Asked by: Abtisam Mohamed (Labour - Sheffield Central)
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 increase the supply of Pancreatic Enzyme Replacement Therapy.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department continues to engage with all suppliers of pancreatic enzyme replacement therapy (PERT) to boost production to mitigate the supply issue. Suppliers have managed to secure additional pharmaceutical ingredient resulting in expected increased volumes of PERT for 2025. The Department has also reached out to specialist importers who have sourced unlicensed stock to assist in covering the gap in the market and provided advice to clinicians on prescribing and ordering these imports.
In December 2024, the Department issued further management advice to healthcare professionals. This includes actions for clinicians to consider these unlicensed imports when licensed stock is unavailable and for integrated care boards to ensure local mitigation plans are put in place and implemented.
Asked by: Abtisam Mohamed (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what his planned timetable is for publishing the Maternity and Neonatal Estates Review.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England will publish the findings of the National Health Service maternity and neonatal estates survey, which examined compliance against the current standards for estates, including the requirements of neonatal parental accommodation. The Government’s response to the House of Lords Pre-term Birth Inquiry committed to publishing the survey in early 2025, and the ambition remains to publish it as soon as possible.
Asked by: Abtisam Mohamed (Labour - Sheffield Central)
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 potential merits of including Band 2 NHS workers in pay progression policies.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
As part of the 2023 Agenda for Change pay deal between the Government, employers, and trade unions, there was a mutual agreement to uplift the value of the bottom pay point of band two to the same value as the top pay point, and this position was ratified by the NHS Staff Council.
Any further changes to the pay structure will be for the NHS Staff Council to ratify or agree to, as part of any future negotiations.
Asked by: Abtisam Mohamed (Labour - Sheffield Central)
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 2 December 2024 to Question 15960 on Neonatal Inequalities, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of (a) monitoring and (b) reporting on (i) pre-term births and (ii) neonatal brain injuries by (A) ethnicity and (B) deprivation.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to ensuring that all women and babies received safe, personalised, equitable, and compassionate care. I am urgently considering the immediate action needed across maternity and neonatal services to improve outcomes and address the stark inequalities that persist for women and babies across ethnicity and deprivation.
The Department’s officials work closely with NHS England and maternity and neonatal sector partners to monitor inequalities in perinatal outcomes by ethnicity and deprivation, including through the published Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries across the UK reports. The Office of National Statistics’ report on preterm birth by ethnicity and the recent Imperial College London Brain Injury Surveillance Reports include breakdowns by ethnicity and deprivation. There are no current plans to make a further specific assessment of the merits of monitoring and reporting on pre-term births and neonatal brain injuries by ethnicity and deprivation.
Asked by: Abtisam Mohamed (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when NHS England next plans to update its publication entitled Health Building Note 09-03: Neonatal units, first published in March 2013.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Guidance related to the National Health Service Estate is reviewed, prioritised and updated to reflect changing legislative, regulatory, technological and policy requirements. As part of the three-year delivery plan and subsequent for maternity and neonatal service survey, NHS England plans to start the update of this Health Building Note in 2025/26. Usually, guidance notes take between 18 and 24 months to update and so NHS England plans to publish this in 2027/28.
Asked by: Abtisam Mohamed (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he plans to take ensure there is sufficient provision of (a) rehabilitation and (b) prehabilitation for cancer patients across all cancer alliances.
Answered by Andrew Gwynne
National Health Service trusts and cancer alliances are responsible for ensuring that plans are in place to meet the needs of patients in their localities. Therefore, the Department does not have additional plans to ensure there is provision of rehabilitation and prehabilitation for cancer patients across all cancer alliance areas.
A range of resources are available to the NHS workforce to support prehabilitation, rehabilitation, and physical activity. For example, NHS England provides the PRosPer Cancer Prehabilitation and Rehabilitation learning programme, which aims to support allied health professionals and the wider healthcare workforce in developing their skills in providing personalised care, prehabilitation, and rehabilitation in the cancer pathway. This programme forms part of the Personalised Care Institute’s library of personalised care training for all healthcare professions.
Asked by: Abtisam Mohamed (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what his planned timetable is for when cancer sites will have recurrence data collection mandated to align with the collection of breast cancer recurrence data.
Answered by Andrew Gwynne
The National Disease Registration Service (NDRS), part of NHS England, collects patient data on cancer as well as congenital anomalies and rare diseases. The NDRS has been collecting recurrence data for non-primary cancers via data submissions as part of the Cancer Outcomes and Services Dataset since 2013. Recurrence data can also be obtained from the Cancer Waiting Times treatment dataset for diagnosed cancer patients.
The Diagnostic Imaging Data Set (DID) is a central collection of detailed information about diagnostic imaging tests carried out on National Health Service patients, published by NHS England. Development of DIDS version 2.0 has commenced with the gathering of requirements from various stakeholders including NHS England, NHS Data Model and Dictionary, providers, and system suppliers. One of the requirements under consideration is the addition of an alert to identify if the imaging showed a suspected or confirmed cancer, recurrence, or progression. Such an alert could improve recording of the progression to metastatic status or the recurrence of cancer. Development of DIDS version 2.0 provides a window of opportunity to both reduce the burden of data collection, while improving the value of the dataset in assessing clinical outcomes.
Asked by: Abtisam Mohamed (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he plans to take to help improve (a) access to GP appointments and (b) rates of early-stage cancer diagnosis in areas of socio-economic deprivation in Yorkshire.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We know that patients are struggling to access general practices (GPs), and that these struggles can be particularly acute for patients living in deprived areas. We will support equitable access to GP services, and we have already committed to recruiting over 1,000 newly qualified GPs through an £82 million boost to the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme, as part of an initiative to address GP access. In order to ensure that all patients have multiple routes of access, we have committed to introducing a modern booking system, to end the 8:00am scramble.
The chances of surviving cancer are higher if diagnosed at an early stage. Therefore, early diagnosis is a key priority for the Government. We will improve cancer survival rates and hit all National Health Service cancer waiting time targets, so no patient waits longer than they should, including in Yorkshire.
Asked by: Abtisam Mohamed (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will have discussions with social care providers on the potential impact of Autumn Budget 2024 on the social care sector.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department holds regular meetings with adult social care stakeholders, including service providers and representative bodies, to discuss key issues and developments such as the impact of the Budget on the sector. The Government will make available up to £3.5 billion of additional funding for social care authorities in 2025/26. We will set out further details at the Local Government Finance Settlement.
Asked by: Abtisam Mohamed (Labour - Sheffield Central)
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) monitor and (b) reduce (i) socio-economic and (ii) ethnic disparities in the rates of (A) neonatal death, (B) brain injury and (C) pre-term birth.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to ensuring that all women and babies received safe, personalised, equitable, and compassionate care. I am urgently considering the immediate action needed across maternity and neonatal services to improve outcomes and address the stark inequalities that persist for women and babies across ethnicity and deprivation, including what targets are needed. This includes consideration of what comes beyond the national maternity safety ambition, ensuring that we take an evidence-based approach, and that any targets set are women and baby-centred and focused on tackling inequalities.
There has been some good progress to date. As part of NHS England’s three-year delivery plan for maternity and neonatal services, all trusts are rolling out version three of the Saving Babies Lives Care Bundle, which provides maternity units with guidance and interventions to reduce stillbirths, neonatal brain injury, neonatal death, and preterm birth, and includes initiatives to reduce inequalities. All Local Maternity and Neonatal Systems have published Equity and Equality actions plans to tackle inequalities for women and babies from ethnic minorities and those living in the most deprived areas.
The Government is currently piloting a training programme to help avoid brain injury in childbirth, and to address variation and improve safety for mothers and their babies. If successful, national rollout is expected to commence next year.
The Department’s officials work closely with NHS England and maternity and neonatal sector partners to monitor inequalities in perinatal outcomes by ethnicity and deprivation, including through the published Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries across the UK reports.