Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the US Food and Drug Administration safety communication Evaluating Plastic Syringes Made in China for Potential Device Failures, issued on 30 November 2023, whether her Department is undertaking a similar evaluation of syringes.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is aware of the issues raised by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) concerning quality control and design problems with plastic syringes manufactured in China. Whist the MHRA works on the basis that CE or UKCA marked plastic syringes originally produced in China are in use within the United Kingdom healthcare system, one of the main suppliers of plastic syringes into the UK healthcare system, Becton, Dickinson and Company, has confirmed that their products are not affected by this issue.
Medical device safety issues may affect different global regions to varying extents. Whilst awareness and active information exchange between regulators is critical to focus national investigations, regulatory action is taken based on UK relevant evidence. Device safety corrective actions communicated via so-called Field Safety Notices (FSNs) related to the specific problems highlighted in the FDA alert have not been issued in the UK. FSNs issued in the UK are available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/drug-device-alerts
The MHRA is an active member of the International Medical Device Safety group. Representatives of regulatory authorities across the world meet on a regular basis to discuss emerging safety issues related to medical devices. The current issue was identified and MHRA are closely monitoring the situation. At this stage, there is insufficient evidence to justify actions against specific manufacturers of these products supplying into the UK.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will provide NHS Sussex Integrated Care Board with the additional £8m funding required to pay for the projected increase in demand in primary care for Locally Commissioned Services for this financial year.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department sets NHS England’s budget, with funding increasing to £162.5 billion in 2024/25.
NHS England is responsible for allocating healthcare resources to integrated care boards (ICBs) to meet the healthcare needs of their populations. ICBs then decide how that funding is spent within the local integrated care system. Allocations are determined using an independently recommended ‘weighted capitation’ formula to produce a target allocation or ‘fair share’, including for primary care, which accounts for population size.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to her Department's Press Release entitled, Prime Minister launches Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Mission, published 14 August 2023, what is her expected timeline to meet the Government's commitment to double dementia research funding in 2024.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is strongly committed to supporting research into dementia. In our 2019 manifesto we committed to double funding for dementia research. We will double funding for dementia research to £160 million per year by 2024/25.
Government responsibility for delivering dementia research is shared between the Department of Health and Social Care, with research delivered by the National Institute for Health and Care Research, and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, with research delivered via UK Research and Innovation. The Government spent over £413 million on dementia research from 2017/18 to 2021/22. Spend for dementia research is calculated retrospectively and is usually finalised around eight months after the end of the financial year, therefore 2021/22 is the most recent year we have full data for.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
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 23 November 2023 to Question 1512 on Prescriptions: Fees and Charges, what percentage of prescriptions are exempt from charges due to (a) Prescription Prepayment Certificates and (b) other reasons.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The NHS Business Services Authority collects data on the number of prescription items that are exempt from charges. 5% of prescription items are paid for at the point of dispensing. 95% of prescription items are exempt from charges, and within this figure 3% are covered by a Prescription Prepayment Certificate (PPC). The remaining 92% includes every item with an exempt category or “unknown” exemption category so may also include some PPC exemptions.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make it her policy to pay (a) nurses and (b) other healthcare and NHS staff for the extra hour they spend on shift when the clocks go back.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Most nurses and other healthcare staff that are directly employed by National Health Service organisations are covered by national terms and conditions of service. These national terms and conditions do not make specific provisions, including pay provisions, for shifts that cover the period when the clocks change twice a year. This is therefore a matter for NHS organisations to determine locally, taking steps to ensure that consistent approaches are taken.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what her Department's expected timescales are for integrated care boards to report on how much of their dental funding allocation they have used in the 2023-24 financial year; what estimate her Department has made of how much of the total allocation (a) has been and (b) is forecast to be spent on (i) other priorities and (ii) returned to NHS England; and if she will make it her policy to rollover any underspend in the primary dentistry budget to create more NHS dental appointments.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England has provided guidance for integrated care boards (ICBs) that requires dental funding to be ringfenced, with any unused resources re-directed to improve dental access in the National Health Service in the first instance. A schedule setting out the dental ringfence has been issued to ICBs. NHS England’s 2023/24 revenue finance and contracting guidance, which provides more detail, is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/2023-24-revenue-finance-and-contracting-guidance/
ICBs report their expenditure against the dental ringfence to NHS England as part of in-year financial reporting. Data for the 2023/24 financial year will be available after the end of the current financial year. NHS England’s finance business rules set out the approach to managing prior year under and overspends. The latest business rules are available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/icb-and-system-finance-business-rules/
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people (a) on the prescription charge exemption list, (b) over 60 years old, (c) on the NHS low income scheme and (d) on benefits that qualify them for free prescriptions received free prescriptions for each condition in the last five years.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
A list of people who are exempt from prescription charges is not collected or held centrally. The NHS Business Services Authority collects data on the number of prescription items that are exempt from charges. For the financial year 2022/23, 95% of all items dispensed were exempt from prescription charges due to items being covered by a prescription prepayment certificate or exempt from charges because the person or medicine was covered by an existing exemption.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many women (a) have been assessed to need and (b) are receiving (i) drug and (ii) alcohol recovery services.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Information is not collected centrally on the number of women assessed by drug and alcohol treatment and recovery services. Drug and alcohol treatment in England is commissioned by local authorities, who are responsible for assessing local need in their area, and commissioning a range of services and interventions to meet that need. The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) provides oversight of local delivery at a national level and continue to monitor implementation against the aims of the Government’s 10-year drug strategy.
OHID has published prevalence estimates for opiate and crack use which can be found at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/opiate-and-crack-cocaine-use-prevalence-estimates
This includes an estimate that there were 71,749 women who were dependent on these drugs in 2019/20, a rate of 4.01 per thousand women. Alcohol prevalence figures are not broken down by sex but can be found at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/alcohol-dependence-prevalence-in-england
The latest publicly available adult substance misuse treatment statistics for England can be found at the following link:
The publication indicates there were 94,135 women in contact with drug and alcohol services between 1 April 2021 and 31 March 2022. Out of these women, 38,736 were in treatment for opiate use, 9,761 were in treatment for non-opiate use only, 10,299 were in treatment for non-opiate and alcohol use and 35,339 were in treatment for alcohol use only.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many and what proportion of young people do not transition to adult services after being discharged from Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
While information on the number of children and young people discharged from mental health services, and the number subsequently referred to adult mental health services is collected by NHS England, this is not centrally validated.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the average waiting time is for transition of patients from child to adult mental health services.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
While information on the number of children and young people discharged from mental health services, and the number subsequently referred to adult mental health services is collected by NHS England, this is not centrally validated.