Asked by: Daniel Zeichner (Labour - Cambridge)
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 effectiveness of the covid-19 vaccines approval process and whether lessons from that process can be applied to support the development and approval of other innovative medicines and treatments.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
The rapid approval and delivery of clinical trials in the United Kingdom to respond to COVID-19 has made a leading contribution to the international vaccine and therapeutics effort. In March the Government set out its vision for the future of clinical research delivery to create a patient-centred, pro-innovation and digitally-enabled research environment. Implementation plans and strategies setting out how the Government and devolved administrations will begin to deliver the vision during 2021 to 2022 will be published shortly.
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) launched the Innovative Licensing and Access Pathway (ILAP) at the start of 2021, to reduce the time to market for innovative medicines. The ILAP combines the MHRA’s independence and high standards of quality, safety and efficacy, with improved efficiency and flexibility. It provides a single integrated platform between the MHRA, partners and the medicine developer, to ensure that patients receive the highest quality medicines and treatments as soon as they become available.
Asked by: Daniel Zeichner (Labour - Cambridge)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department held discussions at the G7 summit on the potential (a) public health risk of and (b) merits of banning fur farming; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
No such discussions were held.
Asked by: Daniel Zeichner (Labour - Cambridge)
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 effects on health of (a) precarious work and (b) the climate crisis.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
No such assessment has been made of the effects on health of precarious work.
The National Adaptation Programme has an objective for Public Health England to update the evidence base on the health impacts of climate change, considering a wide range of risks and opportunities of climate change impacts on health as identified by the second Climate Change Risk Assessment.
An update of estimates of direct and indirect climate-related health impacts using the UK Climate Projections’ 18 projections will be included. Findings will be published in a comprehensive report ‘Health Effects of Climate Change in the UK’.
Asked by: Daniel Zeichner (Labour - Cambridge)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure that people who move into a higher covid-19 vaccination priority group get swift access to an appointment.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) regularly reviews the evidence on clinical risk and prioritisation and may periodically advise adding additional individuals to be vaccinated within or alongside one of the nine priority groups. Where this happens the vaccination programme booking systems are altered to ensure such individuals are able to book appointments in line with their new priority grouping. The fact that they have been prioritised is communicated publicly as well as to the National Health Service including General Practitioners, to maximise awareness and ensure individuals are identified and encouraged to take up the offer of prioritised vaccination.
Asked by: Daniel Zeichner (Labour - Cambridge)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions he has had with NHS England on establishing student-facing health services set out in the NHS Long Term Plan.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
NHS England and NHS Improvement are working closely with Universities UK via the Mental Health in Higher Education programme to build the capability and capacity of universities to improve student welfare services and improve access to mental health services for the student population.
The ‘COVID-19 mental health and wellbeing recovery action plan’, published on 27 March, includes £13 million of additional funding will be provided to accelerate the improvements to mental health support for 18 to 25 year olds in the NHS Long Term Plan as part of the £500 million announced for mental health recovery. This funding will ensure services meet the specific needs of young adults, including students.
Asked by: Daniel Zeichner (Labour - Cambridge)
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 businesses in Cambridge that are eligible for the workplace testing programme have registered for that programme.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
There are 760 private sector organisations in Cambridge which have registered interest in workplace testing. This represents approximately 16% of all businesses in the area.
Asked by: Daniel Zeichner (Labour - Cambridge)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the guidance from NHS England and NHS Improvement to chief executives on 2 March 2020 stating that staff should receive full pay while in self-isolation due to the covid-19 outbreak, including bank staff and sub-contractors, who have to be physically present at an NHS facility to carry out their duties, applies to workers employed by Sodexo at NHS Testing sites.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The testing sites run by Sodexo had not been established at the time of NHS England and NHS Improvement’s letter of 2 March 2020.
As Sodexo is an independent organisation, they are able to adopt those terms and conditions.
Asked by: Daniel Zeichner (Labour - Cambridge)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many food alerts were issued on salmonella in chicken in each month in (a) 2020 and (b) 2021.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The number of product recall information notice (PRIN) alerts published by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) because of salmonella contamination in chicken products in each month in 2020 and 2021 is shown in the following table:
Month | Number of FSA PRINs published |
January 2020 | 0 |
February 2020 | 0 |
March 2020 | 0 |
April 2020 | 0 |
May 2020 | 0 |
June 2020 | 0 |
July 2020 | 0 |
August 2020 | 1 |
September 2020 | 0 |
October 2020 | 2 |
November 2020 | 0 |
December 2020 | 1 |
January 2021 | 0 |
Asked by: Daniel Zeichner (Labour - Cambridge)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the maximum distance from an individual's home address that a vaccine appointment will be offered through the nhs online vaccination booking service.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
Currently, in England, more than 98% of the population is within 10 miles of a vaccine service. In a small number of highly rural areas, the vaccination centre will be a mobile unit.
Vaccination centres publish their own directions on the National Booking System and some have their own website to support visitors with further information on location and accessibility. Patients booking vaccination appointments can choose a site that meets their accessibility needs and transport requirements and will be informed of the distance of the site from the postcode they have entered. Users on the National Booking Service are able to view sites up to 60 miles from the postcode they choose to search from.
Asked by: Daniel Zeichner (Labour - Cambridge)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when he plans to provide further details regarding allocation of the £500 million of additional funding for mental health services in 2021-22 announced in the Spending Review 2020.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
An announcement is expected to be made imminently giving further details about how this will be spent.