Asked by: Michael Fabricant (Conservative - Lichfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what support his Department is providing for (a) research on and (b) trials of oral vaccines offering immunity to covid-19.
Answered by Edward Argar
Through a joint rolling research call for COVID-19 research between the National Institute for Health Research and UK Research and Innovation, funding of over £500,000 has been committed to a study looking at the safety and immunogenicity of two candidate COVID-19 vaccines administered to the respiratory tract in aerosol form, with an expected end date in August 2021.
In addition, Innovate UK, have been managing the delivery of £75 million of the £110 million Department-funded UK Vaccine Network programme. Nine Departmental projects within this portfolio were repurposed to identify other COVID-19 vaccines solutions. Also, two Innovate UK grants worth over £2.2 million in total, were awarded to Stabilitech, now known as IosBio, to assess its COVD-19 vaccine candidate that has an oral capsule delivery system in animal efficacy studies. This technology is now being tested in participants in clinical trials in South Africa and the United States.
Asked by: Michael Fabricant (Conservative - Lichfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he plans to take to prevent a shortfall of GPs qualifying in 2020 due to the cancellation of the postgraduate assessments (a) Applied Knowledge Test and (b) Clinical Skills Assessment, as a result of covid-19 outbreak; and what assessment he has made of the viability of using another form of such assessment during the covid-19 lock-down.
Answered by Jo Churchill
The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) and the four statutory education bodies are rapidly developing a temporary recorded alternative to the Clinical Skills Assessment (subject to approval by the General Medical Council). The RCGP have advised that this will provide trainees with an opportunity to demonstrate their competence to be awarded a Certificate of Completion of Training and qualify as a GP.
At the same time, the RCGP is working with their testing partner to enable the Applied Knowledge Test to resume at test centres with appropriate social distancing safeguards in place from July. The RCGP is also investigating options for remote invigilation for those who are shielding.
Asked by: Michael Fabricant (Conservative - Lichfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many student specialist dermatologists there were in each of the last 10 years for which data is available.
Answered by Stephen Hammond
The number of doctors in dermatology specialty training programmes in England is shown in the following table. Data is not available for years prior to 2012.
Number of doctors in dermatology specialty training at March of each year in England
Year in training | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 |
Number of dermatology trainees | 193 | 193 | 192 | 201 | 199 | 201 | 206 |
Source: Published General Medical Council (GMC) data
Doctors wishing to enter specialty training in the United Kingdom need to have completed an undergraduate medical degree and two years of foundation training, after which they can enter a six-year specialty training programme. This comprises of one of three two-year core training programmes (Core Medical Training, Acute Care Common Stem in Acute Medicine or Level 1 Paediatric training), followed by four years of dermatology training, and upon successful completion they can gain registration with the GMC as a specialist doctor.
The data in the table is specific to years three to six of this training pathway.
Asked by: Michael Fabricant (Conservative - Lichfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many patients were treated by consultant dermatologists for skin diseases in (a) the last 12 months for which data are available, (b) 2014 and (c) 2009.
Answered by Steve Brine
The information is unavailable in the format requested.