Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)
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 improve waiting times for cancer treatment in (a) Liverpool, Walton constituency and (b) England.
Answered by Will Quince
Reducing cancer treatment waiting times is a priority for this Government. The Department is working jointly with NHS England on implementing the delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlogs in elective care. The Government plans to spend more than £8 billion from 2022/23 to 2024/25 to help drive up and protect elective activity, including cancer diagnosis and treatment activity.
In the 2023/24 Operational Planning Guidance, NHS England announced it is providing over £390 million in cancer service development funding to Cancer Alliances in each of the next two years to support delivery of the strategy and the operational priorities for cancer which includes increasing and prioritising diagnostic and treatment capacity for cancer.
Additionally, the Government recently published the Major Conditions Strategy Case for Change and Our Strategic Framework on 14 August 2023 which sets out our approach to making the choices over the next 5 years that will deliver the most value in facing the health challenges of today and of the decades ahead, including for cancer.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that the NHS Federated Data Platform delivers transparency on (a) what patient data will be made available, (b) which third-party organisations will have access, (c) how the use of data will be limited, (d) patients’ (i) rights and (ii) mechanisms for opting out and (e) what safeguards will be in place to protect confidential patient data.
Answered by Will Quince
NHS England has responsibility for procuring the Federated Data Platform (FDP) for use by the National Health Service. The supplier will be a data processor on behalf of NHS organisations. Each integrated care system and trust will need to determine how they will use their platform and each use case will require a Data Protection Impact Assessment to articulate the data security and protection principals and lawful bases for deployment.
The type of data will depend on the uses of the data as defined by the individual NHS organisations. It is anticipated that there will be various types of data used including anonymised, pseudonymised and in some cases identifiable data, but subject to stringent controls on access and use. Trusts will use the FDP locally to deliver direct care to patients. Only NHS organisations, and those working on their behalf, will have access to the data.
The platform will only use data to which the NHS is already able to access and use; patients will have the same rights in relation to the data in the FDP as apply to other data in use in health. The National Data Opt-Out will apply, in line with the national policy, where the platform is handling confidential patient information for planning. Such uses will be clearly identified to the public via Privacy Notices.
NHS England is procuring Privacy Enhancing Technology to ensure data is safe; this cannot be provided by the supplier of the FDP and Associated Services.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is planning to take to help improve epilepsy care.
Answered by Will Quince
The majority of health services for people with epilepsy are commissioned locally by integrated care boards (ICBs). ICBs are best placed to make decisions regarding the provision of health services to their local population, including for the treatment of epilepsy, subject to local prioritisation and funding.
At a national level, there are a number of initiatives supporting service improvement for those with epilepsy, including NHS England’s Neuroscience Service Transformation Programme and RightCare Epilepsy Toolkit.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when he plans to create the nine statutory joint committees on radiotherapy; and what the process will be for creating those committees.
Answered by Will Quince
NHS England published a roadmap in May 2022 setting the direction of travel for greater integration of specialised services with integrated care board (ICB) commissioned services, in order to better join up patient pathways. A copy of the roadmap is available at the following link:
An analysis of the entire specialised services portfolio was undertaken to determine which services are both suitable and ready for greater ICB leadership. Following an assessment of ICB system readiness at the end of 2022, which was signed off by the NHS England Board in February 2023, nine statutory joint committees between NHS England and multi-ICB collaborations were established on 1 April 2023 taking on joint responsibility for commissioning decisions on 59 specialised services. A list of these services (which includes radiotherapy services) is available at the following link:
To ensure appropriate oversight and assurance of specialised services under the nine statutory joint committees in 2023/24, NHS England produced guidance for its regional teams and integrated care boards which was released in February 2023. The guidance sets out four key areas that NHS England's regional specialised commissioning teams, working with and through the joint committees, should be regularly overseeing and monitoring in relation to their specialised provision (including providers of radiotherapy services). These four areas are: timeliness of provision; quality of provision; use of resources/value for money; and equity and health inequalities.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that the awarding of NHS data contracts is (a) fair and (b) transparent.
Answered by Will Quince
NHS England is subject to Public Contracts Regulations (PCR) 2015 and conducts procurements in adherence to the PCR. The procurements for the Federated Data Platform, which is awaiting final approval, and Privacy Enhancing Technology, which is currently in evaluation stage, are no exception.
NHS England has followed a fair, open, and transparent procurement process for both procurements. Both processes were open procedures that invited any suppliers to participate who could meet NHS England’s minimum criteria and deliver the requirements. Extensive pre-market engagement was undertaken, with all notices published on the Government’s Find A Tender and Contracts Finder sites. NHS England has been transparent with the process that has been followed, which is detailed in the tender documents published on NHS England’s e-tendering system, and has published all evaluation criteria, in accordance with PCR. Tenders have been independently evaluated by subject matter experts from across the National Health Service.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has (a) ethical and (b) reputational criteria that companies must satisfy to be awarded NHS contracts.
Answered by Will Quince
National Health Service bodies set their own policies on how to award contracts, but they must do so in line with the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 and central policy. The Government uses a standard selection questionnaire that requires suppliers to confirm they meet certain standards. Suppliers can be excluded for a variety of reasons, including where they are guilty of grave professional misconduct or where they have shown significant or persistent deficiencies in the performance under a prior public contract. Information on the policy relating to the Standard Selection Questionnaire is available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ppn-0323-standard-selection-questionnaire-sq
From an ethical perspective this also includes references to Social Value, Modern Slavery and Carbon Reduction policies.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent discussions his Department has held with community pharmacies on the start date for the NHS flu vaccination programme.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
This year, as is usual, the Department, NHS England and Community Pharmacy England negotiated the service specifications for the annual flu vaccination service in community pharmacy. These discussions included the start date of the National Health Service flu vaccination programme.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to (a) encourage more people aged 16-30 to join the stem cell register and (b) raise awareness of the need for stem cell donors from BAME communities.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The Department’s Stem Cell Programme is providing £2.4 million of funding to Anthony Nolan and NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) for a three-year targeted stem cell donor recruitment campaign. The approach focuses on recruiting donors most likely to donate, including male donors aged 16 to 30, and ethnic minority donors to address health inequalities. The Anthony Nolan stem cell register has nearly 900,000 potential stem cell donors and Departmental funding contributed to recruitment of over 37,000 people aged 16 to 30 in 2022/23. NHSBT can recruit from registered blood donors whose tissue is typed to a very high level, using Next Generation Sequencing technology. Targeted e-mail campaigns to specific ethnic heritage groups highlight the need for more donors from these groups. NHSBT is also conducting qualitative research within specific ethnic heritage groups to identify how it can improve the recruitment of donors from these groups.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress his Department has made on increasing (a) the number of people on and (b) the quality of the stem cell register; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The Department’s Stem Cell Programme is providing £2.4 million of funding to Anthony Nolan and NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) for a three-year targeted stem cell donor recruitment campaign. The approach focuses on recruiting donors most likely to donate, including male donors aged 16 to 30, and ethnic minority donors to address health inequalities. The Anthony Nolan stem cell register has nearly 900,000 potential stem cell donors and Departmental funding contributed to recruitment of over 37,000 people aged 16 to 30 in 2022/23. NHSBT can recruit from registered blood donors whose tissue is typed to a very high level, using Next Generation Sequencing technology. Targeted e-mail campaigns to specific ethnic heritage groups highlight the need for more donors from these groups. NHSBT is also conducting qualitative research within specific ethnic heritage groups to identify how it can improve the recruitment of donors from these groups.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that adequate numbers of high-quality donors are available for patients requiring a stem cell transplant.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The Department’s Stem Cell Programme is providing £2.4 million of funding to Anthony Nolan and NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) for a three-year targeted stem cell donor recruitment campaign. The approach focuses on recruiting donors most likely to donate, including male donors aged 16 to 30, and ethnic minority donors to address health inequalities. The Anthony Nolan stem cell register has nearly 900,000 potential stem cell donors and Departmental funding contributed to recruitment of over 37,000 people aged 16 to 30 in 2022/23. NHSBT can recruit from registered blood donors whose tissue is typed to a very high level, using Next Generation Sequencing technology. Targeted e-mail campaigns to specific ethnic heritage groups highlight the need for more donors from these groups. NHSBT is also conducting qualitative research within specific ethnic heritage groups to identify how it can improve the recruitment of donors from these groups.