Asked by: Baroness Golding (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to reduce the number of pharmacies closing permanently.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
No assessment has been made of any shortfall in community pharmacy funding. The Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework commits £2.592 billion a year to fund the provision of National Health Service pharmaceutical services in England. In September 2022 we made an additional £100 million one-off investment to fund the increase in clinical services delivery by the sector. In May 2023, as part of the Delivery Plan for Recovering Access to Primary Care we committed to a further investment of up to £645 million to support a Pharmacy First service which will include expanded treatment options for seven common conditions, including earache, sore throat and urinary tract infection, and more blood pressure checks and oral contraception consultations in community pharmacy.
Pharmacy openings and closures in England are published by NHS Business Services Authority. Between 31 December 2022 and 30 June 2023, the number of pharmacies reduced by 222. This reduction is mainly driven by the large multiples reducing their portfolios. To address the disproportionately high rate of closures of 100-hour pharmacies, legislation was amended in April to allow those pharmacies to reduce their hours to a minimum of 72. The Department is monitoring the market, and access to pharmaceutical services remains good, with 80% of people in England living within 20 minutes walking distance of a community pharmacy and twice as many pharmacies in the more deprived areas.
Asked by: Baroness Golding (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of any shortfall in funding affecting pharmacies in England for each year between 2015 and 2023.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
No assessment has been made of any shortfall in community pharmacy funding. The Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework commits £2.592 billion a year to fund the provision of National Health Service pharmaceutical services in England. In September 2022 we made an additional £100 million one-off investment to fund the increase in clinical services delivery by the sector. In May 2023, as part of the Delivery Plan for Recovering Access to Primary Care we committed to a further investment of up to £645 million to support a Pharmacy First service which will include expanded treatment options for seven common conditions, including earache, sore throat and urinary tract infection, and more blood pressure checks and oral contraception consultations in community pharmacy.
Pharmacy openings and closures in England are published by NHS Business Services Authority. Between 31 December 2022 and 30 June 2023, the number of pharmacies reduced by 222. This reduction is mainly driven by the large multiples reducing their portfolios. To address the disproportionately high rate of closures of 100-hour pharmacies, legislation was amended in April to allow those pharmacies to reduce their hours to a minimum of 72. The Department is monitoring the market, and access to pharmaceutical services remains good, with 80% of people in England living within 20 minutes walking distance of a community pharmacy and twice as many pharmacies in the more deprived areas.
Asked by: Baroness Golding (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the trends behind the number of pharmacy closures this year.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
No assessment has been made of any shortfall in community pharmacy funding. The Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework commits £2.592 billion a year to fund the provision of National Health Service pharmaceutical services in England. In September 2022 we made an additional £100 million one-off investment to fund the increase in clinical services delivery by the sector. In May 2023, as part of the Delivery Plan for Recovering Access to Primary Care we committed to a further investment of up to £645 million to support a Pharmacy First service which will include expanded treatment options for seven common conditions, including earache, sore throat and urinary tract infection, and more blood pressure checks and oral contraception consultations in community pharmacy.
Pharmacy openings and closures in England are published by NHS Business Services Authority. Between 31 December 2022 and 30 June 2023, the number of pharmacies reduced by 222. This reduction is mainly driven by the large multiples reducing their portfolios. To address the disproportionately high rate of closures of 100-hour pharmacies, legislation was amended in April to allow those pharmacies to reduce their hours to a minimum of 72. The Department is monitoring the market, and access to pharmaceutical services remains good, with 80% of people in England living within 20 minutes walking distance of a community pharmacy and twice as many pharmacies in the more deprived areas.
Asked by: Baroness Golding (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have for the funding of MRI treatment of essential tremor following the recommendation by NICE for its use.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) published interventional procedure (IP) guidance on the use of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)-guided focused ultrasound as a treatment for essential tremor in June 2018. A copy of Unilateral MRI-guided focused ultrasound thalamotomy for treatment-resistant essential tremor is attached.
NICE concluded that the evidence on the safety of unilateral MRI-guided focused ultrasound thalamotomy for treatment-resistant essential tremor raises no major safety concerns. However, current evidence on its efficacy is limited in quantity. Therefore, this procedure should not be used unless there are special arrangements for clinical governance, consent, and audit or research.
IP guidance looks at procedures used for diagnosis or treatment. It considers if they are safe and work well enough for wider use in the National Health Service. Whilst compliance with IP guidance is not mandatory, it is considered best clinical practice for the NHS to take it into account.
Asked by: Baroness Golding (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many cattle have been tested positive for bovine tuberculosis and then following slaughter have been negative on post-mortem testing; and what progress has been made in producing an accurate test before cattle are slaughtered.
Answered by Lord Gardiner of Kimble
The early detection and removal of tuberculosis (TB)-infected cattle before they develop advanced pathology and/or clinical signs of the disease (and thus become highly infectious) is a key element of bovine TB eradication programmes, including England’s 25 Year Bovine TB Strategy. To that effect, we use ante-mortem tests that measure the animals’ immune response to infection with the bovine TB bacterium (Mycobacterium bovis – M. bovis), rather than rely on direct detection methods.
The single intradermal comparative cervical tuberculin (SICCT) test, commonly known as the ‘skin test’, together with the interferon-gamma release assay (IGRA), is the legal standard approved in the EU legislation for the diagnosis of TB in live cattle in the UK. As with cases of TB in humans, only a proportion of those animals infected with M. bovis and reacting to a tuberculin skin test or IGRA display gross lesions of TB when subjected to post-mortem meat inspection in the slaughterhouse.
In 2017 (the last year for which an analysis of post-mortem findings is available), approximately 60% of the 32,000 cattle compulsorily removed for bovine TB control reasons in England as skin test reactors or IGRA positives did not have visible lesions of TB on post-mortem and were also negative for M. bovis on bacteriological culture (where performed).
Defra and the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) are constantly striving for new ways to maximise the effectiveness of TB testing of cattle to achieve the objectives of the Strategy. APHA may exceptionally authorise the private use of non-validated diagnostic tests for bovine TB in herds where the disease is persistent, in order to help detect additional infected animals that may have been missed by the approved official tests (rather than to negate a positive result to such tests). A policy position paper on non-validated diagnostics for TB in cattle is now available on the APHA Vet Gateway (http://apha.defra.gov.uk/vet-gateway/index.htm).
Over £4 million was allocated to TB research and development in 2018/19, with the anticipation of a similar spend this financial year. The majority of these finds are being invested in improving diagnostic tests alongside vaccine development. However, validation for a new test to World Organisation for Animal Health standards would only lead to official adoption if it demonstrated proven advantages in the detection of disease alongside the current test portfolio.
Asked by: Baroness Golding (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government when the Secretary of State will announce progress on the regulation of Sonographers to provide for statutory protection of title.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
There are no plans to regulate sonographers on a statutory basis.
Asked by: Baroness Golding (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what agreement has been reached on the transport of racing horses to and from the EU in order to enable easy participation in horse racing following Brexit.
Answered by Lord Gardiner of Kimble
We want all equines to continue to be able to travel to and from the EU with the minimum of disruption, whilst maintaining high biosecurity and welfare standards when we leave. The Government is negotiating our departure from the EU with this in mind and Defra is working with the Department for Exiting the European Union (DExEU) on appropriate future arrangements, including those for the movement of equines, under a number of possible scenarios. We are also putting in place contingency arrangements in the event of a no-deal outcome, as referenced in the recently published DExEU technical notice “Taking horses abroad if there’s no Brexit deal”.
Asked by: Baroness Golding (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what progress has been made to secure trade agreements to ensure the security of supply of medical radioisotopes following Brexit.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
The United Kingdom already has robust, domestic regimes in place for the safety, security, transport, use and disposal of nuclear and radioactive materials – including medical radioisotopes – throughout their lifecycle. These regimes will remain in place when Euratom arrangements no longer apply in the UK, ensuring we exit with certainty, clarity and control.
The Government is continuing to prepare for all European Union exit scenarios and is confident that we will be able to continue to provide a seamless supply of medicines, including medical radioisotopes, to National Health Service patients from the moment we leave the EU.
Asked by: Baroness Golding (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how non-levy apprenticeship contracts are awarded; and who within the Education and Skills Funding Agency is responsible for making such awards.
Answered by Lord Agnew of Oulton
In July 2017, the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) launched a procurement process, which established a network of contractors who will delivery apprenticeship training to employers who do not pay the apprenticeship levy. This was in accordance with its general obligations under the Public Contracts Regulation 2015.
A dedicated team at the ESFA implemented and managed the procurement process. Contracts were then awarded by the ESFA’s Chief Executive, on behalf of the Secretary of State for Education, to the providers who were successful under the terms of the procurement.
Asked by: Baroness Golding (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they plan to review the level of insurance premium tax.
Answered by Lord Bates
The Government keeps all taxes under review. Decisions on taxation are a matter for the Chancellor and are considered as part of the Budget process.