Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)
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 5 March 2024 to Question 16027 on Suicide, how much of the £57 million allocated for suicide (a) prevention and (b) bereavement services has been allocated to local authorities; and by what date must the funds be spent.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The £57 million of funding was made available across the period from April 2019 to March 2024. Neither the Department nor NHS England holds information centrally on how much of this funding has ultimately gone to local authorities. NHS England allocates funding to integrated care boards, who in turn commission activities across local authority and health settings.
Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of average waiting times for autism assessments on other health and care services.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
There are no current plans to make this specific assessment. We recognise the importance of early identification of autism so that an individual’s needs can be identified sooner, and support put in place earlier in life.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s (NICE) guidelines on autism highlight the importance of conducting an autism assessment as soon as possible so that appropriate health and social care interventions, and advice and support, can be offered. It is the responsibility of integrated care boards (ICBs) to make available appropriate provision to meet the health and care needs of their local population, in line with the NICE’s guidelines.
In April 2023, NHS England published a national framework and operational guidance for autism assessment services. This guidance will help the National Health Service to deliver improved outcomes for children, young people, and adults. The operational guidance makes it clear that people should be able to access support and care from other services for needs that appear linked to physical and mental health, including while they are waiting for an autism assessment. This year, the Department is updating the Statutory Guidance on Autism to support the NHS and local authorities in delivering improved outcomes for autistic people.
Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the federated data platform will include functionality to enable the creation of a consolidated national allergy register.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The current use cases for the Federated Data Platform (FDP) are:
- elective recovery, to address the backlog of people waiting for appointments or treatments;
- care coordination, to enable the effective coordination of care between local health and care organisations and services, reducing the number of long stays in hospital;
- vaccination and immunisation, to continue to support the vaccination and immunisation of vulnerable people while ensuring fair and equal access and uptake across different communities;
- population health management, to help integrated care systems proactively plan services that meet the needs of their population; and
- supply chain management, to help the National Health Service put resources where they are needed most, and buy smarter so that we get the best value for money.
The creation of a consolidated national allergy register, or identifiable national clinical data registries, is not in the current scope of the FDP, which will not be processing identifiable patient data at a national level. More products will be developed on the FDP throughout the lifecycle of this programme.
The FDP programme has developed a front door process and demand assessment framework which will be used for new requirements coming into the programme. The assessment framework assesses ideas and requests on the basis of their fit to the core FDP objectives and targeted business case outcomes, as well as assessing against the feasibility of successful delivery when considering things like cost, capacity, wider system dependencies, and other factors. In regard to a consolidated national allergy register, we would expect discussions to be held initially within the National Disease Registry Service.
Alongside the FDP, NHS England are investing in platform modernisation, including the Patient Outcomes and Registries Platform (ORP) which is a unified national registry platform integrated into NHS England’s system data infrastructure for improved data security, flow, linkage, and analysis, and faster pace of registry development.
The ORP’s directions cover all outcome registries, patient-reported outcome measures and patient-reported experience measures, and shared decision-making and data collections across a wide range of conditions, including all surgical and interventional procedures in the NHS and independent sector. A national allergy register or registry may be in the scope for the ORP’s coverage.
Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)
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 ensure that (a) Evusheld 2 and (b) other covid-19 treatments for the immuno-compromised are available to patients.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) makes recommendations on whether all new licensed medicines, including medicines for COVID-19, should be routinely funded by the National Health Service, based on an assessment of their costs and benefits. The NICE aims, wherever possible, to publish guidance close to licensing and the NHS in England is legally required to fund medicines recommended by the NICE, normally within three months of final guidance.
The NICE has published guidance that recommends three medicines, paxlovid, xevudy, and roactemra, for the treatment of COVID-19, both in the community and for patients in hospital. This guidance ensures that patients who are at the highest risk of developing severe disease from COVID-19 have access to clinically and cost-effective treatments.
The NICE has started its appraisal of sipavibart, which has been referred to as evusheld 2.0, through its standard processes, and its Appraisal Committee will meet to consider its recommendations in October 2024. The NICE will aim to publish its guidance as close as possible to licensing.
Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will have discussions with NICE on developing a fast track approval process for covid-19 treatments for the immuno-compromised.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) makes recommendations on whether all new licensed medicines, including medicines for COVID-19, should be routinely funded by the National Health Service, based on an assessment of their costs and benefits. The NICE aims, wherever possible, to publish guidance close to licensing and the NHS in England is legally required to fund medicines recommended by the NICE, normally within three months of final guidance.
The NICE has published guidance that recommends three medicines, paxlovid, xevudy, and roactemra, for the treatment of COVID-19, both in the community and for patients in hospital. This guidance ensures that patients who are at the highest risk of developing severe disease from COVID-19 have access to clinically and cost-effective treatments.
The NICE has started its appraisal of sipavibart, which has been referred to as evusheld 2.0, through its standard processes, and its Appraisal Committee will meet to consider its recommendations in October 2024. The NICE will aim to publish its guidance as close as possible to licensing.
Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate her Department has made of the (a) number and (b) type of reusable NHS medical equipment that has been sent to landfill in the past 12 months.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department published the inaugural Medical Technology Strategy in February 2023, which included a focus on improving resource efficiency within the sector. Presently, through our Design for Life Programme, we are working with industry, the health and care system, and academic partners to explore options for developing medical technology systems that support reuse, remanufacture, and materials recovery by default. This includes developing regulatory, commercial, infrastructure, and policy environments that support this aim, with the intention of publishing a roadmap later this year.
The NHS clinical waste strategy, published on 7 March 2023, sets out NHS England’s ambition to transform the management of clinical waste by eliminating unnecessary waste, finding innovative ways to reuse, and ensuring waste is processed in the most cost-effective, efficient, and sustainable way.
NHS England has developed a waste planning tool consistent with this clinical waste strategy for all National Health Service providers, which includes improved segregation, waste minimisation, and increased reuse programmes. This will lead to reductions in the road miles which waste travels, increases in the use of re-usable sharps bins, and support plans made towards the achievement of Net Zero Carbon from waste management.
As part of the Design for Life programme we recognise that in order to assess progress for reuse and waste prevention, we will need to define future data requirements and align digital infrastructure to improve the gathering of core data. As such, at this juncture, the Department does not have centralised data on the rates of disposal for reusable medical technologies, nor how many trusts have relevant waste prevention policies for these products.
Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussion she has had with NHS England on the reasons why reusable NHS equipment is not permitted to be returned and reissued to new patients.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department published the inaugural Medical Technology Strategy in February 2023, which included a focus on improving resource efficiency within the sector. Presently, through our Design for Life Programme, we are working with industry, the health and care system, and academic partners to explore options for developing medical technology systems that support reuse, remanufacture, and materials recovery by default. This includes developing regulatory, commercial, infrastructure, and policy environments that support this aim, with the intention of publishing a roadmap later this year.
The NHS clinical waste strategy, published on 7 March 2023, sets out NHS England’s ambition to transform the management of clinical waste by eliminating unnecessary waste, finding innovative ways to reuse, and ensuring waste is processed in the most cost-effective, efficient, and sustainable way.
NHS England has developed a waste planning tool consistent with this clinical waste strategy for all National Health Service providers, which includes improved segregation, waste minimisation, and increased reuse programmes. This will lead to reductions in the road miles which waste travels, increases in the use of re-usable sharps bins, and support plans made towards the achievement of Net Zero Carbon from waste management.
As part of the Design for Life programme we recognise that in order to assess progress for reuse and waste prevention, we will need to define future data requirements and align digital infrastructure to improve the gathering of core data. As such, at this juncture, the Department does not have centralised data on the rates of disposal for reusable medical technologies, nor how many trusts have relevant waste prevention policies for these products.
Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many NHS Trusts have policies on reduction of landfill wastage of reusable NHS equipment.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department published the inaugural Medical Technology Strategy in February 2023, which included a focus on improving resource efficiency within the sector. Presently, through our Design for Life Programme, we are working with industry, the health and care system, and academic partners to explore options for developing medical technology systems that support reuse, remanufacture, and materials recovery by default. This includes developing regulatory, commercial, infrastructure, and policy environments that support this aim, with the intention of publishing a roadmap later this year.
The NHS clinical waste strategy, published on 7 March 2023, sets out NHS England’s ambition to transform the management of clinical waste by eliminating unnecessary waste, finding innovative ways to reuse, and ensuring waste is processed in the most cost-effective, efficient, and sustainable way.
NHS England has developed a waste planning tool consistent with this clinical waste strategy for all National Health Service providers, which includes improved segregation, waste minimisation, and increased reuse programmes. This will lead to reductions in the road miles which waste travels, increases in the use of re-usable sharps bins, and support plans made towards the achievement of Net Zero Carbon from waste management.
As part of the Design for Life programme we recognise that in order to assess progress for reuse and waste prevention, we will need to define future data requirements and align digital infrastructure to improve the gathering of core data. As such, at this juncture, the Department does not have centralised data on the rates of disposal for reusable medical technologies, nor how many trusts have relevant waste prevention policies for these products.
Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she has had discussions with (a) NICE and (b) Bristol Myers Squibb on restarting the NICE appraisals process for luspatercept (Reblozyl).
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Departmental officials regularly discuss a range of issues with colleagues in the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), including on access to medicines such as luspatercept (Reblozyl). The Department has had no discussions with Bristol Myers Squibb on this specific topic.
Luspatercept has a licence in the United Kingdom for the treatment of adult patients with transfusion-dependent anaemia due to very low, and low and intermediate-risk myelodysplastic syndrome with ring sideroblasts, who had an unsatisfactory response to, or are ineligible for, erythropoietin-based therapy. The NICE had to terminate its appraisal of luspatercept for treating anaemia caused by myelodysplastic syndromes because the manufacturer did not provide an evidence submission. The NICE will review this decision if the company decides to make a submission.
Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what guidance her Department provides to ensure that patients' relatives are aware of their right to a second opinion when a doctor makes a do not attempt cardiopulmonary resuscitation decision.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
Patient facing guidance setting out how the decision for a do not attempt cardiopulmonary resuscitation (DNACPR) is made, and how individuals or their families can get support if they have concerns about a DNACPR, including second opinions and review, is available at the following link:
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/do-not-attempt-cardiopulmonary-resuscitation-dnacpr-decisions/