Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon and Consett)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has considered the potential merits of taking steps to help prevent the withdrawal of medical (a) products and (b) treatments for rare conditions from the UK market where that withdrawal would leave patients without access to such a product or treatment.
Answered by Will Quince
Companies may decide to stop manufacturing a medicine for several reasons including commercial decisions, manufacturing capacity restraint and production problems. Companies are free to review their portfolios as they think necessary, and the Department has no powers to insist that a company continues to keep a product on the market.
There is a team within the Department that deals specifically with medicine supply problems. It has well-established procedures to deal with medicine shortages and discontinuations, whatever the cause, and works closely with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the pharmaceutical industry, NHS England, and others operating in the supply chain to help prevent shortages and to ensure that the risks to patients are minimised when shortages do arise. The team will also communicate management advice to the National Health Service advising clinicians on how to manage medicine supply issues.
Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon and Consett)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 15 May 2023 to Question 183537 on Rare Diseases, for what reason the proposal to provide patients with alert cards was not included in the England Rare Diseases Action Plan 2023; and how his Department plans to ensure adequate co-ordination of care for people with rare conditions in emergency settings.
Answered by Will Quince
There are currently no plans to include a proposal to provide alert cards to patients with rare diseases in the England Rare Diseases Action Plan in the next five years.
In the Second Progress Report from the Rare Disease Policy Board (2018), NHS England proposed to give every patient with a rare disease an ‘alert card’, which would include information about the patient’s rare disease. This proposal to develop ‘alert cards’ was not progressed at the time due to capacity constraints.
This proposal has not featured in the subsequent England Rare Diseases Action Plans (2022 and 2023), and NHS England is now focussing on delivering against the actions identified in these new plans. Progress is being made on existing actions to improve coordination of care and awareness of rare diseases amongst all health care professionals, including those who work in emergency settings.
Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon and Consett)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 15 May 2023 to Question 183537 on Rare Diseases, whether he plans to include the proposal to provide alert cards to patients with rare diseases in the England Rare Diseases Action Plan in the next five years.
Answered by Will Quince
There are currently no plans to include a proposal to provide alert cards to patients with rare diseases in the England Rare Diseases Action Plan in the next five years.
In the Second Progress Report from the Rare Disease Policy Board (2018), NHS England proposed to give every patient with a rare disease an ‘alert card’, which would include information about the patient’s rare disease. This proposal to develop ‘alert cards’ was not progressed at the time due to capacity constraints.
This proposal has not featured in the subsequent England Rare Diseases Action Plans (2022 and 2023), and NHS England is now focussing on delivering against the actions identified in these new plans. Progress is being made on existing actions to improve coordination of care and awareness of rare diseases amongst all health care professionals, including those who work in emergency settings.
Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon and Consett)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the needs of people affected by rare conditions will be considered in the development of the Major Conditions Strategy; and what steps his Department is taking to ensure that the overlapping needs of individuals with (a) rare conditions and (b) major conditions covered in the strategy will be adequately met.
Answered by Will Quince
The Major Conditions Strategy will set out a vision for how systems can be better organised around patients, rather than in silos around single diseases. Support and management for people with multiple conditions will increasingly require the management of complexity and moving from a single condition approach. The National Health Service will need to adapt to manage the complexity of multiple conditions with the consequent need to co-ordinate clinical support across primary, community and secondary care.
Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon and Consett)
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 impact of the withdrawal of Bluebird Bio from the (a) UK and (b) European market on access to gene therapy treatment for people with (i) beta thalassemia and (ii) cerebral adrenoleukodystrophy.
Answered by Will Quince
No assessment has been made of the potential impact of the withdrawal of Bluebird Bio from the United Kingdom and European markets on access to gene therapy treatment for people with beta thalassemia and cerebral adrenoleukodystrophy. NHS England continues to make cost-effective treatments available to patients in England as determined by NICE’s technology appraisal and highly specialised technologies programmes.
Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon and Consett)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many inspections of (a) adult social care providers, (b) primary medical services, (c) hospitals and (d) mental health services were carried out by the Care Quality Commission in the (i) London and (ii) East of England network in each of the last 24 months.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
A table showing how many inspections of (a) adult social care providers, (b) primary medical services, (c) hospitals and (d) mental health services were carried out by the Care Quality Commission in (i) London (ii) East of England network (iii) the South East and (iv) the South West, in each of the last 24 months, is attached.
Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon and Consett)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many inspections of (a) adult social care providers, (b) primary medical services, (c) hospitals and (d) mental health services were carried out by the Care Quality Commission in the (i) south east and (ii) south west in each of the last 24 months.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
A table showing how many inspections of (a) adult social care providers, (b) primary medical services, (c) hospitals and (d) mental health services were carried out by the Care Quality Commission in (i) London (ii) East of England network (iii) the South East and (iv) the South West, in each of the last 24 months, is attached.
Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon and Consett)
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 implications for his policies of the results of the Special School Eye Care Service trial; and what steps he is taking to support the long-term commissioning of that service.
Answered by Neil O'Brien - Shadow Minister (Policy Renewal and Development)
I refer the hon. Member to the written statement HCWS861 that I gave to the House on 19 June 2023 regarding Sight Testing in Special Schools. The Department will continue to support NHS England with implementation, including considering whether any regulatory changes may be necessary. The written statement is available at the following link:
https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2023-06-19/hcws861
Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon and Consett)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much and what proportion of the funding for suicide prevention and bereavement services in the NHS Long Term Plan has been spent on a) suicide prevention and b) bereavement services.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
A total of £57 million was allocated through the NHS Long Term Plan to enable every area of the country to receive funding for suicide prevention and bereavement services by 2023/24. Approximately two thirds of this £57 million, £38 million, has been spent on suicide prevention and the remainder on suicide bereavement services.
The ‘NHS Mental Health Implementation Plan 2019/20 – 2023/24’ provides a detailed breakdown of this investment and the activity that it is due to fund. This is available at the following link: https://www.longtermplan.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/nhs-mental-health-implementation-plan-2019-20-2023-24.pdf.
The NHS Mental Health Dashboard sets out year by year spending plans for local and national NHS commissioning organisations, which is available at the following link: https://www.england.nhs.uk/mental-health/taskforce/imp/mh-dashboard/
Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon and Consett)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to provide stop smoking services in Gateshead.
Answered by Neil O'Brien - Shadow Minister (Policy Renewal and Development)
We continue to provide funding to local authority stop smoking services via the Public Health Grant. The local authority in Gateshead commission a highly effective Stop Smoking Service which is available to all smokers locally.