Asked by: Derek Thomas (Conservative - St Ives)
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 reduce the cost of alcohol to the NHS.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
As part of the NHS Long Term Plan, we are supporting acute hospitals to establish or improve specialist Alcohol Care Teams (ACTs) in hospitals with highest rates of alcohol harm. It is estimated that, if implemented in the 25% of hospitals with the highest rates of alcohol-dependence-related admissions, fully optimised ACTs could prevent 50,000 admissions over five years.
Asked by: Derek Thomas (Conservative - St Ives)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he plans to take to apply the same labelling standards to alcohol products as currently apply to other food and drink products.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Through ‘Tackling obesity: empowering adults and children to live healthier lives’, published in July 2020, we are committed to consult shortly on our intention to make companies provide calorie labelling on all pre-packaged alcohol they sell. The consultation will also cover introducing calorie labelling on alcoholic drinks sold in the out of home sector, for example bought on draught or by the glass.
Asked by: Derek Thomas (Conservative - St Ives)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans his Department has to ensure people with (a) diabetes and (b) at risk of serious consequences from covid-19 are being actively reviewed by suitably qualified healthcare professionals.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic diabetes care has remained a priority, and general practitioners (GPs) have supported patients with long-term conditions to access care and support.
The Primary Care Diabetes Society developed the guidance ‘How to undertake a remote diabetes review’ to support healthcare professionals offering remote diabetes reviews, and NHS England and NHS Improvement and partners supported GPs with the guidance ‘Advice for healthcare professionals on COVID-19 and diabetes’, for the management of diabetes during the pandemic.
Asked by: Derek Thomas (Conservative - St Ives)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that integrated care systems and sustainability and transformation partnerships have up-to-date guidance on the increased risk to people with uncontrolled diabetes of covid-19; and what steps he is taking to ensure that regional NHS teams are monitoring their plans to (a) identify and (b) protect those people most at risk.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
As part of the COVID-19 response from NHS England and NHS Improvement, weekly calls were established with regional Diabetes Clinical Network teams, the Primary Care Diabetes Society, Association of British Diabetologists and Diabetes UK, which supported the development and sharing of a range of up-to-date guidance on the increased risk of COVID-19 for people with diabetes as well as key resources to support clinical teams in the maintenance of essential diabetes services.
To support people living with diabetes during the pandemic, NHS England and NHS Improvement have also provided a range of tools to support people to manage their condition. This includes making available a new helpline for adults living with diabetes who are insulin dependent, as well as providing access to a variety of online self-management tools.
Asked by: Derek Thomas (Conservative - St Ives)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to increase the number of psychologists (a) specialising in diabetes and (b) providing clinics for people with diabetes.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
On 21 March 2018, NHS England and NHS Improvement, along with the National Collaboration Institute for Mental Health, published ‘The Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) Pathway for People with Long-term Physical Health Conditions and Medically Unexplained Symptoms’. The pathway provides primary care services including psychological therapies for common mental disorders across England. It includes therapists specially trained to provide psychological therapies for people with long term conditions, including diabetes. NHS England and NHS Improvement are expanding this service, in line with the NHS Long Term Plan.
NHS England is also working to improve care for those with type 1 diabetes and eating disorders (often referred to as diabulimia) by supporting two pilots to test, trial and evaluate the effects of integrated diabetes and mental health pathways for the identification, assessment and treatment of diabulimia. NHS England and NHS Improvement have commissioned an in-depth evaluation to assess the impact of these pilot services.
Asked by: Derek Thomas (Conservative - St Ives)
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 effect of the Voluntary Scheme for Branded Medicines Pricing and Access on patient access to new medicines; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The 2019 Voluntary Scheme for Branded Medicines Pricing and Access set out a range of measures to support innovation and improve patient outcomes through greater access to the most transformative and cost-effective medicines. Every six months the Department, the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, NHS England and NHS Improvement, and the governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland meet to consider progress against the objectives of the scheme. Good progress is being made on the objectives of the scheme, and access to clinically and cost-effective new medicine continues to improve.
Asked by: Derek Thomas (Conservative - St Ives)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure the NICE Methods Review enables patients to access the latest treatments and medicines through the NHS.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We are informed by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) that its methods review is proceeding apace, and NICE is being ambitious in the scope and breadth of the review.
This methods review includes consideration of factors that may affect decision-making (‘modifiers’), uncertainty and the discount rate.
It is too soon for NICE to comment on the potential outcomes and any changes to its methods that may be proposed.
NICE will continue to welcome contributions from all stakeholders and there will be a public consultation on the case for change commencing in autumn this year. However, it is too soon to comment on the potential outcomes and any changes to its methods that may be proposed.
Asked by: Derek Thomas (Conservative - St Ives)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps NICE is taking to (a) value the benefits of medicines through the introduction of modifiers into their decision making framework, (b) improve the way uncertainty of evidence is managed in appraisals and (c) align their discount rate with the latest guidance in the Treasury Green book.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We are informed by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) that its methods review is proceeding apace, and NICE is being ambitious in the scope and breadth of the review.
This methods review includes consideration of factors that may affect decision-making (‘modifiers’), uncertainty and the discount rate.
It is too soon for NICE to comment on the potential outcomes and any changes to its methods that may be proposed.
NICE will continue to welcome contributions from all stakeholders and there will be a public consultation on the case for change commencing in autumn this year. However, it is too soon to comment on the potential outcomes and any changes to its methods that may be proposed.
Asked by: Derek Thomas (Conservative - St Ives)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of covid-19 on research-based health charities.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Medical research charities are an integral part of the United Kingdom’s world-leading life sciences sector. The Department is closely liaising with the Association of Medical Research Charities, as well as individual charities, to understand the impact of the pandemic on this sector and identify how best the Government and charities can work together to ensure that patients continue benefiting from charity-funded research.
Asked by: Derek Thomas (Conservative - St Ives)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure the level of resources allocated for research into cancers is protected during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
As with other Government funders of health research, the Department’s National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) does not allocate funding for specific disease areas. The level of research spend in a particular area, such as cancer, is driven by factors including scientific potential and the number and scale of successful funding applications.
We have now entered a new phase of the pandemic, where the number of new cases of COVID-19 is declining, and we have a significant portfolio of nationally prioritised urgent public health studies which are actively recruiting participants. The time is right to work towards the restoration of a diverse and active portfolio of research funded and/or supported by the NIHR - including both non-COVID-19 research and important COVID-19 research which does not meet our ‘Urgency’ criteria. Further information is available at the following link:
To help initiate this process, the NIHR has developed a ‘Framework for Restart’ which provides a structure to guide the restarting of a full range of NIHR research, including cancer research, while maintaining local decision-making and flexibility. Further information is available at the following link:
https://www.nihr.ac.uk/documents/restart-framework/24886