Asked by: Karen Lee (Labour - Lincoln)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the rate of (a) age-standardised premature mortality from breast cancer and (b) uptake of screening for that cancer was in each clinical commissioning group area in the last period for which figures are available.
Answered by Steve Brine
The Office for National Statistics has published data on the number of deaths and age-standardised mortality rates where breast cancer (ICD-10 code: C50) was the underlying cause of death, in those aged 0 to 74 years, by sex, England and Wales, 2012 to 2016 at the following link:
Data on the uptake of breast cancer screening are not available by clinical commissioning group level. Figures for uptake for screening during 2016/17 (screening year of 1 April 2016 to 31 March 2017) are published by NHS Digital. The information for each area is provided at a breast screening service level is attached.
Asked by: Karen Lee (Labour - Lincoln)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the implications for his Department's policies of the findings and recommendations of CLIC Sargent’s report, Are we nearly there yet?, published in September 2018.
Answered by Steve Brine
I will consider the recommendations of this report carefully. As part of the Recovery Package, the holistic needs assessment and care plan includes a focus on financial concerns that patients may have. The holistic needs assessment questions can be adapted for teenagers and young people specifically. The Recovery Package also recognises the needs of parents/carers of children living with and beyond cancer such as their circumstances to ensure that the right support is in place. More generally, last year through our NHS Low Income Scheme, the Department helped over 337,000 applicants on a low income to pay for health costs, including the cost of travelling to receive National Health Service treatment.
Asked by: Karen Lee (Labour - Lincoln)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will publish the most recent data on breast cancer (a) mortality rates and (b) stage detection rates by clinical commissioning groups.
Answered by Steve Brine
The most recent data on breast cancer diagnosis and mortality are from 2016, and are available in the following table.
Directly age-standardised2 rates per 100,000 population of registrations of deaths from breast cancer (ICD-10 code: C50) between 2012 and 2016, England
ICD-10 code | Sex | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 |
C50 | Males | 0.3 | 0.4 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.3 |
| Females | 36.4 | 35.3 | 34.5 | 34.3 | 34.1 |
Source: Office for National Statistics
Notes:
Data on stage at diagnosis for breast cancer at clinical commissioning group level is attached.
Asked by: Karen Lee (Labour - Lincoln)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the financial effect on young cancer patients and their families of the costs of travelling to and from hospital for treatment.
Answered by Steve Brine
NHS England has stated that there is work underway to review the service specifications for children and young people with cancer services. This will provide an opportunity to consider how some aspects of the patient pathway may be provided more locally to reduce the travel burden for patients and their families.
Currently the Healthcare Travel Costs Scheme which is part of the NHS Low Income Scheme allows for patients (and in certain circumstances their carers) to receive reimbursement of travel if they are in receipt of a qualifying benefit or on a low income. The NHS Low Income Scheme has helped 337,000 applicants to receive financial help with their National Health Service treatment.
Asked by: Karen Lee (Labour - Lincoln)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many hospital trusts are providing access to a patient education and support event for breast cancer patients.
Answered by Steve Brine
Information collated by NHS England in 2017 indicates that around half of hospital trusts were delivering patient education and support events for breast cancer patients. However, it is important to note that in the same information collection, almost all trusts indicated they are providing health and wellbeing information and support through various methods, including one-to-one conversations. Additionally, the recovery package, a set of four interventions designed to help patients and clinicians assess a patient’s holistic needs and plan appropriately for their care and support, is being commissioned and delivered in full or in part by many clinical commissioning groups and providers across England.
Asked by: Karen Lee (Labour - Lincoln)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what criteria are used by NHS Trust employees to request proof of an individual’s eligibility to receive free hospital healthcare.
Answered by Steve Barclay - Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
The National Health Service is a residency-based healthcare system, with a requirement to be ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom in order to access NHS-funded healthcare. Providers of relevant NHS services are required to make and recover charges from overseas visitors where relevant services have been provided to them and no exemption applies.
There is no requirement on NHS staff to check a patient’s identification and asking for, or providing, ID is not a requirement of the National Health Service (Charges to Overseas Visitors) (Amendment) Regulations 2017. It is up to providers of NHS care to assure themselves that they do everything reasonable to determine a patient’s eligibility for NHS-funded healthcare. National guidance advises them to be flexible in terms of accepting evidence to demonstrate a patient’s residence or chargeable status, including considering the position of particularly vulnerable patients who may struggle to provide documentation.
Asked by: Karen Lee (Labour - Lincoln)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of trends in the average time that patients waited to receive cervical screening results in Lincolnshire in each of the last three years.
Answered by Steve Brine
No assessment has been made of trends in the average time that patients waited to receive cervical screening results.
The NHS Cervical Screening Programme has a quality measure referred to as cervical screening turnaround time. This is a quality measure which recommends that the optimal turnaround time for which a woman should receive her screening result in writing is 14 days from the date the sample is taken. This data is provided monthly and is shared with the cervical screening programme boards and NHS England commissioners that oversee services so that performance and trends can be monitored locally.
Asked by: Karen Lee (Labour - Lincoln)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the recent Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust report Computer says no, whether he plans to undertake a review of the cervical screening IT infrastructure; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Steve Brine
The outcomes of the independent review announced on 2 May 2018, following the breast screening incident, will help to inform IT system proposals for other national screening programmes such as cervical screening. This review is due to report by November.
NHS England and Public Health England are committed to the introduction of a primary human papillomavirus screening test as part of the national cervical screening programme in 2019. This includes working with Primary Care Support England on a new IT system to support cervical screening.
Asked by: Karen Lee (Labour - Lincoln)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he has to fund patient access to Ibrutinib.
Answered by Steve Brine
NHS England has advised that, since January 2017, it has commissioned ibrutinib for relapsed / refractory chronic lymphocytic leukaemia and chronic lymphocytic leukaemia with 17p deletion or TP53 mutation. Prior to this, ibrutinib was funded via the Cancer Drugs Fund.
NHS England is currently reviewing its treatment criteria for ibrutinib and is willing to receive, by the end of July 2018, any further evidence that patients and clinicians may wish to submit on this matter.