Asked by: Lord Moonie (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how much Lupron they estimate to have been legally prescribed in England and Wales last year.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
No such estimate has been made.
The following table shows the number of prescription items of leuprorelin acetate written in the United Kingdom and dispensed in the community in England, 2017. We do not hold data for Wales. Lupron is the brand name, used in the United States of America, for the chemical leuprorelin acetate. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, leuprorelin is marketed under the brand names Lutrate and Prostap.
Chemical Name | Brand | Presentation | Items |
Leuprorelin Acetate | Lutrate | Lutrate_1 month Depot Inj 3.75mg Vl+Dil | 182 |
Leuprorelin Acetate | Lutrate | Lutrate_3 month Depot Inj 22.5mg Vl+Dil | 611 |
Leuprorelin Acetate | Prostap | Prostap 3_DCS Inj 11.25mg Dil + Pfs | 150,586 |
Leuprorelin Acetate | Prostap | Prostap 3_Depot Inj 11.25mg Vl + Dil Pfs | 59 |
Leuprorelin Acetate | Prostap | Prostap SR_DCS Inj 3.75mg Dil + Pfs | 41,771 |
Leuprorelin Acetate | Prostap | Prostap SR_Inj 3.75mg Vl + Dil Pfs | 38 |
Leuprorelin Acetate | Total | Total | 193,247 |
Source: Prescription Cost Analysis
Asked by: Lord Moonie (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to consult antimicrobial clinical experts or representative expert bodies on any proposals designed to achieve de-linkage in respect of drug development in the UK.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
The Government is working with industry and experts to develop a health technology assessment led evaluation and reimbursement model that supports good antimicrobial stewardship. A reimbursement sub group of the Joint Government and Industry Antimicrobial Resistance Working Group is considering new reimbursement models.
New models are contingent on a positive outcome of a study commissioned to help us better understand the value of new antimicrobials. This study is being undertaken through the Department’s Policy Research Programme, supported by an expert advisory group and is expected to report in the summer of 2018.
Asked by: Lord Moonie (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of international attempts to reform antibiotic reimbursement and of the potential for domestic level reform in that policy field.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
The United Kingdom supports the introduction of better incentives to bring new antimicrobials – in particular antibiotics - to market, including through reforms to pharmaceutical reimbursement models. Internationally, we are working with G20 partners to decide how best to deliver the 2017 G20 Leaders’ commitment to “examine practical market incentive options” this year. To inform our approach, the UK tracks the position of other countries and the European Union regarding market incentives, as well as recent research findings such as DRIVE-AB (Driving reinvestment in research and development for antibiotics and advocating their responsible use), looking at the societal value of new antibiotics. Nationally, the Government is working with industry and experts to develop a health technology assessment led evaluation and reimbursement model that supports good antimicrobial stewardship.
Asked by: Lord Moonie (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their policy on strengthening UK national resilience against infectious diseases.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
The Department, NHS England and Public Health England have a range of plans and systems in place to detect and respond to any future outbreak of an infectious disease, including:
- well-developed epidemic intelligence to identify new health threats (animal and human);
- surveillance systems to identify and track United Kingdom and/or overseas outbreaks and assess the risk to the UK;
- compliance with the World Health Organization International Health Regulations in relation to identifying, communicating and responding to national and international health threats;
- the diagnostic capability to identify organisms and ability to develop new diagnostics that can be quickly rolled out to the National Health Service;
- the production of advice for clinicians, including diagnostic and patient management algorithms;
- a legal framework that allows for the investigation and control of infectious disease;
- the UK Public Health Rapid Support Team, which can deploy overseas to support the local response to outbreaks at source before they pose a risk to UK travellers or UK population; and
- public information, messaging and advice on infectious diseases.
Comprehensive national immunisation programmes are also in place to tackle vaccine-preventable diseases, which are kept under review by the independent expert Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.
The UK Government assesses the risk of an infectious diseases outbreak to the UK every two years. This is published in an unclassified form as the National Risk Register.
Asked by: Lord Moonie (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how they are co-operating with other EU nations in the development of new antibiotics.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
The United Kingdom Government considers international inter-governmental co-operation to be essential to overcoming the existing market failure in the development of new antibiotics. European Union nations have a major role to play, which is why the UK has advocated for EU support for this objective at G20 and its inclusion in regional priorities around antimicrobial resistance and research and development.
To support the development of new antibiotics, we continue to work closely with EU nations to increase investment, co-fund and improve coordination of research and development and share best practice around national purchasing arrangements.
Asked by: Lord Moonie (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their policy on international intergovernmental co-operation to offset market failures in the development of new antibiotics.
Answered by Lord O'Shaughnessy
The United Kingdom Government considers international inter-governmental co-operation to be essential in the development of new antibiotics.
Through international forums, in particular the G20, the UK Government is advocating tangible actions that will incentivise pharmaceutical companies to produce effective, accessible and affordable new antibiotics. The Government is also investing internationally in early-stage research and development to address antimicrobial resistance, in partnership with other countries and organisations, through projects such as the Global Anti-Microbial Resistance Innovation Fund.
Asked by: Lord Moonie (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the ranking of spending on healthcare per capita amongst EU member states.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
The latest Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) figures for total, per capita expenditure on healthcare that have been provided by the countries themselves are for 2014. These figures are only available for the 22 European Union member states that are also members of the OECD. They indicate that the United Kingdom ranked 10th out of 22 for total, per capita expenditure on healthcare in 2014. Rankings for all 22 EU member states that are also members of the OECD can be found in Table 1.
OECD estimates for 2015 from their ‘Health at a Glance: Europe 2016’ report suggest that the United Kingdom’s ranking remains unchanged at 10th out of all 28 EU member states and that total, per capita expenditure on healthcare is slightly above the EU28 average. However, these figures are yet to be verified by the United Kingdom and a further 19 countries in the report.
Table 1: Per capita expenditure on healthcare by the 22 EU member states that are also members of the OECD in 2014 - all functions, all financing schemes and all providers (current prices and current purchasing power parity)
Country | Rank - 2014 |
Austria | 6 |
Belgium | 8 |
Czech Republic | 16 |
Denmark | 7 |
Estonia | 20 |
Finland | 11 |
France | 9 |
Germany | 3 |
Greece | 17 |
Hungary | 19 |
Ireland | 5 |
Italy | 12 |
Latvia | 22 |
Luxembourg | 1 |
Netherlands | 2 |
Poland | 21 |
Portugal | 15 |
Slovak Republic | 18 |
Slovenia | 14 |
Spain | 13 |
Sweden | 4 |
United Kingdom | 10 |
Source: OECD.Stat, Health Expenditure and Financing, 2014.
Asked by: Lord Moonie (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many abortions took place in 2014 at 23 weeks' gestation and above.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
In 2014, there were 682 abortions performed at 23 weeks gestation and above for residents of England and Wales. Abortions where gestation has exceeded its 24th week account for less than 0.1% of the overall total number of abortions for 2014 for England and Wales.
Asked by: Lord Moonie (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many abortions there were in 2015 at 23 weeks gestation and above.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
This data is not currently available. Abortion data for 2015 will be published by the Department in May.
Asked by: Lord Moonie (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many non-UK, non-EU nationals work in the NHS in England.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
The Health and Social Care Information Centre collects data on the number of staff working in National Health Service hospital and community health services in England.
Nationality is a self-reported field within the NHS electronic staff record system. Of those individuals who declared their nationality, 1,050,034 (93.5%) are European Union nationals (this includes 994,693 British nationals and 55,341 other EU nationals). There are a further 73,681 (6.5%) non United Kingdom and non EU nationals.