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 his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of prioritising the appraisal by the National Institute for Health and Social Care of medicines for (a) clinically extremely vulnerable and (b) other priority groups.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
All medicines appraised by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) address important areas of health. NICE works closely with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency to ensure that licensing procedures and health technology assessments are streamlined and aims wherever possible to publish its recommendations on all new medicines very close to licensing.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, NICE adapted its priorities to support the health and care system at a time of unprecedented pressure. This involved pausing the publication of topics that were not COVID-19 related or regarded as therapeutically critical.
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 (a) criteria the UK had to meet and (b) financial commitment the UK had to make to join Project Orbis.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
There were no defined criteria or financial commitments.
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 the Government has plans to bring forward secondary legislation under the powers provided by the Medicines and Medical Devices Act 2021.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
The Government is currently working on a number of statutory instruments under the powers in the Medicines and Medical Devices Act 2021. Regulations made using the majority of powers under the Act are subject to public consultation. More details on the upcoming consultations will be made available in due course.
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 13 April 2021 to Question 174841 on Pregnancy: Screening, what the (a) timelines, (b) milestones and (c) success criteria are for the evaluative rollout referenced in that Answer.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
The target date to begin the evaluative rollout of non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) is 1 June 2021. This will include women who are identified, by existing tests, as having a higher chance of having a baby with Down’s syndrome, Edwards’ syndrome or Patau’s syndrome and is expected to be complete in around three years. Once this has begun, the United Kingdom National Screening Committee (UK NSC) will be updated on monitoring at future meetings.
This is to ensure NIPT screening is clinically safe, cost effective and provides an acceptable service to those women who accept the offer of screening using NIPT. The evaluation data will be reviewed throughout to identify any issues that may arise. Once areas of uncertainty have been addressed the UK NSC will then review this to consider formally recommending NIPT as a permanent part of the pathway.
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 Statistical Press Notice published on 15 March 2021, how many and what proportion of the 387,885 referral to treatment patients that have been waiting more than 52 weeks to start treatment have been waiting longer than (a) 18 months and (b) two years.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
NHS England and NHS Improvement are currently collating referral to treatment data from April 2021, which will be published on 10 June. This data will be published in weekly time bands from 52 weeks to more than 104 weeks.
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, when the Government plans to bring forward legislative proposals on the regulation of physician associates.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to bringing physician associates (PAs) and anaesthesia associates (AAs) into statutory regulation.
We are currently consulting on proposals to modernise each of the healthcare professional regulators’ legal frameworks and on the proposed approach to introducing statutory regulation for PAs and AAs. A separate consultation on the draft legislation that will bring this framework into force will be carried out later this year.
The reforms will update the General Medical Council’s (GMC) current legislation and will enable it to bring PAs and AAs into regulation under its new, modernised framework. We are working with the GMC to ensure that regulation of PAs and AAs begins as early as possible in the second half of 2022.
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 work has started on establishing the Global One Health Intelligence Hub.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We are working closely with the World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Organisation for Animal Health and the United Nations Environment Programme to build the proposal for developing the Hub and are discussing potential support with G7 partners.
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 his Department plans to ensure that the initial launch of noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT) will be expanded to enable all women to have the choice to utilise that technology during pregnancy through the NHS.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
Non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) will be available to women as an additional option as part of the NHS Fetal Anomaly Screening Programme. NIPT will be offered if the woman has been identified by existing tests as having a higher chance of having a baby with Down’s syndrome, Edwards’ syndrome or Patau’s syndrome.
The target date to commence the offer of NIPT is 1 June 2021. NIPT will be nationally introduced as an ‘evaluative roll out’. This means the programme will be able to monitor how the introduction of NIPT is working at each stage and make any required changes to the pathway and screening processes quickly and effectively.
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 any of the additional £500 mental health funding for 2021-22 will be allocated to funding post-discharge support for mental health patients.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
We have already announced that £79 million of this additional funding will go to supporting children and young people with their mental health and wellbeing. Details of how the remaining funds will be allocated will be announced shortly.
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 he plans to publish a social care Green Paper in 2021.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to the improvement of the adult social care system and will bring forward proposals later this year.