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Written Question
Antidepressants: Children and Young People
Monday 21st October 2019

Asked by: Andrew Griffiths (Conservative - Burton)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many prescriptions for anti-depressants were issued to (a) children aged under 16, (b) teenagers aged 16 to 17 and (c) young people aged 18 to 21 in each of the last five years for which figures are available.

Answered by Nadine Dorries

No data is captured relating to the clinical indication a prescription is intended for. Some antidepressant drugs can be used for a variety of clinical indications and therefore the figures provided may include items which may have been prescribed for a different condition. The list of antidepressants which have been identified for this response are those listed within British National Formulary (BNF) chapter 4 section 3 (Antidepressant Drugs).

The NHS Business Services Authority only holds data relating to patient ages from April 2015. Therefore, the data attached is for the three full years for which there is data available.


Written Question
Antidepressants: Children and Young People
Monday 21st October 2019

Asked by: Andrew Griffiths (Conservative - Burton)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many (a) children under the age of 16, (b) teenagers aged 16 to 17 and (c) young people aged 18 to 21 were prescribed anti-depressants in each of the last five years for which figures are available.

Answered by Nadine Dorries

No data is captured relating to the clinical indication a prescription is intended for. Some antidepressant drugs can be used for a variety of clinical indications and therefore the figures provided may include items which may have been prescribed for a different condition. The list of antidepressants which have been identified for this response are those listed within British National Formulary (BNF) chapter 4 section 3 (Antidepressant Drugs).

The NHS Business Services Authority only holds data relating to patient ages from April 2015. Therefore, the data attached is for the three full years for which there is data available.


Written Question
Cancer: Screening
Thursday 3rd October 2019

Asked by: Andrew Griffiths (Conservative - Burton)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure that the full NHS People Plan will tackle shortages in the imaging and diagnostic workforce in order to achieve the ambition in the NHS Long Term Plan to increase cancer screening uptake.

Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Following publication of the interim People Plan on 3 June 2019, work is now underway to develop a full five-year NHS People Plan, which will support delivery of the NHS Long Term Plan. The full People Plan will build on the ambitions in the interim Plan, focusing on education and training, and new routes into the National Health Service, as well as workforce planning and redesign, and workforce productivity (releasing time for care).

Since publication of the Interim Plan, Health Education England and NHS Improvement and NHS England have been working together to ensure delivery of the immediate actions and have been working with stakeholders including the People Plan advisory group and trade unions, think tanks, academia, and professional bodies to develop the full People Plan. Work is also underway with national clinical programmes, including cancer and diagnostics, to understand their workforce priorities for delivering the Long Term Plan commitments, including addressing key workforce shortages.

Also, as part of the NHS Long Term Plan, NHS England asked Sir Mike Richards to lead a review to improve the delivery of the screening programmes, increase uptake, learn the lessons from the recent issues around breast and cervical screening, and modernise and expand diagnostic capacity. Workforce requirements to support delivery of our national screening programmes are included in scope of Professor Sir Mike Richards review and we expect publication of the report shortly. The review, will make recommendations to the Secretary of State and Board of NHS England about the future commissioning and delivery of screening programmes in England.


Written Question
Mental Health Services: Children and Young People
Monday 9th September 2019

Asked by: Andrew Griffiths (Conservative - Burton)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the average waiting time is for a child and adolescent mental health services referral by clinical commissioning group in England.

Answered by Nadine Dorries

There is currently no overall waiting time standard for children and young people’s mental health services and therefore this information is not collected centrally. However, there are two waiting time standards which apply to specific areas. The first standard is for young people’s eating disorder services, which is that urgent cases should be seen within one week and non-urgent cases within four weeks. The latest data (for quarter 4 of 2018/19) shows that 80.6 % of children and young people with eating disorders were seen within one week (urgent) and 82.4 % of children and young people with eating disorders were seen within four weeks (routine).

The second standard is for first episode of psychosis, where a patient should be seen within two weeks. This standard was met in 75.3% of cases although the data refers to patients of all ages and is not available by age group.


Written Question
Antidepressants: Children and Young People
Monday 9th September 2019

Asked by: Andrew Griffiths (Conservative - Burton)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many (a) children under 16 years old, (b) teenagers aged 16-18 years old and (c) young people aged 18-21 years old were prescribed anti-depressants in each year since 2010.

Answered by Nadine Dorries

The requested information is attached.


Written Question
Antidepressants: Children and Young People
Monday 9th September 2019

Asked by: Andrew Griffiths (Conservative - Burton)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many prescriptions for anti-depressants were issued to (a) children aged under 16 years old, (b) teenagers aged 16-18 years old and (c) young people aged 18-21 years old in each year since 2010.

Answered by Nadine Dorries

The requested information is attached.


Written Question
Antidepressants: Young People
Monday 9th September 2019

Asked by: Andrew Griffiths (Conservative - Burton)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the estimated cost is of prescribing anti-depressants to people aged under 21 years old in each year since 2010.

Answered by Nadine Dorries

The requested information is attached.


Written Question
Cancer: Screening
Monday 9th September 2019

Asked by: Andrew Griffiths (Conservative - Burton)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure the full NHS People Plan will tackle shortages in the imaging and diagnostic workforce in order to achieve the ambition in the NHS Long Term Plan to increase cancer screening uptake.

Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.


Written Question
Mental Health Services: Children and Young People
Monday 9th September 2019

Asked by: Andrew Griffiths (Conservative - Burton)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the average waiting time is for access to cognitive behavioural therapy and talking therapy for under 18 year olds, by clinical commissioning group.

Answered by Nadine Dorries

This information is not collected centrally.


Written Question
Cannabis: Medical Treatments
Tuesday 2nd July 2019

Asked by: Andrew Griffiths (Conservative - Burton)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 27 June 2019 to Question 266815 on Cannabis: Medical Treatments, how many prescriptions for the use of medicinal cannabis were issued in each of the last 12 months for which data is available.

Answered by Seema Kennedy

NHS England and NHS Improvement are using extant systems to monitor use of the newly rescheduled unlicensed cannabis-based products for medicinal use in England. In England, these systems monitor the number of items dispensed and associated costs in primary care and the volume of products used and associated cost in secondary care. NHS England and NHS Improvement Controlled Drug Accountable Officers are also collecting local intelligence in both the National Health Service and independent sector.

The NHS Business Services Authority is only able to provide information on prescriptions for cannabis-based medicines that have been dispensed and submitted to the NHS Business Services Authority. The NHS Business Services Authority does not hold information on prescriptions for cannabis-based medicines which have been issued but not fulfilled.

The following table shows the number of items for Nabilone and Sativex (licensed cannabis-based medicines) and unlicensed cannabis-based medicines that were prescribed on an NHS prescription, dispensed in the community and submitted to the NHS Business Services Authority for reimbursement since May 2018.

Month

Nabilone

Sativex

Unlicensed cannabis-based medicines

May 2018

45

183

June 2018

42

157

July 2018

48

170

2*

August 2018

54

161

September 2018

45

172

1*

October 2018

50

164

November 2018

46

175

2

December 2018

49

181

1

January 2019

44

167

2

February 2019

36

159

1

March 2019

51

171

2

April 2019

49

156

0

May 2019

Data not yet available

Data not yet available

2

Note: * These figures represent prescribing of unlicensed cannabis-based medicines imported on a Home Office licence.

The following table shows the same products listed above covering the same time period but this data relates to private prescribing on an FP10PCD where the forms have been submitted to the NHS Business Services Authority for reporting and monitoring purposes only.

Month

Nabilone

Sativex

Epidiolex

Unlicensed cannabis-based medicines

May 2018

0

1

0

Jun 2018

0

3

0

July 2018

0

2

0

August 2018

0

1

0

September 2018

0

3

0

October 2018

0

3

0

November 2018

0

1

0

0

December 2018

0

6

0

0

January 2019

0

5

0

4

February 2019

0

3

1

2

March 2019

0

3

0

3

April 2019

1

2

0

0

May 2019

Data not yet available

Data not yet available

Data not yet available

1

Unlike NHS primary care where all dispensed prescriptions are processed centrally, this is not the case for secondary care. This information is collected by a third party and not routinely published.

Intelligence from NHS England and NHS Improvement Controlled Drugs Accountable Officers is that, up until the end of March 2019, five patients have had private prescriptions issued for a cannabis-based product for medicinal use in independent secondary/tertiary care in England.

145 patients have accessed Epidiolex though GW Pharma’s early access programmes ahead of a licensing decision by the European Medicines Agency.