Asked by: Jeffrey M Donaldson (Independent - Lagan Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent discussions he has had with his counterparts in the devolved administrations about possible additional measures to respond to an outbreak of Ebola in the UK.
Answered by Jane Ellison
I hold regular meetings with health Minister counterparts in the Devolved Administrations to consider and review United Kingdom Ebola preparedness and response arrangements.
The UK has robust, well-developed and well-tested public health and National Health Service systems for preventing and managing infectious diseases including any imported case of this type of disease, supported by a wide range of experts and specialist units.
Screening arrangements are already in place at the UK’s main ports of entry for people travelling from the affected regions. A number of national and local multi-agency exercises have also been conducted in recent months to test co-ordination, operational resilience and communications systems across the UK in order to provide assurance of Ebola preparedness. This included a recent exercise at official and Ministerial level involving all four nations of the UK. The case of the British nurse who recently returned from Sierra Leone demonstrated that the systems put in place across the UK to prepare for and respond to a case of Ebola worked well.
The Department – in close collaboration with the Devolved Administrations - will keep all preparedness arrangements under review and continually look to improve or strengthen these arrangements, as guided by expert clinical advice.
Asked by: Jeffrey M Donaldson (Independent - Lagan Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will make it his policy to advertise alternatives to smoking tobacco on cigarette packaging.
Answered by Jane Ellison
Smoking cessation information, to signpost consumers to quitting support, will be mandatory from May 2016 when the revised European Tobacco Products Directive (2014/40/EU), is implemented into United Kingdom law.
Asked by: Jeffrey M Donaldson (Independent - Lagan Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the scale of the problems associated with excessive consumption of alcohol among students.
Answered by Jane Ellison
The Government’s Alcohol Strategy discussed the extent of alcohol misuse among students and the responsibilities of universities among others.
A new project designed to tackle the culture of binge drinking at universities across England and Wales has been launched by the Government and National Union of Students (NUS) in September 2014.
The NUS Alcohol Impact project supported by the Home Office and Public Health England, is developing an accreditation scheme for colleges and universities, to change student behaviours by creating a social norm of responsible alcohol consumption.
Public Health England is supporting the NUS on this project and is part of the Alcohol Impact Advisory Board. Currently seven institutions have signed up and are involved in piloting one or more innovative interventions on responsible alcohol consumption.