Asked by: Julian Lewis (Conservative - New Forest East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department plans to take in response to the letter to the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State from Marie Lyon, Association for Children Damaged By HPT, Kath Sansom, Sling The Mesh, Emma Murphy and Janet Williams, In-Fact, on behalf of people damaged by vaginal mesh, sodium valproate and Primodos on the implementation of the recommendations of the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review 2020 led by Baroness Cumberlege.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
The Department’s central correspondence team have no record of receiving this letter. We would be happy to respond formally if the letter could be re-sent to the Department.
The Government’s response to the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review accepted the majority of the nine strategic recommendations and 50 actions for improvement. The recommendations and actions for improvement included vaginal mesh and sodium valproate. We aim to publish an update on implementation of the accepted recommendations in the summer.
Asked by: Julian Lewis (Conservative - New Forest East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when a reply will be given to the right Hon. member for New Forest East to his letter of 6 December 2021 about a constituent who is unable to wear masks and has been required to work from home by Solent NHS Trust, despite being triple-vaccinated for covid-19 and working in a non-customer facing role at a desk two metres apart from any other in their normal workplace.
Answered by Edward Argar
We replied to the Rt hon. Member on 15 March 2022.
Asked by: Julian Lewis (Conservative - New Forest East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent progress has been made in establishing the South East Regional specialist centre for the treatment of women damaged by mesh implants; and whether checks will be carried out to ensure that such women, when seeking remedial treatment from that specialist centre, are not placed in the hands of surgeons who were responsible for (a) implanting the mesh originally, (b) denying that anything had gone wrong with the implants and (c) claiming that women reporting extreme physical pain from the implants were imagining it.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
The specialist centre for the South East region based at Southampton NHS Foundation Trust is now accepting referrals and offering treatment to patients who have been adversely affected by mesh implants. The surgery to remove mesh implanted for stress urinary incontinence and vaginal prolapse is a relatively new surgical discipline. Expertise is therefore concentrated in a limited number of specialist centres, such as the South East centre, led by a core multi-disciplinary team including consultant specialists in urogynaecology, urology and colorectal surgery. Patients also have access to a team including pelvic floor specialist physiotherapy, psychology, psychosexual counselling, occupational therapy, specialist imaging and pain management services.
Patients can discuss their choice of surgeon with the multi-disciplinary team if they have concerns regarding a specific clinician and can also discuss a referral to a surgeon in another specialist mesh centre.
Asked by: Julian Lewis (Conservative - New Forest East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of total recorded deaths of UK citizens who died while infected with the Omicron variant of covid-19, died primarily as a result of (a) that infection and (b) a different cause, to date.
Answered by Maggie Throup
This information is not held in the format requested. To 29 December 2021, there were 981 confirmed cases of the Omicron variant which were hospitalised and 75 deaths. As Omicron is now the dominant strain in England, as of 1 January 2022 these statistics are no longer reported separately.
Asked by: Julian Lewis (Conservative - New Forest East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will take steps to ensure that the database of the booking system for booster vaccinations administered by NHS England includes records of initial vaccinations administered by NHS Scotland; for what reason the vaccination records of people inoculated in Scotland have hitherto been unavailable within the booking system when those people seek booster vaccinations after relocating from Scotland to England; what the average additional time taken to get a booster vaccination has been for those people as a result of that lack of data; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Maggie Throup
Data sharing agreements are in place across the United Kingdom to ensure health records of individuals are updated if they receive a dose of a COVID-19 vaccine in another part of the UK.
Should an issue with an individual’s vaccine record occur, this will not prevent them from receiving their booster vaccination. They can attend a walk-in site to be vaccinated for either their booster or primary course of vaccination. In addition, individuals can call 119 for the Vaccine Data Resolution Service. Given the measures in place to resolve such issues, information on any additional time incurred is not held.
Asked by: Julian Lewis (Conservative - New Forest East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will establish permanent arrangements to gather testimony from members of the public with adverse experience of implanted materials, including (a) vaginal and (b) other mesh implants, and (c) silicone in (i) breast implants and (ii) contraceptive devices, in order that the long-term consequences of the use of such substances can be monitored continuously.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
We have no plans to do so. The report of the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review was published in July 2020 and investigated the impacts of three harmful medical interventions, including vaginal mesh implants. This independent report gathered testimonies from members of the public with adverse experience of mesh implants.
The Government’s response set out the actions we are taking to implement the recommendations and improve patient safety. A patient reference group was established on a temporary basis to inform the development of the Government’s full response to the Review
Anyone with safety concerns, including adverse incidents involving medical devices, can report these to a relevant medical professional and via the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency’s Yellow Card scheme.