Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make a comparative assessment of the adequacy of the reasons the (a) National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has been unable and (b) Scottish Medicines Consortium has been able to recommend Enhertu for use on the NHS.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) makes authoritative, evidence-based recommendations for the National Health Service in England on whether new licensed medicines should be routinely funded by the NHS, based on an assessment of their costs and benefits. Decisions on the availability of medicines in Scotland are a matter for the devolved administration.
The NICE published guidance in 2021 and 2023 recommending Enhertu, also known as trastuzumab deruxtecan, for the treatment of NHS patients with HER2-positive breast cancer through the Cancer Drugs Fund, and it is now available to eligible NHS patients in England in line with the NICE’s recommendations.
The NICE is currently evaluating Enhertu for the treatment of metastatic HER2-low breast cancer, and has not yet published final guidance. Stakeholders have had an opportunity to appeal against the NICE’s draft recommendations, and the NICE will consider any appeals through the established process and publish final guidance in due course.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Department is collating data from toxicology reports of non-fatal overdose incidents to assess the risk from synthetic opioids.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is undertaking a number of actions to address the risk that synthetic opioids pose. The Department has a longstanding surveillance system in place to collect information on the nature and location of novel drug use, drug markets, and reports alerting us to drug harms experienced. We continue to monitor the threat posed by synthetic opioids, and are working to improve drug surveillance on synthetic opioids through the development of an early warning system. This will include, with the permission of coroners, toxicology results for fatal overdose cases from across England as soon as the information is available, enabling the Department to closely monitor the substances causing deaths.
We know that most overdoses take place when individuals are alone, or accompanied by others also using drugs. This means they are largely transitory and hidden events, with no opportunity for sampling. A key indicator, therefore, is those who do come into contact with first responders, who are administered the lifesaving opioid reversal drug naloxone, or who are admitted to hospital. Ambulance data represents an opportunity for rapidly identifying local spikes in overdoses and, for this purpose, we are establishing data feeds with ambulance trusts in England, on callouts where naloxone has been administered.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many full-time equivalent qualified school nurses are working in a public health-commissioned (a) school nursing service, (b) zero to 19 service and (c) five to 19 healthy child programme in each local authority area.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Since April 2013, local authorities have held responsibility for commissioning public health services for school-aged children. These services may be commissioned from a range of providers both inside and outside of the National Health Service. NHS England publishes monthly workforce data which includes information on the number of school nurses directly employed by NHS trusts and other core NHS organisations in England. This data will not represent the total number of school nurses delivering local authority commissioned services, as it will excludes places where services are commissioned outside of the NHS. It is not possible to identify the specific service or programme that these staff are working within.
While data is not available at a local authority level, the following table shows full-time equivalent (FTE) school nurses working within NHS trusts and other core organisations in England by Government Office Region, as of November 2023:
Government Office Region | FTE School Nurses |
East Midlands | 140 |
East of England | 161 |
London | 325 |
North East | 55 |
North West | 434 |
South East | 291 |
South West | 81 |
West Midlands | 286 |
Yorkshire and The Humber | 207 |
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Answer of 12 October 2021 to Question 51702 on NHS: Expenditure, how much and what proportion of the NHS budget was spent on continuing healthcare in each financial year between 2015-16 and 2021-22.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS Continuing Healthcare (CHC) spend data includes Standard CHC, Fast Track CHC and Personal Health Budgets (PHBs). This data for the requested period is shown in the attached table.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions she (a) has had and (b) plans to have with (i) brain tumour research charities and (ii) other organisations working to secure UK access to (A) Vorasidenib and (B) other new drugs for cancers of unmet need.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Department ministers and officials regularly meet with charities and other organisations working to improve outcomes for patients with cancer, including brain tumours, through access to new medicines.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) makes recommendations on whether all new medicines should be routinely funded by the National Health Service based on an assessment of their costs and benefits and aims to publish guidance as close as possible to licensing. NICE engages with stakeholders, including charities, in the development of its recommendations. NICE is currently developing guidance for the NHS on the use of Vorasidenib.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to (a) monitor the availability, (b) notify relevant stakeholders of shortages and (c) help ensure adequate supply of (i) Victoza and (ii) other medications for patients with diabetes.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We are aware of global supply issues with glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RAs) including Victoza (liraglutide), which are licensed for treating patients with type 2 diabetes. We have issued guidance in the form of a Medicine Supply Notification, addressing all GLP-1 RAs advising healthcare professionals on how to manage patients requiring these medicines. Further guidance has been issued through a National Patient Safety Alert which provides further background and clinical information and actions for providers. This guidance was futher updated on 3 January 2024.
Our guidance is clear that GLP-1 RA medicines that are solely licensed to treat type 2 diabetes should only be used for that purpose and should not be routinely prescribed for weight loss.
The General Pharmaceutical Council, General Medical Council, Health and Care Professions Council, Nursing and Midwifery Council and Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland have also issued a joint statement stressing the importance of health and care professionals meeting regulatory standards in relation to these medicines. We have also added some of these products to the list of medicines that cannot be exported from, or hoarded in, the United Kingdom.
We are continuing to work closely with manufacturers and others working in the supply chain to help ensure the continued supply of these medicines for UK patients, for example by asking suppliers to expedite deliveries. Supplies of Rybelsus (semaglutide) have been boosted to support demand from new patients with type 2 diabetes, alongside patients switching from Victoza injections.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, which policies under each arms length body reporting to their Department fall within the scope of the Environmental principles policy statement, published on 31 January 2023.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The duty does not require us to maintain a comprehensive list of policies within scope of the duty. The duty applies to all policies made from 1 November 2023, whether developed by a central department or an arm’s length body, which are made by Ministers of the Crown; and not covered by the exemptions for the armed forces, defence or national security, taxation, spending or the allocation of resources within Government.
The environmental principles policy statement provides further information on what is considered policy in scope of the duty. Examples include strategies and frameworks.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of extending the eligibility criteria for Paxlovid to include people who are full-time carers to mitigate the risk of long covid.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department has made no such assessment, as the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is the independent body that makes recommendations on whether medicines can be recommended for routine use on the National Health Service. NICE’s recommendations are based on a thorough assessment of the available evidence and developed through a rigorous process that includes extensive engagement with stakeholders.
NICE published guidance in March 2023 that recommends Paxlovid for patients at highest risk of developing serious illness from COVID-19. Paxlovid is now routinely available to NHS patients in line with NICE’s guidance. NICE issued final draft guidance on 11 January 2024 that expands its recommendation of Paxlovid to include other higher risk groups, including people aged 70 years and over, or with a body mass index of 35 or more, diabetes, or heart failure.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the US Food and Drug Administration safety communication Evaluating Plastic Syringes Made in China for Potential Device Failures, issued on 30 November 2023, whether her Department is undertaking a similar evaluation of syringes.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is aware of the issues raised by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) concerning quality control and design problems with plastic syringes manufactured in China. Whist the MHRA works on the basis that CE or UKCA marked plastic syringes originally produced in China are in use within the United Kingdom healthcare system, one of the main suppliers of plastic syringes into the UK healthcare system, Becton, Dickinson and Company, has confirmed that their products are not affected by this issue.
Medical device safety issues may affect different global regions to varying extents. Whilst awareness and active information exchange between regulators is critical to focus national investigations, regulatory action is taken based on UK relevant evidence. Device safety corrective actions communicated via so-called Field Safety Notices (FSNs) related to the specific problems highlighted in the FDA alert have not been issued in the UK. FSNs issued in the UK are available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/drug-device-alerts
The MHRA is an active member of the International Medical Device Safety group. Representatives of regulatory authorities across the world meet on a regular basis to discuss emerging safety issues related to medical devices. The current issue was identified and MHRA are closely monitoring the situation. At this stage, there is insufficient evidence to justify actions against specific manufacturers of these products supplying into the UK.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will provide NHS Sussex Integrated Care Board with the additional £8m funding required to pay for the projected increase in demand in primary care for Locally Commissioned Services for this financial year.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department sets NHS England’s budget, with funding increasing to £162.5 billion in 2024/25.
NHS England is responsible for allocating healthcare resources to integrated care boards (ICBs) to meet the healthcare needs of their populations. ICBs then decide how that funding is spent within the local integrated care system. Allocations are determined using an independently recommended ‘weighted capitation’ formula to produce a target allocation or ‘fair share’, including for primary care, which accounts for population size.