Asked by: Anne Marie Morris (Conservative - Newton Abbot)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether medicines funded under the Innovative Medicines Fund will be included in the calculation of that company's rebate under the Voluntary Pricing Scheme for Branded Medicines (VPAS).
Answered by Will Quince
The Innovative Medicines Fund (IMF) builds on the successful Cancer Drugs Fund and will support patient access to the most promising new medicines while further evidence is collected on their use to address clinical uncertainty.
Funding for the IMF is allocated from NHS England budgets. Unless specifically exempt under scheme rules, sales of products within the IMF are included in measured sales when calculating sales growth used to set the voluntary scheme for branded medicines pricing and access payment percentage each year and included in eligible sales used to calculate the amount owed by the relevant scheme member each quarter.
Asked by: Anne Marie Morris (Conservative - Newton Abbot)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether medicines funded through the cancer drugs fund are included in the calculation of the rebate due under the voluntary pricing scheme for branded medicines (VPAS).
Answered by Will Quince
The Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF) helps to ensure that patients are able to benefit from the most promising new cancer medicines while further evidence is collected on their use to address clinical uncertainty.
Funding for the CDF is allocated from NHS England budgets. Unless specifically exempt under scheme rules, sales of products within the CDF are included in measured sales when calculating sales growth used to set the voluntary scheme for branded medicines pricing and access payment percentage each year and included in eligible sales used to calculate the amount owed by the relevant scheme member each quarter.
Asked by: Anne Marie Morris (Conservative - Newton Abbot)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
What recent assessment he has made of the potential impact of changes to the Voluntary Scheme for Branded Medicines Pricing Access rebate on foreign direct investment into the British Pharmaceutical Industry.
Answered by Will Quince
We have been working directly with industry to understand the impact of changes to VPAS on investments into the UK life sciences sector. We remain firmly committed to VPAS and to working with the pharmaceutical industry to create an environment that facilitates innovation for the development of medicines in the UK.
Asked by: Anne Marie Morris (Conservative - Newton Abbot)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the publication Delivering for rural England: the second report on rural proofing, published 3 September 2022, what specific submissions her Department made to help inform the report; and if she will publish (a) those submissions and (b) the minutes from meetings discussing Departmental contributions to that report.
Answered by Caroline Johnson
‘Delivering for rural England’, published by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, included contributions from the Department of Health and Social Care. The report set out the Department for Health and Social Care’s approach to rural proofing of health policies, in addition to specific measures to address the challenges of delivering health care in a rural setting. We are unable to provide the specific information requested as it relates to the formulation or development of Government policy.
Asked by: Anne Marie Morris (Conservative - Newton Abbot)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, for what reason public health grant funding per person is often less in rural local authorities.
Answered by Caroline Johnson
The Public Health Grant’s distribution is weighted towards areas facing the greatest population health challenges. The allocation of funding on a per capita basis would not take account of different levels of need. All local authorities received an increase to the Public Health Grant in 2021/22 and a 2.8% increase in 2022/23 and the Grant will continue to increase during the Spending Review period.
Asked by: Anne Marie Morris (Conservative - Newton Abbot)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to address rural workforce shortages.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
There are currently over 30,000 additional staff working in National Health Service provider trusts and commissioning bodies compared to July 2021, including a further 3,500 doctors and 9,100 nurses. We aim to deliver 50,000 nurses by the end of March 2024, with over 29,000 additional nurses working in the NHS now compared to September 2019. We also funded an increase of 1,500 undergraduate medical school places each year for domestic students in England and delivered five new medical schools in England.
The Department has also commissioned NHS England to develop a long-term workforce plan. The plan will review the roles and staff numbers required, including in rural areas and the actions and reforms needed to improve recruitment and retention.
Asked by: Anne Marie Morris (Conservative - Newton Abbot)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many trainee GPs in receipt of Targeted Enhanced Recruitment Scheme funds remained in rural areas post-training.
Answered by Will Quince
The data requested is not held centrally.
Asked by: Anne Marie Morris (Conservative - Newton Abbot)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to reduce the disparity in ambulance response times in (a) urban and (b) rural areas.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
Local commissioners and National Health Service ambulance trusts are responsible for the delivery of appropriate response times for local populations. We are providing an additional £150 million for ambulance services in 2022/23 to support improvements in response times through additional call handler recruitment and retention and other funding requirements.
All ambulance response time categories contain a 90th centile standard, including in rural areas with potentially longer travel times. Ambulance trusts also deploy Community First Responders to respond to the highest priority 999 calls and provide interventions while ambulances are en route, including in rural areas.
Asked by: Anne Marie Morris (Conservative - Newton Abbot)
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 14 June 2022 to Question 14494, on Voluntary Scheme for Branded Medicines Pricing and Access, whether the (a) minutes and (b) further details of those meetings are in the public domain.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The minutes of Operational Review meetings and the Voluntary Scheme for Branded Medicines Pricing and Access’ metrics pack are currently available through an internal Departmental collaboration tool, which is shared with stakeholders in industry. However, we plan to make this information available via GOV.UK in the near future.
Asked by: Anne Marie Morris (Conservative - Newton Abbot)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the five highest health gain categories are in respect of the Voluntary scheme for branded medicines pricing and access, published in December 2018.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Voluntary Scheme for Branded Medicines Pricing and Access is an agreement between the Department, NHS England, the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry and manufacturers or suppliers of branded health service medicines which have joined the Scheme. The Voluntary Scheme includes an objective of reaching the upper quartile of uptake, in relation to comparator countries, for the five highest health gain categories during the first half of the Voluntary Scheme. The five categories of medicines identified by NHS England to deliver high health gain are:
- Cystic fibrosis (CFTR modulators, ivacaftor, lumacaftor/ ivacaftor and tezacaftor/ ivacaftor);
- Severe asthma (biologics);
- Smoking cessation with varenicline;
- Atrial fibrillation and thromboembolism (anticoagulants); and
- Hepatitis C (antiretrovirals).