Asked by: Paul Holmes (Conservative - Eastleigh)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to support the General Dental Council increase the number of exam places for dentistry graduates who received their qualifications overseas to achieve an equivalent certification to permit them to practice in the UK.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department works closely with the General Dental Council (GDC) to support the efficient delivery of the Overseas Registration Exam (ORE). The Department welcomed the GDC’s announcements on increasing the number of places available to sit the ORE. The GDC tripled the number of places available to sit the ORE Part 1, for all sittings from August 2023 to the end of 2024. The GDC also added an additional sitting of the ORE Part 2 in 2024, bringing the total number of sittings up to four. Together, these steps have created more than 1300 additional places across the two parts. These increases to capacity will enable individuals with overseas qualifications to more quickly have the opportunity to become registered dentists in the United Kingdom.
In March 2024, the GDC implemented new rules relating to the ORE which will allow it to introduce new exam fees, with a view to making the ORE self-funding. The GDC’s procurement process for new ORE providers is also underway. We anticipate that these combined measures will allow the GDC to further increase ORE exam capacity in due course.
Asked by: Paul Holmes (Conservative - Eastleigh)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to reduce waiting lists for liver transplants.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department works with NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) as it continues to focus on saving the lives of those on the waiting list, and supporting safe organ transplantation from living and deceased donors. NHSBT has made changes to organ offering and allocation to maximise liver transplant opportunities for waiting list patients. They have also developed a United Kingdom wide living donor liver transplant programme to increase opportunities for patients on the waiting list to receive a living donor option. Additionally, NHSBT supports the use of liver perfusion devices across all transplant units to allow livers to be kept alive outside the body, to allow more patients to benefit. NHSBT’s marketing strategy also focuses on increasing transplantation through increased organ donor registrations. The strategy works to change the public’s perception and awareness of organ donation and inform how to register a donation preference.
Asked by: Paul Holmes (Conservative - Eastleigh)
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 help prevent the closure of pharmacies.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
Pharmacies provide vital and easily accessible healthcare in the heart of our communities. The Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework 2019-24 five-year deal commits £2.592 billion annually to community pharmacy and in September we announced a further one-off investment in the sector of £100 million.
Access remains good with 80% of the population living within 20 minutes walking from a pharmacy and the Pharmacy Access Scheme financially supports pharmacies in areas where there are fewer pharmacies. `
Asked by: Paul Holmes (Conservative - Eastleigh)
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 links between BGI Group and the People's Liberation Army; and if his Department will ban BGI Group in the UK in light of reports of that company's involvement in genetic data harvesting and involvement in abuses against Uyghurs.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The United Kingdom has an established policy to manage modern slavery risks and we continue to take action to limit exposure to human rights and modern slavery abuses in supply chains. Governmental commercial teams are required to undertake due diligence to ensure risks in supply chains are mitigated. Managing risks within existing contracts is the responsibility of those who are party to the contract and decisions will be made on a case-by-case basis.
There is no specified procurement evaluation criteria in UK legislation or policy related to entities of Chinese origin and to take account of the national origin of companies would be against the principles in UK law related to equal treatment. The Department evaluates bids and if there is sufficient evidence of human rights or modern slavery abuses in any of the supply chains, we take appropriate steps to exclude them from that procurement. Procurement rules include ‘exclusion grounds’ of mandatory grounds, where contracting authorities must exclude and discretionary criteria, where they may exclude. If a bidder is convicted of an offence under section 1, 2 or 4 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, there is a mandatory exclusion. However, even if there is no conviction, strong evidence of breaches is likely to be grounds for discretionary exclusion.
BGI Genomics is a supplier on the National Microbiology Framework contract, launched in 2021. The mandatory and discretionary exclusion criteria was requested from all suppliers at the time the Framework was tendered. BGI Genomics was awarded a call-off contract from the Framework contract by the UK Health Security Agency in August 2021 which also involved compliance with mandatory and discretionary selection requirements. This call-off contract lapsed on 14 November 2021 and no further contract with BGI has been let.
Asked by: Paul Holmes (Conservative - Eastleigh)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he will extend the departmental ban on Hikvision to include (a) BGI Group and (b) other Chinese state linked companies implicated in abuses against Uyghurs.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The United Kingdom has an established policy to manage modern slavery risks and we continue to take action to limit exposure to human rights and modern slavery abuses in supply chains. Governmental commercial teams are required to undertake due diligence to ensure risks in supply chains are mitigated. Managing risks within existing contracts is the responsibility of those who are party to the contract and decisions will be made on a case-by-case basis.
There is no specified procurement evaluation criteria in UK legislation or policy related to entities of Chinese origin and to take account of the national origin of companies would be against the principles in UK law related to equal treatment. The Department evaluates bids and if there is sufficient evidence of human rights or modern slavery abuses in any of the supply chains, we take appropriate steps to exclude them from that procurement. Procurement rules include ‘exclusion grounds’ of mandatory grounds, where contracting authorities must exclude and discretionary criteria, where they may exclude. If a bidder is convicted of an offence under section 1, 2 or 4 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, there is a mandatory exclusion. However, even if there is no conviction, strong evidence of breaches is likely to be grounds for discretionary exclusion.
BGI Genomics is a supplier on the National Microbiology Framework contract, launched in 2021. The mandatory and discretionary exclusion criteria was requested from all suppliers at the time the Framework was tendered. BGI Genomics was awarded a call-off contract from the Framework contract by the UK Health Security Agency in August 2021 which also involved compliance with mandatory and discretionary selection requirements. This call-off contract lapsed on 14 November 2021 and no further contract with BGI has been let.
Asked by: Paul Holmes (Conservative - Eastleigh)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of expanding the range of milks covered by the Nursery Milk Scheme to include plant-based and other non-dairy milks.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
At present the legislation governing the Nursery Milk Scheme allows for the reimbursement of the cost of cow’s milk and infant formula based on cow’s milk. The Department is currently considering this position.