Asked by: Lord Wills (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made in the Comprehensive Spending Review of the expected incidence of mesothelioma over the next fifty years in children born since 2010 in the constituencies covered by the Northern Powerhouse.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
The Spending Review has not made assessments on the incidence, or expected incidence, of mesothelioma in constituencies covered by the Northern Powerhouse.
Asked by: Lord Wills (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made in the Comprehensive Spending Review of the incidence of mesothelioma in the constituencies covered by the Northern Powerhouse.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
The Spending Review has not made assessments on the incidence, or expected incidence, of mesothelioma in constituencies covered by the Northern Powerhouse.
Asked by: Lord Wills (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their most recent assessment of the annual cost of mesothelioma to the NHS.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
Financial information is not held at this level, and we are not aware of any recent assessment of the annual cost of mesothelioma to the National Health Service.
Asked by: Lord Wills (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they have taken to secure funding for research into mesothelioma over the last two years.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
The usual practice of the Department's National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and of the Medical Research Council is not to ring-fence funds for expenditure on particular topics: research proposals in all areas compete for the funding available. Both funders welcome funding applications for research into any aspect of human health, including mesothelioma. These applications are subject to peer review and judged in open competition.
The NIHR launched a ‘themed call’ for mesothelioma research proposals in 2014. Fifteen individual applications have been received, of which two have been approved for funding to date, two are under review, and eleven have been rejected.
Asked by: Lord Wills (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what representations on public funding to match charitable support for a National Mesothelioma Centre have been received by (1) HM Treasury, (2) the Department of Health, and (3) the Department for International Development.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
These Departments have received representations concerning this issue from the noble Lord, Lord Wills of North Swindon and other noble Lords. The Department of Health has received a letter from the British Lung Foundation that mentions this issue.
Asked by: Lord Wills (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to monitor the adoption across England of the pilot fast-track clinical pathway for polymyalgia rheumatica and giant-cell arteritis being developed in Southend University Hospital.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
Clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) are responsible for the provision of services for people with polymyalgia rheumatica and giant cell arteritis (GCA). Whilst it would not be appropriate for NHS England to direct CCGs to adopt a particular clinical pathway, it continues to ensure that the innovative approach developed in Southend University Hospital is shared and made available to clinicians. The Specialised Rheumatology Clinical Reference Group at NHS England has been developing proposals to establish local rheumatology networks.
The aim of these would be to share good and innovative practice across the country and an indication has been proposed for GCA. In addition, NHS England’s innovation team has invited Professor Dasgupta, who developed the GCA pathway, to contribute to the NHS Innovation Exchange Portal to ensure that this knowledge is shared.
Asked by: Lord Wills (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that NHS England produces prompt and comprehensive replies to correspondence from MPs and Members of the House of Lords.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
NHS England is an independent arm’s length body of the Department. NHS England has signed up to a Public and Parliamentary Accountability protocol where it is committed to answering all correspondence in 18 working days, in line with the Whitehall standard.
Adherence to the protocol is verified by the Department, and where standards are not met the Department will raise these at regular accountability meetings with NHS England and agree improvement actions required.
Asked by: Lord Wills (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to encourage innovation by National Health Service clinicians.
Answered by Earl Howe - Deputy Leader of the House of Lords
Innovation Health and Wealth, published in 2011, set out a number of steps to encourage innovation which the National Health Service is pursuing. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) Implementation Collaborative supports faster and more consistent access to NICE recommended medicines, treatments and technologies. Academic Health Science Networks are working with their local health systems to support the effective adoption of innovation.
Building on this, we are working closely with NHS England, industry and other key stakeholders to develop the Innovation Scorecard to make it a more effective tool for identifying unjustified variation in uptake of innovative treatments in the NHS. Following the vision set out in the Five Year Forward View, we are also working with NHS England to support the development of ‘test beds’, which will offer the opportunity to test technologies at scale in a real world setting.
We have also announced the Innovative Medicines and Medical Technologies review, which will make recommendations to accelerate the overall pathway, including adoption and diffusion of innovation in the NHS.
Asked by: Lord Wills (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the pilot clinical pathway in Southend to develop faster and more effective diagnosis of polymyalgia rheumatica and giant cell arteritis.
Answered by Earl Howe - Deputy Leader of the House of Lords
The National Institute for Heath and Care Excellence Clinical Knowledge Summary on Giant Cell Arteritis (GCA) sets out that the annual incidence of GCA in the United Kingdom is approximately 20 per 100,000 people, with total or partial vision loss affecting up to 20% of people. Numbers of patients diagnosed as suffering from GCA related sight loss in each of the last five years and its associated costs are not available.
No specific assessment has been made of the GCA clinical pathway used in Southend. However, the Government understands that Professor Bhaskar Dasgupta who developed the Southend clinical pathway, contributed to development of the Royal College of Physicians’ guideline on GCA, published in 2010. The guideline sets out best practice for clinicians in the prompt diagnosis and urgent management of GCA, helping to minimise GCA related vision loss.
Asked by: Lord Wills (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what estimate they have made of the number of people afflicted by giant cell arteritis who have lost vision as a result of a failure to diagnose the illness sufficiently early, in each of the last five years.
Answered by Earl Howe - Deputy Leader of the House of Lords
The National Institute for Heath and Care Excellence Clinical Knowledge Summary on Giant Cell Arteritis (GCA) sets out that the annual incidence of GCA in the United Kingdom is approximately 20 per 100,000 people, with total or partial vision loss affecting up to 20% of people. Numbers of patients diagnosed as suffering from GCA related sight loss in each of the last five years and its associated costs are not available.
No specific assessment has been made of the GCA clinical pathway used in Southend. However, the Government understands that Professor Bhaskar Dasgupta who developed the Southend clinical pathway, contributed to development of the Royal College of Physicians’ guideline on GCA, published in 2010. The guideline sets out best practice for clinicians in the prompt diagnosis and urgent management of GCA, helping to minimise GCA related vision loss.