in providing the services in question;
(c) require any person who provides primary medical services or pharmaceutical services under Part 2 or 6 of the Health and Personal Social Services (Northern Ireland) Order 1972 (S.I. 1972/1265 (N.I. 14)) to record, keep or provide information relating to Northern Ireland health service products which are supplied by the person in providing the services in question.”
This amendment is linked to amendments 1, 2, 4 and 5. It ensures that regulations under section 264A of the National Health Service Act 2006 may not require the persons specified to record, keep or provide the information specified.
Amendment 4, page 6, leave out lines 3 to 15.
This amendment is linked to amendments 1 to 3 and 5. It is consequential on the new provision made by amendment 3.
Amendment 5, page 6, line 36, leave out “(8)(d)” and insert “(6A)(b)”.
This amendment is linked to amendments 1 to 4. It is a consequential amendment.
Amendment 6, page 7, line 8, leave out “(h)” and insert “(i)”.—(Mr Dunne.)
This amendment makes a change which is consequential on the amendments made in Committee. The effect is to allow the Secretary of State to disclose information to a person who provides services to the Regional Business Services Organisation in Northern Ireland.
Clause 7
Provision of information to Welsh Ministers and disclosure
Amendment made: 7, page 9, line 38, at end insert—
“(and for this purpose ‘equipment’ includes any machinery, apparatus or appliance, whether fixed or not, and any vehicle).”— (Mr Dunne.)
This amendment provides a definition of “equipment“ for the purposes of the definition of “medical supplies” in section 201A(8) of the National Health Service (Wales) Act 2006.
Third Reading
Mr Dunne
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Third time.
As we have already discussed today, it has been a pleasure to take this short, albeit technical, Bill through the House with such a wide degree of consensus from all participating parties.
We have had a very constructive debate. Points have been raised by hon. Members from both sides of the House through amendments and in debate, and we have sought to take them on board. We will look to take some of them forward as the Bill moves to the other place.
I thank Opposition Members for their contributions. They include the hon. Members for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), for Burnley (Julie Cooper), who is just about in her place, and for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford), who leads for the Scottish National party. We have had some strong contributions from Back Benchers, including the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Rob Marris), who served on the Committee in his usual diligent fashion, and the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz). We have also had contributions from Government Members. In particular, I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) and for Torbay (Kevin Foster), who was active in Committee. I also thank my Parliamentary Private Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris), and the Whips on both sides of the House.
More than £15.2 billion has been spent on medicines in the most recent full year—an increase of nearly 20% since 2010-11 and of over 7% since last year. The purpose of the Bill is to close loopholes to ensure that the NHS secures as much value for money as it can from this very significant spending on pharmaceutical and medical products. We are looking to clarify and modernise provisions to control the cost of national health service medicines and to ensure that sales and purchase information can be appropriately collected and disclosed.
Briefly, the Bill puts it beyond doubt that the Secretary of State can require companies in the statutory scheme to make payments to control the cost of NHS medicines. That is expected to save the health service across the UK some £90 million a year.
Secondly, the Bill would enable the Secretary of State to require companies to reduce the price of an unbranded generic medicine, or to impose other controls on that company’s unbranded generic medicine, even if the company is in the voluntary scheme—currently the 2014 pharmaceutical price regulation scheme—for its branded medicines.
Members will recall the examples raised on Second Reading and in Committee of companies charging the NHS unreasonably high prices for unbranded generic medicines. Without competition, companies have raised prices totally unreasonably—in the most extreme case by as much as 12,000%. Companies can do that because we rely on competition to keep prices of unbranded generic medicines down. Although that generally works well, the Government need the tools to be able to address the situation in which a small number of companies are exploiting the NHS, patients and the taxpayer by raising prices when there is no competition.
Thirdly, the Bill enables the Secretary of State to make regulations to obtain information on sales and purchases of health service products from all parts of the supply chain, from manufacturer to pharmacy, for defined purposes. These purposes are reimbursement of community pharmacies and GPs, determining the value for money that the supply chain or products provide, and schemes to control the costs or prices of medicines. By bringing these requirements together, the Bill streamlines and clarifies all the relevant requirements currently in place, providing a statutory footing for them all. This includes the existing statutory requirements already in the NHS Act 2006, and those agreements that currently have a voluntary basis only.
In Committee, the Government tabled a number of important amendments to reflect the views and requests of the devolved Administrations on how they want to apply the information power in their territories. We tabled the amendments following constructive discussions that resulted in agreement that the UK Government will collect information from wholesalers and manufacturers for the whole of the UK. It would not make sense for each nation to collect its own information from wholesalers and manufacturers, which would lead to duplication of effort and unnecessarily increase costs across the system.
We have also agreed that each nation will collect information from its own pharmacies and GPs. The devolved Administrations will have full access to all the information that the Government collect. I have committed to develop a memorandum of understanding to underpin these arrangements, and my officials are working closely on that with officials in the devolved Administrations.
To ensure that the Bill makes the Government’s intentions absolutely clear, we tabled a small number of minor and technical amendments on Report to close a potential loophole that would have enabled some companies not to provide us with any information if they also provided pharmacy or GP services to the devolved health services.
This is a relatively small Bill, technical in nature, which has received considerable support from across the House, for which I am extremely grateful. The Bill will help to secure better value for money for the NHS from its spending on medicines, while ensuring that the decisions made by the Government are based on more accurate and robust information.
I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for presiding over today’s debates. I also thank the members of the Panel of Chairs, especially my hon. Friend and neighbour, the Member for Telford—
Mr Dunne
I stand corrected—my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard), under whose chairmanship I served for the first time. Finally, I thank the parliamentary Clerks and counsel, Hansard and the Doorkeepers for helping us to bring the Bill to its conclusion today.