Asked by: Pauline Latham (Conservative - Mid Derbyshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what timetable he has set for publishing the next diabetes-specific ratings as part of the Clinical Commissioning Group Improvement and Assessment Framework; and if he will publish that data on a quarterly basis.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
As part of its statutory duty to perform an annual assessment of clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), NHS England will publish its 2016/17 annual assessment of the six clinical priority areas within the CCG Improvement and Assessment Framework in July 2017, which include diabetes. All indicators that are available are updated as frequently as possible; the diabetes indicators are based on annual data.
Asked by: Pauline Latham (Conservative - Mid Derbyshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to hold NHS England to account on the delivery of the diabetes metrics outlined in the Clinical Commissioning Group Improvement and Assessment Framework 2016-17.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
The mandate to NHS England requires it to develop the Clinical Commissioning Group Improvement and Assessment Framework (CCG IAF) and its supporting indicators in 2016-17, and in subsequent years to improve CCG performance against the indicators by 2020. This includes a specific reference to diabetes. NHS England is being held to account for achieving the deliverables in the 2016-17 mandate through regular assurance and accountability meetings with senior Departmental officials and my Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State. NHS England has completed the development of the framework and established baseline data for each group of indicators. In subsequent years, NHS England will be held to account for supporting CCGs to deliver improvements in the CCG IAF indicators.
Asked by: Pauline Latham (Conservative - Mid Derbyshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many public relations and communications staff have been hired directly by the NHS in each of the last five years.
Answered by Alistair Burt
The Department does not hold the requested information.
Asked by: Pauline Latham (Conservative - Mid Derbyshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what proportion of the NHS budget was spent on public relations and communications in each of the last five years.
Answered by Alistair Burt
The Department does not hold the requested information.
Asked by: Pauline Latham (Conservative - Mid Derbyshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what proportion of the NHS budget was spent on public relations consultancy firms in each of the last five years.
Answered by Alistair Burt
The Department does not hold the requested information.
Asked by: Pauline Latham (Conservative - Mid Derbyshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to improve prevention and diagnosis of (a) skin cancer and (b) melanoma.
Answered by Jane Ellison
A number of voluntary and statutory organisations deliver health protection advice to the public about ultraviolet (UV) exposure. This includes NHS Choices at:
http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/skin/Pages/Sunsafe.aspx
Public Health England provides information to increase awareness of the public health risks of excessive exposure to UV radiation from the sun, and to encourage people at home and abroad (Mediterranean countries) to protect themselves as necessary. Since sunburn is a risk factor for skin cancer, messages are issued to warn when the United Kingdom solar UV Index values are higher than expected.
In 2011, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) published guidance on ‘Skin Cancer Prevention’ in January 2011. The guidance will be partially updated within the development of new guidance on ‘Sun Exposure: benefits and risks’ due to be published by NICE in February 2016.
In June 2015, NICE published new cancer referral guideline for general practitioners (GPs), including guidance for GPs on investigating patients with signs suggestive of skin cancer (melanoma and non-melanoma). The guideline will continue to support GPs to identify patients with signs and symptoms of suspected cancer, including skin cancer and urgently refer them as appropriate.
NICE is currently developing a quality standard which will cover prevention, assessment, diagnosis and management of skin cancer (melanoma and non-melanoma) in children, young people and adults. The anticipated publication date for this quality standard is August 2016.
Asked by: Pauline Latham (Conservative - Mid Derbyshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to improve GP education on skin cancer and dermatology.
Answered by Jane Ellison
In 2011, the Department of Health funded Cancer Research UK to work in partnership with the British Association of Dermatologists, to develop a Skin Cancer Toolkit for general practitioners (GPs). The toolkit was launched in 2012 and is currently available to GPs via doctors.net.
In June 2015, the National Institute for Care Excellence published new cancer referral guideline for GPs, including guidance for GPs on investigating patients with signs suggestive of skin cancer. The guideline will continue to support GPs to identify patients with signs and symptoms of suspected cancer, including skin cancer and urgently refer them as appropriate. The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) in collaboration with Cancer Research UK has worked on a programme of regional update events for GPs to enable GPs to adopt the new guidelines.
More generally, it is the responsibility of the General Medical Council (GMC) to set the standards and outcomes for the education and training of doctors and to approve training curricula to ensure newly qualified doctors are equipped with the knowledge, skills and attitudes to provide high quality patient care.
The royal colleges, for example the RCGP have responsibility for developing curricula for doctors, in particular postgraduate curricula. Health Education England will work with bodies that set curricula such as the GMC and the RCGP to seek to ensure general practice training meets the needs of patients.
Asked by: Pauline Latham (Conservative - Mid Derbyshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to reduce waiting times for colonoscopy to detect bowel cancer.
Answered by Jane Ellison
Helping more people survive cancer is a key priority for this Government.
We expect the National Health Service to look urgently at any dips in local performance and take action to make sure all patients get access to cancer treatment as quickly as possible. NHS England has set up a taskforce to look at what should be done to ensure cancer waiting times standards are met.
Specifically for colonoscopy for bowel cancer, the NHS has committed to train an extra 250 gastroenterologists by 2020. In addition, Health Education England has pledged to fund the training of 200 non-medical endoscopists to significantly increase endoscopy capacity in England. The first cohort will begin training at the end of January 2016. NHS England’s Sustainable Improvement Team (formerly NHS Improving Quality) is working intensively with trusts that have significant endoscopy waiting lists, in order to improve performance. The learning from this will be shared widely.NHS England is also exploring ways to improve endoscopy performance through pricing changes.
Asked by: Pauline Latham (Conservative - Mid Derbyshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the uptake of bowel screening was under the National Screening Programme for bowel cancer in England in each of the last three years.
Answered by Jane Ellison
The National Bowel Screening Programme has been received positively since it commenced in 2006 and has seen a steady rise in participation achieving over 55% engagement over the last three years.
Table: Bowel screening engagement of the last three years
Year | |||
2011 - 2012 | 2012 - 2013 | 2013 - 2014 | |
Invited | 3,623,950 | 3,839,325 | 3,976,616 |
Screened | 1,996,701 | 2,246,893 | 2,206,435 |
Abnormal | 41,707 | 40,983 | 40,698 |
Uptake | 55.10% | 58.52% | 55.49% |
The programme expects that engagement will continue to increase following a positive recommendation from the UK National Screening Committee to use Faecal Immunochemical Test (FIT) as the primary screen test for bowel cancer. FIT has seen an increase in participation especially amongst men and in deprived areas as well as help reduce the number of deaths from bowel cancer.
Following a positive screening test approximately half (50%) of the patients, at colonoscopy will have either bowel cancer or adenomas that require surgical intervention. An additional 25% of patients will have another disease affecting the colon and may require medical attention outside of the bowel screening programme, with the remaining 25% of colonoscopies having no medical reason for a positive result.
Bowel screening has increased colonoscopy work and has subsequently helped to improve the quality of this service. False negatives from the screening test have no direct impact on the waiting times since colonoscopy is not undertaken.
Asked by: Pauline Latham (Conservative - Mid Derbyshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the (a) frequency of false (i) positives and (ii) negatives from the National Screening Programme for bowel cancer and (b) the effect of such false positives and negatives on waiting times for colonoscopy.
Answered by Jane Ellison
The National Bowel Screening Programme has been received positively since it commenced in 2006 and has seen a steady rise in participation achieving over 55% engagement over the last three years.
Table: Bowel screening engagement of the last three years
Year | |||
2011 - 2012 | 2012 - 2013 | 2013 - 2014 | |
Invited | 3,623,950 | 3,839,325 | 3,976,616 |
Screened | 1,996,701 | 2,246,893 | 2,206,435 |
Abnormal | 41,707 | 40,983 | 40,698 |
Uptake | 55.10% | 58.52% | 55.49% |
The programme expects that engagement will continue to increase following a positive recommendation from the UK National Screening Committee to use Faecal Immunochemical Test (FIT) as the primary screen test for bowel cancer. FIT has seen an increase in participation especially amongst men and in deprived areas as well as help reduce the number of deaths from bowel cancer.
Following a positive screening test approximately half (50%) of the patients, at colonoscopy will have either bowel cancer or adenomas that require surgical intervention. An additional 25% of patients will have another disease affecting the colon and may require medical attention outside of the bowel screening programme, with the remaining 25% of colonoscopies having no medical reason for a positive result.
Bowel screening has increased colonoscopy work and has subsequently helped to improve the quality of this service. False negatives from the screening test have no direct impact on the waiting times since colonoscopy is not undertaken.