Oral Answers to Questions Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Esther McVey
Main Page: Esther McVey (Conservative - Tatton)Department Debates - View all Esther McVey's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(1 year, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Maria Caulfield
Local decisions on public health are taken by local commissioning groups and local authorities, and it is for each local area to decide how it spends the money on public health.
Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)
The chief medical officer recently warned that non-covid excess deaths are being driven in part by patients not getting statins or blood pressure medicines during the pandemic. However, when looking at the data on statins on OpenPrescribing.net, which is based on monthly NHS prescribing, there appears not to be a drop, so where is the evidence? If there is none, what is causing these excess deaths? Will the Minister commit to an urgent and thorough investigation on the matter?
Maria Caulfield
We are seeing an increase in excess deaths in this country, but we are also seeing that in Wales, in Scotland, in Northern Ireland and across Europe. There is a range of factors. As we saw, there was an increase in December in the number of people being admitted with flu, covid and other healthcare conditions. That was seen not just in this country, but across Europe.