Asked by: Caroline Dinenage (Conservative - Gosport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of medication costs on community pharmacies.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Through the medicine margin survey, the Department assesses whether the reimbursement arrangements pay pharmacy contractors as agreed as part of the community pharmacy contractual framework (CPCF). The medicine margin survey considers what pharmacies paid for medicines by looking at their invoices compared to the amount reimbursed by the National Health Service. Where the survey finds that they have been underpaid, we increase the pharmacy contractors’ payments, and where they have been overpaid, we decrease payments.
Furthermore, where pharmacies cannot purchase products at or below the Drug Tariff NHS reimbursement price, Community Pharmacy England can request that the Department reassesses the reimbursement price. If a new reimbursement price is issued, this is known as a concessionary price.
Asked by: Caroline Dinenage (Conservative - Gosport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she plans to increase the scope of the Pharmacy First programme.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Pharmacy First was launched on 31 January 2024, and as the service embeds, we will monitor and evaluate the service, and keep the conditions covered by Pharmacy First under review.
Asked by: Caroline Dinenage (Conservative - Gosport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she plans to increase core community pharmacy funding.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
As part of the Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework five-year deal, we committed £2.6 billion every year to community pharmacy, and agreed not to recover £212 million in over delivered fees and margin from community pharmacies in recent years. In addition, we are now investing up to £645 million across 2023/24 and 2024/25 in Pharmacy First, for more blood pressure checks and more contraception consultations in pharmacy. We have begun the consultation with Community Pharmacy England on the national funding and contractual framework arrangements for 2024/25.
Asked by: Caroline Dinenage (Conservative - Gosport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the (a) funding and (b) guidance provided to public bodies delivering menstrual (i) products and (ii) services.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
No specific assessment has been made.
Asked by: Caroline Dinenage (Conservative - Gosport)
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 reduce the time taken to diagnose migraines.
Answered by Will Quince
To reduce the time taken to diagnose conditions such as migraines, NHS England has published a delivery plan for recovering access to primary care. As part of this plan, the National Health Service will deliver on the commitment of 26,000 more direct patient care staff and 50 million more appointments in general practice by March 2024.
NHS England’s national programme of neurology service improvement is led by the National Neuro Advisory Group (NNAG), which convenes public bodies, expert bodies, clinicians, academics, and patient voice organisations. NNAG is not a decision-making body, but it does make formal recommendations to NHS England about how neurology services should be commissioned and improved.
One of the bodies that advises the NNAG is the NHS Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) programme for neurology. In September 2021, GIRFT published its National Specialty Report for Neurology, which describes the delivery of neurology services in England and makes recommendations for their improvement. The report is available at the following link:
https://gettingitrightfirsttime.co.uk/medical_specialties/neurology/
Asked by: Caroline Dinenage (Conservative - Gosport)
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 offering migraine specialist services at women’s health hubs.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
No specific assessment is planned.
In July we announced that the £25 million investment in women’s health hubs is being distributed to every integrated care board (ICB), with each ICB receiving £595,000 in total over 2023/24 and 2024/25. ICBs have been asked to use the funding to establish or expand one women’s health hub within their system.
It is important that services are provided in a way that best meets population needs and reduces health inequalities, and ICBs will determine which specific services their hub will offer. To support ICBs to establish women’s health hubs, we have published a cost-benefit analysis, and a core specification. The core specification sets out which services ICBs could consider incorporating into their hub model, either in terms of provision or signposting. Specialist services for migraines are not listed in the core specification, but this does not prevent women’s health hubs from providing or signposting to migraine services.
Asked by: Caroline Dinenage (Conservative - Gosport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department plans to take with NHS Hampshire and Isle of Wight Integrated Care System to increase the delivery of endoscopy procedures for patients in Gosport constituency.
Answered by Will Quince
£2.3 billion was awarded at the 2021 Spending Review to transform diagnostic services over the next three years to increase diagnostic capacity, including for endoscopy services. This funding will also increase the number of Community Diagnostic Centres up to 160 by March 2025, including a number delivering endoscopy services.
Cutting National Health Service waiting lists, including for endoscopy services, is one of this government’s top priorities. This is a shared ambition amongst integrated care systems (ICSs), including the NHS Hampshire and Isle of Wight ICS. Priorities are set locally through joint strategic needs assessments as part of joint forward plans across the ICS and partnering NHS trusts.
There are currently nine sites delivering diagnostics for Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. This includes the provision of endoscopy services at some sites.
In the South East Hampshire Locality which includes Portsmouth, Fareham and Gosport, 1,908 additional endoscopy tests have been delivered closer to people’s homes, increasing earlier access to endoscopy procedures.
Asked by: Caroline Dinenage (Conservative - Gosport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much and what proportion of funding provided to the NHS Hampshire and Isle of Wight integrated care system for diagnostic funding was spent on diagnostic endoscopy procedures in NHS Portsmouth in the 2022-23 financial year.
Answered by Will Quince
This information is not held in the format requested.
£2.3 billion was awarded at the 2021 Spending Review to transform diagnostic services over the next three years to increase diagnostic capacity, including for endoscopy services. This funding will also increase the number of Community Diagnostic Centres to 160 by March 2025, including a number delivering endoscopy services.
Asked by: Caroline Dinenage (Conservative - Gosport)
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 increase awareness and education on HPV and HPV-related cancers among children and teenagers.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) works closely with several charities such as Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust and the Teenage Cancer Trust to develop lesson plans for schools and other resources that can be used to raise awareness and educate young people about the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine and related cancers.
UKHSA has also helped develop resources for schools on the HPV vaccination and other adolescent immunisation programmes available at the following links:
https://www.jostrust.org.uk/information-healthcare-professionals/information-teachers;
https://www.teenagecancertrust.org/about-us/what-we-do/cancer-awareness/resources#cervicalcancer
https://pshe-association.org.uk/resource/educate-hpv-vaccine
UKHSA HPV resources are available at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/hpv-vaccination-programme
Also available to order in print on the UKHSA Health Publications website in a range of language and accessible formats available at the following link:
Asked by: Caroline Dinenage (Conservative - Gosport)
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 monitor inequalities in HPV vaccination uptake.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) monitor HPV vaccine coverage and publish annual data which is available at the following link:
In order to track inequalities these data are available by gender at the local authority, NHS and UKSHA Regional levels. School-based HPV immunisation delivery has successfully achieved high coverage in England and reduced inequalities at area level since the start of the programme in 2008.
In addition, the UKHSA also conducts undertakes research to understand how knowledge, beliefs and attitudes towards immunisation, vaccine safety and disease severity, influence vaccine uptake decision-making, including for the HPV vaccine. This includes working with partners in the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit (HPRU) for Vaccines exploring issues within specific minority communities and monitoring inequalities.