Asked by: Countess of Mar (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord O'Shaughnessy on 19 June (HL8366), what means are available for reporting and recording adverse health events resulting from non-pharmacological treatments such as graded exercise therapy or cognitive behavioural therapy on a similar basis to those for reporting adverse events to pharmacological treatments through the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency's Yellow Card Scheme.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
The Yellow Card Scheme includes a facility to report suspected adverse incidents associated with products used in psychological treatments. In addition, in guideline development, when reviewing the evidence relating to interventions, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s guideline development committees will take into account any adverse outcomes that are reported, alongside the clinical and cost-effectiveness.
Patients are able to raise concerns about such treatments directly with a healthcare professional, by raising a concern with the healthcare provider or by making a complaint.
Asked by: Countess of Mar (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many audits of local authorities' food standards enforcement services the Food Standards Agency conducted in 2016 and 2017; how many have taken place in 2018 to date; and how many more are planned for 2018.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
The Food Standards Agency’s programme of audits of local authority food law enforcement services included the following number of audits of food standards enforcement in the years specified:
2016 – nine;
2017 – nine; and
2018 – two carried out to date and five planned by the end of 2018.
Asked by: Countess of Mar (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government which body is responsible for ensuring that local authority staff carrying out official controls to ensure the verification of compliance with feed and food law, animal health and animal welfare rules have access to an adequate laboratory capacity for testing.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
In the United Kingdom, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is the body responsible for animal health and welfare rules. The Food Standards Agency is the responsible body for food and feed law. Both Government bodies are responsible for ensuring the staff carrying out official controls have access to adequate laboratory capacity.
Asked by: Countess of Mar (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many food samples each local authority submitted to a Public Analyst in 2016–17; how many of those samples were part of (1) the Food Standards Agency’s nationally co-ordinated food sampling programme, and (2) the local authority’s own programme.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
A table showing the number of food samples each local authority submitted to a Public Analyst laboratory in 2016/17, as reported to the Food Standards Agency on the United Kingdom Food Surveillance System, is attached due to the size of the data. Of the 13,362 reported, 2,857 (21%) were part of a nationally coordinated sampling programme with the remaining 10,505 (79%) being part of local programmes.
Asked by: Countess of Mar (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of whether the review of the official control laboratories agreed at the Food Standards Agency board meeting on 6 December 2017 will address the anomalous funding position of the Public Analyst laboratories when compared with other laboratories with roles in official controls.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
The Food Standards Agency’s Board proposed in December 2017 that investigating official laboratories in a systematic review was an important priority. The first phase of the review will address the availability of services to Government departments to ensure official controls can be carried out effectively. A report of this review is expected by March 2019.
Asked by: Countess of Mar (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many competent authorities with responsibilities for food standards did not have a sampling programme in place for 2016–17; and how many local authority Chief Executives the Food Standards Agency has written to since January 2018 regarding lack of compliance with legal obligations regarding the delivery of the official controls in relation to (1) food standards, and (2) food safety.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
Data submitted to the Food Standards Agency for local authority activity in 2016-17 indicates that there were 13 authorities responsible for food standards that reported no sampling activity for food standards. However, all 13 of these were unitary authorities, with responsibility for safety and standards, and reported sampling activity in relation to food safety.
The Food Standards Agency has written to 14 local authorities, either to the Chief Executive or the Head of Service, since January 2018 in relation to concerns about compliance with legal obligations. Of these, one was in relation to food standards, eight were in relation to food safety and five related to both food safety and food standards.
Asked by: Countess of Mar (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what action they have taken, if any, to ensure that the 14 District Councils and two London boroughs that did not carry out any food safety sampling during 2016–17 now have a sampling programme in place.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
Food Standards Agency officials contacted all 14 district councils that reported no food safety sampling in 2016/17 to investigate why no sampling had been carried out. As a result, nine of the 14 councils carried out sampling in 2017/18. Further follow up work will be carried out with the remaining five councils. Analysis of the 2016-17 local authority monitoring data indicates that all of the London boroughs reported sampling for food safety.
Asked by: Countess of Mar (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what action they have taken following the recommendation of the Elliott Review into the integrity and assurance of food supply networks that they should “work in partnership with Public Health England and local authorities with their own laboratories to consider appropriate options for an integrated shared scientific service around food standards”; and whether there has been any public scrutiny of this project as was requested in that Review.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
In response to the recommendations of the Elliott Review, the following actions that have been undertaken to address the integrity and assurance of the food supply networks include:
- Creation of a United Kingdom Virtual Food Authenticity Network to bring together centres of scientific expertise on food standards; and
- Supporting sharing analytical best practice on food standards across laboratories via a new coordinated knowledge transfer programme to upskill laboratories in the application of analytical methods and support food law enforcement; and supporting the Mastership in Chemical Analysis (MChemA).
The Government response to the Elliott review of the integrity and assurance of food supply networks was published in September 2014. A copy is attached. This document provides the details of the Government’s actions and commitments to address the recommendations of the Elliott Review and was open to the public for further enquiries and comments.
Asked by: Countess of Mar (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many competent authorities with responsibility for food standards consulted (1) a public analyst, and (2) a food examiner employed by those authorities when preparing food sampling policies and programmes for 2016–17.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
The Food Standards Agency does not routinely capture information on the number of competent authorities that have consulted a public analyst and/or a food examiner when preparing their food sampling policies and programmes. However, the Agency requires local authorities to have a food sampling policy and linked sampling programme and that these should be prepared in consultation with the food examiner and/or the public analyst. This consultation may take place on a local or regional basis.
Asked by: Countess of Mar (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the efficacy of the human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccination programme in women and girls who may already have had exposure to HPV infection, either naturally or as the result of sexual abuse, prior to receiving that vaccine.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
The human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines have demonstrated very high vaccine efficacy against the vaccine types and related disease in clinical trials when administered to HPV-naïve women (i.e. women with no current or previous vaccine-type HPV infection). However, results from these trials also demonstrated that HPV vaccination of women with a current vaccine-type HPV infection had little or no effect on clearance of the existing infection. There is also some evidence of a slightly reduced vaccine efficacy against pre-cancerous abnormalities among young women currently not infected with HPV but with serological evidence of a previous exposure.
Public Health England has conducted surveillance to monitor the prevalence of type-specific genital HPV infections in 16-24 year old sexually active women in England who would have been eligible to receive the HPV vaccine. The latest data, including specimens collected to the end of 2016, demonstrated a vaccine effectiveness of 82.0% against infections with HPV16/18 among women vaccinated at age 15 years or younger. The vaccine effectiveness in women who would have been vaccinated at age 16 to 18 years old was 48.7%. This suggests that the vaccine works best when given to young girls before they are exposed to HPV. However it also shows that older girls still benefit from vaccination.