Asked by: Danny Kinahan (Ulster Unionist Party - South Antrim)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will take steps to ensure that UK access to emerging treatments for (a) muscular dystrophy and (b) other neuromuscular conditions is maintained in the event of the UK leaving the EU.
Answered by George Freeman
I refer the hon. Member to the Answer I gave to the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) on 5 July 2016 to Question 41576.
Asked by: Danny Kinahan (Ulster Unionist Party - South Antrim)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent discussions he has had with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence on granting that Institute the power to be able to approve cancer drugs for use off-license.
Answered by George Freeman
Clinicians can prescribe any treatment, including an unlicensed product or a product not licensed for a particular indication, which they consider the best available medicine to meet the individual clinical needs of their patient, subject to their primary care organisation agreeing to fund this treatment.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) already produces Evidence Summaries which critically review the best available evidence for significant uses of unlicensed or off-label medicines. They help commissioners and clinicians to make evidence-based prioritisation, treatment and funding decisions where there are no clinically-appropriate licensed alternatives.
Ensuring that patients get timely access to any new treatment, including off-label medicines in new indications, is complex and the Department is committed to working with stakeholders including NICE, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the General Medical Council, patient and professional groups, and charities to co-ordinate activities and set plans in place that will make this easier. This includes work to look at more systematic inclusion of off-label uses of drugs in the British National Formulary and development of case studies looking at re-purposed medicines and their pathways from research results into clinical practice.
Alongside these, the Access to Medical Treatments (Innovation) Act 2016 will, in due course, provide the National Health Service with a newly created database which will provide a mechanism for collecting and sharing information on innovative treatments including off-label drugs and medicines in development. Now that the Act has received Royal Assent the work to implement its provisions can begin.
Asked by: Danny Kinahan (Ulster Unionist Party - South Antrim)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the number of e-cigarette users who have (a) resumed smoking and (b) purchased vaping supplies from black market sources.
Answered by Jane Ellison
The best thing a smoker can do to improve their health is to quit smoking for good.
The Department recognises that electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) can help smokers quit and the evidence indicates that they are considerably less harmful to health than cigarettes.
This Government has committed to publishing a new tobacco control plan to further reduce the prevalence of smoking in England. The development of this plan is underway and will be published later this year. The new strategy will consider the role of e-cigarettes in further reducing the prevalence of smoking in England. To help inform this element of the strategy the Department has been engaging with e-cigarette experts to ensure that local authorities and Stop Smoking Services are provided with up to date, evidenced based advice on e-cigarettes.
Whilst the Department has not made a formal assessment of the number of e-cigarette users who have resumed smoking, the evidence suggests that in the short-term, relapse rates are lower in those using e-cigarettes to quit.
The Department has not made an assessment of the number of e-cigarette users who have purchased vaping supplies from black market sources.
Asked by: Danny Kinahan (Ulster Unionist Party - South Antrim)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent discussions he has had on the (a) positive and (b) negative effects of e-cigarettes on people who try to stop smoking.
Answered by Jane Ellison
The best thing a smoker can do to improve their health is to quit smoking for good.
The Department recognises that electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) can help smokers quit and the evidence indicates that they are considerably less harmful to health than cigarettes.
This Government has committed to publishing a new tobacco control plan to further reduce the prevalence of smoking in England. The development of this plan is underway and will be published later this year. The new strategy will consider the role of e-cigarettes in further reducing the prevalence of smoking in England. To help inform this element of the strategy the Department has been engaging with e-cigarette experts to ensure that local authorities and Stop Smoking Services are provided with up to date, evidenced based advice on e-cigarettes.
Whilst the Department has not made a formal assessment of the number of e-cigarette users who have resumed smoking, the evidence suggests that in the short-term, relapse rates are lower in those using e-cigarettes to quit.
The Department has not made an assessment of the number of e-cigarette users who have purchased vaping supplies from black market sources.
Asked by: Danny Kinahan (Ulster Unionist Party - South Antrim)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many verbal and physical assaults on NHS staff have been recorded in the last three years.
Answered by Ben Gummer
Information on the number of verbal assaults on National Health Service staff is not held centrally and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
NHS Protect collates figures annually on reported physical assaults on NHS staff in England.
The table below shows the number of reported physical assaults in the last three years:
Reported physical assaults against NHS staff
2012-13 | 2013-14 | 2014-15 |
63,199 | 68,683 | 67,864 |
Detailed tables of information on the number of physical assaults since 2004-05, as reported by each health body, is at:
http://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/3645.aspx