Asked by: David Mundell (Conservative - Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will expand HIV opt-out testing to local authority areas where there are between two and five per 1,000 people living with HIV.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
As part of the Government’s HIV Action Plan, NHS England has expanded opt-out human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) testing in accident and emergency departments in the 21 local authority areas across the country with the highest prevalence of HIV, over 5 cases per 1,000 people, a proven effective way to identify new HIV cases. NHS England is investing £20m over 2022 to 2025 to support this activity.
We will be considering the full evidence from the first year of opt-out testing, alongside the data on progress towards our ambition of ending new HIV transmissions in England by 2030, to decide whether we further expand this programme to areas with high HIV prevalence, 2 to 5 cases per 1,000 people. We will also share the findings from the opt-out testing programme with local health systems to inform local decisions on expansion.
Asked by: David Mundell (Conservative - Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will take steps to ensure that contracts awarded to HIV clinics require those clinics to conduct annual audits of (a) the number of people in the local area requiring HIV care and (b) the capacity of those clinics to provide that care.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
Contracts awarded to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) clinics are the responsibility of NHSE specialist commissioning groups and local authority commissioners who assess the need in their local populations and set the requirements of the contracts. Data on HIV treatment and care are collected from HIV services by the United Kingdom Health Security Agency and reported back centrally to assist commissioners and service providers in monitoring performance.
Asked by: David Mundell (Conservative - Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps the Government is taking to involve people living with HIV in the (a) development, (b) linkage with community-based services and (c) further implementation of quality-of-life measurement tools in health facilities.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The HIV Action Plan, published in 2021, sets out our key commitments in relation to supporting the needs of people living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
In delivering against these commitments, UK Health Security Agency published the HIV Action Plan Monitoring and Evaluation Framework in December 2022. Reducing stigma and promoting quality of life are themes in the framework which includes a quality-of-life baseline indicator. The framework will continue to monitor and evaluate quality-of-life from this baseline.
The framework also states that further work will be undertaken with the HIV Action Plan Implementation Steering Group and with professional groups, the HIV community and academic partners to develop further indicators to monitor quality of life for those living with HIV. The British HIV Association in close collaboration with people living with HIV, has developed guidelines for the delivery of HIV treatment, care and support.
Asked by: David Mundell (Conservative - Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will take steps to provide additional funding for sexual health services to help recover services that have been affected by the monkeypox outbreak.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
In 2022/23, we have allocated more than £3.4 billion to local authorities in England to fund public health services, including sexual health services, through the public health grant and provided additional funding for the monkeypox response, including the supply of medicines and vaccinations.
The Department continues to work closely with the UK Health Security Agency, local authorities and NHS England to monitor the impact of monkeypox on sexual health services and support system-wide action to maintain access to routine sexual and reproductive health services.
Local authorities are responsible for commissioning comprehensive, open access sexual health services to meet local demand and individual local authorities decide on spending priorities based on an assessment of local need for sexual health services. We will announce the 2023/24 public health grant allocations to local authorities in due course.
Asked by: David Mundell (Conservative - Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what progress his Department has made on integrating the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's policy marker on nutrition into its portfolio.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Minister for Development)
The UK is committed to integrating nutrition objectives and interventions across multiple sectors including health, humanitarian, women and girls, climate and economic development partnerships. The OECD Nutrition Policy Marker is now embedded in our systems to ensure that FCDO programmes contributing to nutrition objectives are 'marked' from the point of programme design and for onward funding. This will help to improve tracking accountable nutrition programmes.
Asked by: David Mundell (Conservative - Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale)
Question to the Scotland Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland, what steps his Department is taking to promote the importance of oil and gas jobs to Scotland.
Answered by Alister Jack - Secretary of State for Scotland
It is vital that we make the most of our North Sea oil and gas resources. This will maintain the security of the UK’s energy supply, produce significantly lower emissions than imported alternatives and support tens of thousands of jobs across Scotland. The Government is therefore committed to Scotland’s oil and gas sector and maximising the potential of our offshore reserves.
Asked by: David Mundell (Conservative - Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Minister for International Development, with reference to Save the Children’s press release entitled new figures reveal more than half of children in Somalia now facing malnutrition, published on 14 September 2022, what recent assessment she has made of that organisation's recommendation to invest £70m to help treat malnourished children in the Horn of Africa.
Answered by Leo Docherty - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence) (Minister for the Armed Forces)
The humanitarian situation in Somalia is devastating, with roughly half of the country now in need of life saving aid. In order to alleviate the impact of drought and address the risk of famine, since 1 April 2022, the UK has allocated £52.8 million in humanitarian, health and nutrition support to Somalia. UK funded activities are making a difference and saving lives.
The FCDO is prioritising spending that is vital to protect against immediate threat to life and wellbeing, will prevent people falling into humanitarian need, or will prevent delays to accessing healthcare, primary education, sanitation and clean water. Ministers will make any adjustments and final aid prioritisation decisions based on additional Official Development Assistance pressures this autumn.
Asked by: David Mundell (Conservative - Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what assessment he has made of the potential long-term impact of ongoing hunger crises in East Africa on levels of malnutrition in that region.
Answered by Leo Docherty - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence) (Minister for the Armed Forces)
Across East Africa over 51 million people face severe food insecurity, of which 700,000 are facing famine-like conditions in South Sudan, Somalia and Ethiopia. The ongoing drought in the region and dire water shortages are driving alarming levels of malnutrition; about 4.9 million children and 986,100 pregnant and lactating women are acutely malnourished in drought affected areas in the Horn of Africa, including about 1.4 million children who are severely acutely malnourished. There are concrete warnings that the October - December rains might fail. If so, serious humanitarian needs will persist into 2023.
The UK is a major donor to the East Africa region and UK-funded activities are making a difference and saving lives. In Financial Year 2022/23, the UK intends to provide £156 million in humanitarian aid towards crises in East Africa. Of this amount, nearly 50 percent has been allocated as of mid-September.
Asked by: David Mundell (Conservative - Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Minister for International Development, what plans she has to join the USAID, European donors, and private philanthropies in supporting the provision of child wasting treatments as announced at the UN General Assembly.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Minister for Development)
Nutrition is a core focus of our work on global health, our humanitarian response and in support of UK goals on girls' education and climate. The UK remains committed to tackling child wasting, and this was reaffirmed by Lord Goldsmith at the United Nations General Assembly event on child wasting in September hosted by United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and USAID.
The UK launched a five year partnership with UNICEF in 2020 to work to reform the prevention and treatment of child wasting. The Nutrition Match Fund is an early success of this partnership; it provides an equal financial match to countries' domestic contributions for therapeutic feeding. The UK Government announced a £2 million contribution to the Match Fund in June 2022 for a total UK contribution so far of £4 million.
Asked by: David Mundell (Conservative - Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she plans to make fostemsavir available for the treatment of people with multi-drug resistant HIV.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
NHS England has developed a national clinical commissioning policy proposition for Fostemsavir for the treatment of multi-drug resistant HIV-1 infection. The proposition was submitted for stakeholder testing in February 2022 and was considered in the Clinical Priorities Advisory Group’s (CPAG) relative prioritisation meeting in July 2022.
NHS England will decide whether this intervention will be available on the National Health Service on the basis of the CPAG’s recommendation and level of funding available for investment. A decision is expected shortly.