Asked by: Nickie Aiken (Conservative - Cities of London and Westminster)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate her Department has made of the number of deaths linked to suicide forums since 2019.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
No such estimate has been made, as this information is not routinely collected. The Online Safety Act 2023 introduces significant new protections from online suicide content. Under the act, in-scope services will have to take robust action against illegal suicide content, including taking proactive action to prevent users from encountering content that amounts to an offence under the Suicide Act 1961, and rapidly remove illegal suicide content once they become aware of it. Where content falls below the criminal threshold but is nonetheless harmful to children, in-scope services likely to be accessed by children must take steps to prevent children from encountering content that promotes, encourages, or provides instructions for suicide, including through the use of age assurance technologies.
Asked by: Nickie Aiken (Conservative - Cities of London and Westminster)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she has had discussions with the NHS on the potential merits of providing access to licensed gene therapies manufactured in the UK free of charge on the NHS.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
We have had no such discussions with NHS England. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) makes recommendations on whether all new medicines, including gene therapies, should be routinely funded by the National Health Service based on an assessment of their costs and benefits. The NHS is legally required to make funding available for NICE recommended treatments, usually within three months of the publication of final guidance. NICE has been able to recommend several gene therapies for use on the NHS, often subject to commercial agreements proposed through the NICE appraisal process, that are now available for the treatment of eligible patients.
Asked by: Nickie Aiken (Conservative - Cities of London and Westminster)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the average cost was for a (a) new hospital, (b) hospital upgrade, (c) MRI machine, (d) CT scanner and (e) GP appointment in the latest period for which data is available.
Answered by Will Quince
The following table shows information relating to the average costs of a new hospital, hospital upgrade, Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine, computerised tomography (CT) scan and a general practitioner (GP) appointment.
| Average cost |
New hospital | It is not possible to define an average cost of a new hospital, as the cost is dependent on significant variables relating to the type of hospital (and therefore complexity of plant, ventilation systems, etc.), size and its associated physical conditions. |
Hospital upgrade | The average cost of a scheme in the National Health Service upgrades programme is around £20 million, with significant variation across schemes on cost and type of upgrade. |
MRI machine | There are different specifications of machine and therefore a range of prices, but current purchase costs before the cost of fitting is approximately £1 million. |
CT scanner | There are different specifications of machine and therefore a range of prices, but current purchase costs before the cost of fitting is approximately £800,000. |
GP appointment | Data not held. |
Asked by: Nickie Aiken (Conservative - Cities of London and Westminster)
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 allow vaccines administered in France to be recorded in the UK National Immunisation Management System to allow people vaccinated abroad to access an NHS Covid Pass.
Answered by Maggie Throup
Vaccines administered in France can already be recorded in vaccination records and displayed in the NHS COVID Pass. English residents vaccinated in France should contact their general practitioner or 119 to book an appointment at a regional vaccination centre to record their vaccinations through the National Immunisation Management Service. There are currently seven sites capable of reviewing vaccination evidence with an additional 13 pending. Further expansion of the service is planned in due course.