Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to help ensure that integrated care boards follow NICE guidelines on the number of IVF cycles that should be offered to patients.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
Funding decisions for health services in England are made by integrated care boards (ICBs) and are based on the clinical needs of their local population. We expect these organisations to commission fertility services in line with National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines, ensuring equal access to fertility treatment across England.
The Women’s Health Strategy was published on 20 July 2022 and contained several important changes and future ambitions to improve the variations in access to National Health Service-funded fertility services. We have set out our long-term ambition to end the postcode lottery in NHS-funded in-vitro fertilisation (IVF). NICE is currently reviewing the fertility guidelines and we expect the review to be published late in 2024.
We expect ICBs to be improving their broad offer to fertility patients in anticipation of implementing the new NICE guidelines. As part of the strategy’s commitments, NHS England will be assessing fertility provision across ICBs, with a view to removing non-clinical access criteria and assessing the challenge of implementing the new guidelines.
As part of the first-year commitments in the Women’s Health Strategy, the Government published an IVF transparency tool on GOV.UK in July 2023. This tool compiles published ICB policies on their local fertility treatment offer to keep track nationally of implementation progress and inform patients about comparative offers across ICBs.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to tackle disparities in access to IVF treatment.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
Funding decisions for health services in England are made by integrated care boards (ICBs) and are based on the clinical needs of their local population. We expect these organisations to commission fertility services in line with National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines, ensuring equal access to fertility treatment across England.
The Women’s Health Strategy was published on 20 July 2022 and contained several important changes and future ambitions to improve the variations in access to National Health Service-funded fertility services. We have set out our long-term ambition to end the postcode lottery in NHS-funded in-vitro fertilisation (IVF). NICE is currently reviewing the fertility guidelines and we expect the review to be published late in 2024.
We expect ICBs to be improving their broad offer to fertility patients in anticipation of implementing the new NICE guidelines. As part of the strategy’s commitments, NHS England will be assessing fertility provision across ICBs, with a view to removing non-clinical access criteria and assessing the challenge of implementing the new guidelines.
As part of the first-year commitments in the Women’s Health Strategy, the Government published an IVF transparency tool on GOV.UK in July 2023. This tool compiles published ICB policies on their local fertility treatment offer to keep track nationally of implementation progress and inform patients about comparative offers across ICBs.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the Food (Promotion and Placement) (England) Regulations 2021 on restricting the placement of energy drinks in supermarkets.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom
The location restrictions came into force in October 2022. The restrictions prohibit the placement of less healthy products in key selling locations such as store entrances, aisle ends, checkouts and their online equivalents.
The Department is currently conducting a post implementation review to evaluate the implementation and effectiveness of the restrictions, which will be published within five years of implementation.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent estimate he has made of the number of (a) hospitals and (b) other healthcare facilities that contain reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) in (i) Lambeth and (ii) Southwark.
Answered by Will Quince
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
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 streamlining the process for making packaging changes on licensed smoking cessation products.
Answered by Neil O'Brien - Shadow Minister (Policy Renewal and Development)
No assessment has been made.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to his Department’s press release entitled Smokers urged to swap cigarettes for vapes in world first scheme, published on 11 April 2023, when his Department plans to consult on introducing mandatory cigarette pack inserts.
Answered by Neil O'Brien - Shadow Minister (Policy Renewal and Development)
On 14 August 2023, the Department launched the public consultation on mandating quit information messages inside tobacco packs. The consultation across the United Kingdom will close on 10 October 2023 and more information is available at the following link:
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
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 implications for his Department's policies of increases in the diagnosis of colorectal cancer and BRAF mutation among younger people in (a) England and (b) Europe.
Answered by Will Quince
No assessment has been made.
The UK National Screening committee (UK NSC) has not considered the BRAF mutation as part of the bowel cancer screening programme. However, the UK NSC remains open to any suggestions that could improve screening programmes and these can be submitted through the UK NSC website during their three-month annual call for topics.
Improving referral rates are an essential part of delivering our goal to improve cancer survival rates and show that our efforts to encourage people to come forward, including the ‘Help Us Help You’ campaign, are working. For bowel cancer, the campaign urged people to take up the new home testing kit and have extended the screening offer to those aged 50-74 to ensure more people are diagnosed with bowel cancer at the earliest stage.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
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 implications for NHS (a) testing and (b) screening programmes of increases in the diagnosis of colorectal cancer and BRAF mutation in younger people.
Answered by Will Quince
No assessment has been made.
The UK National Screening committee (UK NSC) has not considered the BRAF mutation as part of the bowel cancer screening programme. However, the UK NSC remains open to any suggestions that could improve screening programmes and these can be submitted through the UK NSC website during their three-month annual call for topics.
Improving referral rates are an essential part of delivering our goal to improve cancer survival rates and show that our efforts to encourage people to come forward, including the ‘Help Us Help You’ campaign, are working. For bowel cancer, the campaign urged people to take up the new home testing kit and have extended the screening offer to those aged 50-74 to ensure more people are diagnosed with bowel cancer at the earliest stage.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
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 effectiveness of faecal immunochemical tests in diagnosing cancer in under-50s in England; and what assessment he has made of levels of adherence to NICE guidelines on the use of those tests.
Answered by Will Quince
No assessment has been made on the link between iron anaemia and colorectal cancer for national screening purposes. Colorectal cancer is more common in people over the age of 50, but it can affect people of any age. To identify patients who have symptoms that do not align to a particular type of tumour, including for non-specific symptoms of colorectal cancer, the National Health Service has implemented ‘non-specific symptom pathways’. There are 103 pathways currently in place with the aim to have national coverage by March 2024.
To encourage people to see their general practitioner if they notice symptoms that could be cancer, NHS England runs the ‘Help Us, Help You’ campaigns, which address the barriers that deter patients from accessing the NHS.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
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 implications for NHS (a) testing and (b) screening protocols of the potential link between (i) iron anaemia and (ii) colorectal cancer.
Answered by Will Quince
No assessment has been made on the link between iron anaemia and colorectal cancer for national screening purposes. Colorectal cancer is more common in people over the age of 50, but it can affect people of any age. To identify patients who have symptoms that do not align to a particular type of tumour, including for non-specific symptoms of colorectal cancer, the National Health Service has implemented ‘non-specific symptom pathways’. There are 103 pathways currently in place with the aim to have national coverage by March 2024.
To encourage people to see their general practitioner if they notice symptoms that could be cancer, NHS England runs the ‘Help Us, Help You’ campaigns, which address the barriers that deter patients from accessing the NHS.