Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department is taking steps to help people who are owed refunds by covid-19 travel testing companies that have ceased operations.
Answered by Maggie Throup
Where a customer service issue with a private testing provider arises, this should be raised directly with the provider. The terms and conditions of sale provide further information on consumers’ rights. Where this cannot be resolved by the provider, guidance on consumer rights is available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/consumer-protection-rights
In specific circumstances, the Department will support the relevant regulatory bodies, such as Trading Standards, to investigate the provider.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
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 potential merits of additional contracts with the ZOE Covid Study.
Answered by Maggie Throup
The Government will continue monitoring the virus through maintaining surveillance studies such as the Office for National Statistics’ COVID-19 Infection Survey and other data sources, including genomic sequencing. The Government will keep all surveillance activities under review to ensure we have the capabilities to monitor waves of COVID-19 and defend against future variants.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
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 potential merits of a dedicated research fund for research into fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
No specific assessment has been made. The Department provides over £1 billion to the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) to deliver health and social care research. The usual practice of the NIHR is not to ring-fence funds for expenditure on particular topics and to welcome funding applications into any aspect of human health. Applications are subject to peer review and judged in open competition.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much of the £20 million committed by his Department in 2018 to brain tumour research over a five year period is still to be allocated; and what assessment he has made of the effect of the covid-19 outbreak on brain tumour research funding.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
Since this funding was announced in February 2018, a further £20 million was announced in May 2018, bringing the total planned investment to £40 million over five years.
The information on spending still to be allocated is not held in the format requested. The National Institute for Health Research’s (NIHR) infrastructure spending on cancer research does not record the specific type of cancer. Studies can be applicable to cancer in general, such as the type of tumour and research on supportive and palliative care interventions.
During the COVID-19 pandemic many of the NIHR’s research programmes, studies and trials were necessarily paused. However, the NIHR’s funding competitions remained open throughout, including for brain tumour research.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Answer of 26 October 2021 to question 60443 on NHS: Pensions, what equalities impact assessment his Department has made on the potential effect of not equalising Survivor Pension Benefits rules for people who are unable to enter into new marriages or co-habit with a partner as a result of the pre-2008 NHS Survivor Pension rules without losing their entitlements on pensions for women and men who are seeking to re-marry or co-habit with a new partner.
Answered by Edward Argar
Equality Impact Assessments are regularly performed to facilitate and evidence compliance with Government’s duties under the Equality Act 2010. However, such assessments are not a statutory requirement. The prospective improvements to survivor benefit terms were implemented in 2008 and so was not subject to this process at the time. Equality Impact Assessments are not usually produced where a policy remains unchanged as in this case.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
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 potential impact on health outcomes of (a) the ending of the £20 uplift to universal credit uplift, (b) increases to inflation and (c) increases in energy costs.
Answered by Maggie Throup
The Department has not undertaken an assessment. It is the responsibility of each Government Department to assess the impacts of its own policies.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Answer of 9 December 2020 to Question 120078, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of making funds available to equalise Survivor Pension Benefits for people who are unable to enter into new marriages or co-habit with a partner as a result of the pre-2008 NHS Survivor Pension rules.
Answered by Edward Argar
The NHS Pension Scheme does not provide for the automatic retention of a survivor pension on re-marriage or co-habitation where the Scheme member ceased pensionable employment before 1 April 2008. Arrangements are in place for continuing or restoring a pension if, for example, withdrawal would create severe financial hardship for the recipient.
Following a review by NHS Pension Scheme stakeholders, changes were made to survivor benefits for Scheme members with service extended to or beyond 1 April 2008, where a survivor pension became payable for life regardless of whether the recipient remarries, forms a civil partnership or lives with someone else as a spouse or partner. The Government’s position remains that benefit entitlements should normally be determined based on the rules applicable at the time the member served, to maintain fairness for active scheme members and the taxpayer.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department makes of the transparency of other nations' (a) covid-19 medical case rate reporting and (b) media freedom to discuss the covid-19 pandemic prior to making decisions on potential inclusion of those countries on the UK's list of covid-19 acute risk countries for international travel during the covid-19 pandemic.
Answered by Jo Churchill
The decision to include countries on the ‘red list’ is made by the Government, informed by the latest scientific data and public health advice from a world-leading range of experts. Data includes evidence of variants of concern, epidemiology, imported cases and traveller volumes. The list of red list countries is kept consistently under review.
The Government is committed to the open sharing of the scientific advice guiding our response to COVID-19 where possible. Transparency and confidence of reported data by other countries is considered as part of the assessment process. We continue to engage and encourage other countries to share best practice and data.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department makes of the transparency of nations' (a) covid-19 medical case rate reporting and (b) media freedom to discuss the covid-19 pandemic prior to making decisions on potential inclusion of those countries on the covid-19 acute risk list.
Answered by Jo Churchill
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before prorogation.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
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 on groups who may not have a permanent or stable home address of the use of agencies usually used for credit checks in the verification of individuals' addresses when giving access to covid-19 antibody testing.
Answered by Jo Churchill
The identity verification check in place could potentially cause accessibility issues for those with no fixed abode. Therefore, the verification check was deactivated in November 2020 for both antigen testing and antibody testing to ensure there were no barriers to testing. It has not been used in either service since.