Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps NHS England plans to take to improve (a) awareness and (b) training for (i) GPs and (ii) frontline healthcare professionals to better (A) recognize and (B) refer suspected cases of adrenal cancer.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
General practitioners (GPs) are responsible for ensuring their own clinical knowledge, including on adrenal cancer, remains up-to-date and for identifying learning needs as part of their continuing professional development. This activity should include taking account of new research and developments in guidance, such as that produced by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, to ensure that they can continue to provide high quality care to all patients.
The training curriculum for postgraduate trainee doctors is set by the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP), and has to meet the standards set by the General Medical Council. The RCGP provides a number of resources on cancer prevention, diagnosis, and care for GPs, relevant for the primary care setting.
NHS England supports initiatives aimed at enhancing early cancer diagnosis and awareness among healthcare professionals. These initiatives include GatewayC, an online education platform providing modules on early cancer diagnosis for primary care professionals, and the Aspirant Cancer Career and Education Development programme, designed to improve cancer-related knowledge and capabilities across the non-medical workforce. These measures aim to equip GPs and frontline professionals with the skills necessary to identify and act on potential cancer symptoms, including those of rare cancers such as adrenal cancer.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to improve the geographical spread of cancer clinical trial sites to enable equitable access for teenagers and young adults.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department is committed to maximising the United Kingdom’s potential to lead the world in clinical research, with the aim of ensuring that all patients, including teenagers and young adults with cancer, have access to cutting-edge clinical trials and innovative, lifesaving treatments.
The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), funded by the Department, funds research and research infrastructure, which supports patients and the public to participate in high-quality research, including clinical research for teenagers and young adults with cancer.
This research infrastructure includes a network of Experimental Cancer Medicine Centres, co-funded by the NIHR, Cancer Research UK, and the Little Princess Trust, which work across the whole of the UK, bringing together world-leading laboratory and clinical researchers to test new treatments for adults and children with cancer.
The NIHR Research Delivery Network (RDN) supports patients, the public, and health and care organisations across England to participate in high-quality research. The RDN consists of 12 regional RDNs, which support sites across England to deliver clinical research, including clinical research for teenagers and young adults with cancer.
The newly designated Commercial Research Delivery Centres (CRDCs) will build further capacity in delivering commercial clinical research. There are 21 CRDCs spread across the UK, and one of the CRDCs, based at the Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust, is dedicated to the delivery of commercial clinical trials for treating children and young people.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
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 ensure the gonorrhoea vaccination programme reaches (a) young people aged 15-24 (b) women, (c) gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men and (d) other communities most at risk.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
In November 2023, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) issued advice on standing up a targeted, routine vaccination programme for protection against gonorrhoea.
Officials across the Department, the UK Health Security Agency and NHS England have been developing options based on the JCVI advice, assessing all the relevant factors to ensure that the United Kingdom’s high standards for world-leading vaccination programmes are maintained, and the best value for money for taxpayers is delivered. A decision on a vaccination programme for the prevention of gonorrhoea is expected shortly, following the outcome of this process.
NHS England will work with partners across national, regional, and local levels to ensure that plans for any new vaccination programme will meet local need, ensure equity of access and support a high level of uptake of the vaccination offer by those who are eligible.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
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 to implement the targeted roll-out of the Gonorrhoea vaccine.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
In November 2023, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) issued advice on standing up a targeted, routine vaccination programme for protection against gonorrhoea.
Officials across the Department, the UK Health Security Agency and NHS England have been developing options based on the JCVI advice, assessing all the relevant factors to ensure that the United Kingdom’s high standards for world-leading vaccination programmes are maintained, and the best value for money for taxpayers is delivered. A decision on a vaccination programme for the prevention of gonorrhoea is expected shortly, following the outcome of this process.
NHS England will work with partners across national, regional, and local levels to ensure that plans for any new vaccination programme will meet local need, ensure equity of access and support a high level of uptake of the vaccination offer by those who are eligible.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
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 improve the collection and reporting of age-disaggregated data on participation in cancer clinical trials, in addition to collecting participation data through NIHR.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), funded by the Department, funds research and research infrastructure, which supports patients and the public to participate in high-quality research, including cancer clinical trials.
The NIHR Research Delivery Network collects age-disaggregated data on participation in cancer clinical trials across all age groups, for studies supported by NIHR infrastructure, and reports on this data where appropriate.
The Department is working with NHS England and other partners to develop a new data collection approach which will include the age of people participating in NIHR funded studies, including for cancer clinical trials. Once established, this could be expanded to include age data from studies supported by other funders.
The Department is committed to maximising the United Kingdom’s potential to lead the world in clinical research, with the aim of ensuring that all patients, including those with cancer, have access to cutting-edge clinical trials and innovative, lifesaving treatments.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the evidential basis is for age-based exclusion criteria in cancer clinical trials; and what steps his Department is taking to ensure that young people have equitable access to participation in such trials.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department is committed to maximising the United Kingdom’s potential to lead the world in clinical research, with the aim of ensuring that all patients, including teenagers and young adults with cancer, have access to cutting-edge clinical trials and innovative, lifesaving treatments.
The eligibility of patients for a clinical trial is determined by a set of criteria designed to ensure the safety of participants and the scientific validity of the study. These criteria are decided by each study's sponsors and researchers, based on scientific evidence, study goals, and safety considerations.
The Department is working closely with the National Health Service, industry, academia, research regulators, and charities to make clinical research in the UK more efficient, more competitive, and more accessible. We expect these efforts to attract more commercial investment in clinical research and yield a broad and diverse portfolio of clinical trials in the UK, including clinical trials for teenagers and young adults with cancer.
The Department funded National Institute for Health and Care Research funds research and research infrastructure, which supports patients and the public to participate in high-quality research, including clinical trial participation for young people with cancer.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
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 age-related eligibility criteria on the inclusion of teenagers and young adults in cancer clinical trials.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department is committed to maximising the United Kingdom’s potential to lead the world in clinical research, with the aim of ensuring that all patients, including teenagers and young adults with cancer, have access to cutting-edge clinical trials and innovative, lifesaving treatments.
The eligibility of patients for a clinical trial is determined by a set of criteria designed to ensure the safety of participants and the scientific validity of the study. These criteria are decided by each study's sponsors and researchers, based on scientific evidence, study goals, and safety considerations.
The Department is working closely with the National Health Service, industry, academia, research regulators, and charities to make clinical research in the UK more efficient, more competitive, and more accessible. We expect these efforts to attract more commercial investment in clinical research and yield a broad and diverse portfolio of clinical trials in the UK, including clinical trials for teenagers and young adults with cancer.
The Department funded National Institute for Health and Care Research funds research and research infrastructure, which supports patients and the public to participate in high-quality research, including clinical trial participation for young people with cancer.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of the Yorkshire Outreach Programme for leukaemia monitoring; and whether he plans to roll that programme out nationally.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department commends the Yorkshire Outreach Programme for leukaemia monitoring, which supports more than 3,500 people across the region, and will consider the programme as we develop a new National Cancer Plan to improve patient outcomes.
For early-stage blood cancers, including leukaemia, early treatment is not always beneficial, with national and international clinical guidelines advising life-long monitoring to enable prompt intervention in the small group of patients who eventually need treatment. Models for monitoring these patients differ across England, with cancer alliances and integrated care boards rolling out programmes they have evaluated and have shown to improve benefits to patients, with oversight from NHS England.
The National Health Service is committed to ensuring that cancer patients have access to personalised care, including a needs assessment, a care plan, and health and wellbeing information and support. Personalised care includes provision of information, empowering people to manage their care and the impact of their cancer, ensuring that each person’s care is planned holistically, covering mental and physical health as well as any practical or financial concerns.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to take steps to enable all patients to book primary care appointments through the NHS app.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Currently, patients can book general practitioner (GP) appointments via the NHS App. Availability of GP appointments is dependent on practices making their appointments available online. Many practices use triage processes to make an initial assessment of patients’ needs, rather than making online appointments available with a GP on a ‘first come first served’ basis. Routine or planned appointments that do not require prior assessment, such as cervical screening, asthma reviews or regular B12 injections, are more likely to be made available in the NHS App.
Work is underway to understand how the NHS App can support patients, who have been triaged and assessed as needing an appointment, with the ability to find and book an appropriate appointment.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential implications for his policies of variations in commissioning by integrated care systems of digital solutions for primary care.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Integrated care boards (ICBs) are the responsible commissioning bodies for digital technology in general practice. ICBs support practices to source the digital tools and services they need to deliver the requirements of the GP contract, as set out in the GP IT Operating Model. They also help practices with business change, training and optimisation to help practice staff use new technology safely and effectively.
NHS England provides commercial and procurement support to help ICBs ensure all digital solutions in general practice meet nationally specified clinical safety and technical standards, and minimum capabilities to support the digitally enabled shift to modern general practice. Within this, practices have flexibility, working with their ICB, to deploy different solutions to best meet their local patient care needs.
Within the community pharmacy sector, funding of up to £8 million has been secured to support digital developments as part of the recently agreed Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework (CPCF) for 2025/26. Through the CPCF, the Department and NHS England have expressed their commitment to continuing to work with the pharmacy sector and IT suppliers to streamline the ‘Manage Your Service’ claim process through using payment and data APIs, for all national clinical services.