Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Prime Minister's speech on 4 January 2023 entitled building a better future, whether he plans to publish a strategy on reducing NHS waiting lists.
Answered by Will Quince
The ‘Delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlog of elective care’ published in February 2022 sets out the action that will be taken and is already underway to support the healthcare system in England as it recovers from the disruption caused by the pandemic and to deliver the necessary reforms that are important to its long-term future.
Tacking elective care is a top delivery priority for the Government and regular updates from the National Health Service, via NHS England, to the Secretary of State are the key mechanism used to assess progress against ambitious elective recovery targets. The Department will continue to work closely with NHS England to deliver this plan, providing the necessary support and challenge to make sure it benefits patients and delivers value for money.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of prostate cancer patients are asymptomatic when they are first diagnosed.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The 2018 National Cancer Diagnosis Audit collected referral data from general practitioners (GPs) on 64,489 cancer diagnoses in 2018, including 9,839 cases of prostate cancer. Symptoms were reported by the GP for 6,648 (68%) of all prostate cancer cases. The remainder of the cases were recorded with ‘not known’ (8%) or ‘not applicable’ (22%) symptoms.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
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 potential merits of introducing a national screening programme for prostate cancer.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The UK National Screening Committee is due to review the evidence to screen for prostate cancer this year.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
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 5 September 2022 to Question 42282 on Cancer: Radiotherapy, when he plans to publish the NHS England capacity and demand review of external beam radiotherapy capacity.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England will complete the capacity and demand review of external beam radiotherapy capacity in 2022/23.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
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 5 September 2022 to Question 42282 on Cancer: Radiotherapy, what the timeline is for publication of the NHS England review into radiotherapy capacity.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England will complete the capacity and demand review of external beam radiotherapy capacity in 2022/23.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much NHS England has spent on (a) fees and (b) any other costs with Niche Health and Social Care Consulting since 2019.
Answered by Will Quince
The following table shows expenditure by NHS England on fees and other costs with Niche Health and Social Care Consulting in each financial year since 2019/20.
| 2019/20 | 2020/21 | 2021/22 |
Fees | £855,000 | £1,647,000 | £1,917,000 |
Other | £410,000 | £333,000 | £27,000 |
Total | £1,265,000 | £1,980,000 | £1,944,000 |
Source: NHS England
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, for what reason the findings of Exercise Alice were not published following the outbreak of covid-19; and whether details of that exercise were provided to advisory committees involved in the Government's response to that outbreak.
Answered by Caroline Johnson
The Department does not routinely publish reports on exercises. Exercise Alice was not intended to test elements of preparedness for a pandemic scale event, but to assess the United Kingdom’s readiness for a potential outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), a High Consequence Infectious Disease. MERS-CoV, which causes MERS, is a different virus to SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19.
The recommendations from Exercise Alice informed updates to guidance for the health and social care system on the management of patients with MERS and on infection prevention and control for healthcare professionals. These were published as updates to guidance on MERS-CoV prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and is available at the following link: