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 many locum doctors are subject to the 2019 Loan Charge.
Answered by Steve Barclay
No estimate of the number of locum doctors affected by the 2019 Loan Charge has been made. It is the Department’s expectation however that locum doctors do not enter into tax avoidance arrangements and should comply with this new legislation from its introduction in April 2019.
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, what assessment he has made of the capability of the UK's 12 Notified Bodies to continue operating after the UK leaves the EU.
Answered by Steve Brine
The United Kingdom currently has five European Union Notified Bodies that the Secretary of State for Health has designated to assess medical devices for the European market. The five UK Notified Bodies currently assess a disproportionate number of medical devices approved for use in the European Union.
The Government's top priority for life sciences during the negotiations is to protect the safety of patients and ensure the integrity of cross-European public health systems. The Government will seek a mutually beneficial future partnership between the UK and EU that is in the interests of both sides, which builds on the convergence between our regulatory systems and gives business the maximum freedom to trade with and operate within European markets. The future arrangements of Notified Bodies are a matter for future negotiations and it would not be appropriate to prejudge the outcome of those negotiations.
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, on what date the Government first identified the risk of HIV to haemophiliacs posed by contaminated blood products.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
The Department was made aware of a paper prepared by the Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens in August 1983, which stated that there was “strong circumstantial evidence”, that AIDS may be transmitted by blood and blood products.
It was in December 1984 that commercial heat-treated factor VIII, which inactivated viruses, became available in any reasonable quantity and was implemented from January 1985. Testing of all blood donations for HIV was also introduced in 1985 when suitably validated, effective tests became available and was a key factor in protecting our supply.
New tests must be properly evaluated in terms of efficacy and the wider safety of the process, to ensure that the active element in a blood product (for example Factor VIII) is not compromised.
Before introducing heat treatment, it was critical that a full assessment and validation of the new process was carried out.
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, what the elapse of time was between the identification of the risk of HIV in blood products for haemophiliacs and the introduction of safety measures to minimise that risk.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
The Department was made aware of a paper prepared by the Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens in August 1983, which stated that there was “strong circumstantial evidence”, that AIDS may be transmitted by blood and blood products.
It was in December 1984 that commercial heat-treated factor VIII, which inactivated viruses, became available in any reasonable quantity and was implemented from January 1985. Testing of all blood donations for HIV was also introduced in 1985 when suitably validated, effective tests became available and was a key factor in protecting our supply.
New tests must be properly evaluated in terms of efficacy and the wider safety of the process, to ensure that the active element in a blood product (for example Factor VIII) is not compromised.
Before introducing heat treatment, it was critical that a full assessment and validation of the new process was carried out.
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, what estimate he has made of the proportion of his Department's documents relating to the issue of contaminated blood products for haemophiliacs between 1970 and 1985 which have been destroyed.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
All papers that are available for the period 1970-85, amounting to over 5,500 documents, have been published on the Department’s website. Papers from more than 30 years ago are already a matter of public record. In addition over 200 files of documents covering the period from 1986 to 1995 are available to the public through the National Archive.
In 2006 the Department commissioned a review of all the documents held between 1970-85 relating to blood safety. The review, titled: ‘Review of documentation relating to the safety of blood products 1970-1985’ was published in May 2007 and can be found at:
Lord Archer’s report following his independent Inquiry covered the inadvertent destruction of documents and made clear he “discovered no evidence of malicious destruction of relevant records”.