Medical Devices Regulation: Consultation Response
Sajid Javid Excerpts(1 year, 10 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Sajid Javid)
Leaving the European Union has provided a unique opportunity for the United Kingdom to improve the medical device regulatory regime and exercise our new powers as a sovereign regulator, creating a world-leading regime that prioritises patient safety while supporting innovation within the UK MedTech sector. To deliver this ambition and gather views of patients, industry and the healthcare sector, the Government published a consultation on the future UK medical device regulations, “Consultation on the future regulation of medical devices in the United Kingdom”, which is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/consultation-on-the-future-regulation-of-medical-devices-in-the-united-kingdom, on 16 September 2021. We received 900 responses and I am grateful to all those who have taken the time to respond to the consultation.
Officials at the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) have analysed the consultation responses and have worked with officials within my Department and the Office of Life Sciences to develop the Government response. The response outlines changes that will support innovation within the UK’s life sciences sector and access to medical devices, for example through improving the regulation of novel and growing areas such as artificial intelligence and offering alternative routes to market. This will help to facilitate greater opportunities for small and medium enterprises to capture real world evidence to support the conformity assessment process with the proportionate regulatory oversight, an opportunity which has not existed previously.
The Government are committed to cementing our status as a science superpower by making the UK the leading global hub for life sciences, and the response to the public consultation outlines polices that will help to achieve this.
As part of this consultation, the MHRA received strong support for proposals that will improve patient safety and safeguard public health, for example, through modernising the scope and classification rules of medical devices to deliver improvements in the safety of all medical devices. It also raised points around identified inequities within clinical investigations. I appointed Dame Margaret Whitehead to conduct a review into the potential issues related to equity in the design and use of medical devices and I am pleased that the MHRA will look to address these points within the regulations and supplementary guidance to support this review.
The new transitional measures outlined in the response will be implemented to support continued access to safe medical devices to UK patients, whilst providing time for industry and the healthcare sector to prepare for the transition. In fact, the UK Government are committed to building the UK Conformity Assessed (UKCA) marking as a global exemplar, and it is vital that the necessary building blocks are in place to ensure that the UK market remains an attractive and favourable place to innovate and do business for the benefit of patients and carers. A phased transition into the new regime is critical to its success.
The Government’s response to the consultation will be published on gov.uk today and I will deposit a copy of the response in the Libraries of both Houses.
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Covid-19 Update
Sajid Javid Excerpts(1 year, 10 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Sajid Javid)
As part of our continued commitment to open up travel, on 23 June, the Government extended the International NHS covid pass letter service to allow children aged five to 11 years to get an International NHS covid pass following a positive NHS PCR test or equivalent within the past 180 days—recovery status. Prior to 23 June, children aged five to 11 could only access an international NHS covid pass if they had received a full primary course of covid-19 vaccination.
Extending access to the International NHS covid pass to children aged five to 11 with recovery status will save families the cost of testing in countries where this is required for foreign travel and ensures that young children are able to provide proof of their covid-19 status on a par with the rest of the population. The UK has no covid certification requirements and this is to support outbound travel to a variety of countries that still have requirements.
A person with parental responsibility for the child—such as the parent or guardian—will be able to request the letter online via the NHS website or by calling 119. The letter will only be sent to the address on the child’s GP record.
This service is now available for children aged five to 11 resident in England and Wales. A letter based on recovery status is not available in the Isle of Man. In Northern Ireland, parents or guardians of children aged five to 11 have been able to request a digital or printed covid certificate on behalf of a dependant since January 2022. The COVIDCert NI app was updated in March 2022, to allow all those under 16 to upload the certificate—requested on their behalf—to display on the app. Anyone under 16 who tested positive for covid through an NHS PCR test prior to 1 May is able to request a recovery certificate in Scotland by phoning the covid status helpline on: 0808 196 8565.
[HCWS140]
UK Life Sciences
Sajid Javid Excerpts(1 year, 11 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Sajid Javid)
The life sciences have played an essential role in helping us to learn to live with covid-19. The UK’s natural strengths, and our world-beating vaccine programme, have allowed us to lead the way in this. As we learn the lessons of covid-19, it is essential that we take steps to further strengthen UK life sciences and our resilience against both future threats and a possible future resurgence in covid-19.
To date over £380 million has been invested to secure and scale up the UK’s vaccine manufacturing capabilities and we have ambitious plans to invest more alongside industry to further our domestic vaccine resilience. As announced in the spending review in October 2021, the Government have now made available £9.6 billion for key covid-19 programmes and related health spending and continues to work closely with industry to ensure our life sciences sector thrives.
Looking to the future, we are determined to take action to secure further investment into the UK’s thriving life science industry and cement our position as a science superpower. To that end, the Government have agreed a detailed heads of terms with Moderna to create a strategic partnership over the next decade. A binding contract will be negotiated with Moderna over the coming weeks and, subject to approval of a full business case, will be in place by early Autumn. The proposed partnership, led by the vaccine taskforce, will strengthen domestic mRNA capability and better equip the UK to respond to covid-19 and future health emergencies.
Moderna would establish their global research & development centre in the UK as part of an R&D strategic partnership, siting R&D capability onshore, with academic and wider vaccine ecosystem engagement, including extensive use of the clinical trials network in the UK. Their facilities would support vaccines not just against covid-19 but other diseases such as flu and RSV. The industry-leading, future-proof design of the plant will permit the addition of capability to manufacture a wide range of medicines and will be a massive boost to the UK’s R&D capability. The site will also allow the UK to be better prepared in the event of future health emergencies. The project, which will provide an important boost to the local economy and to the country’s life sciences sector, was developed with the support and collaboration of the vaccine taskforce and will be a key investment to bring novel technologies and pandemic resilience onshore in the UK.
A consistent and resilient supply of covid-19 vaccines will be critical in protecting against a possible future resurgence in covid-19, ensuring jabs are provided in time to protect those who are most vulnerable to serious covid-19. That is why one of the objectives given to the vaccine taskforce was to strengthen the UK’s onshoring capacity and capability in vaccine development, manufacturing and the supply chain to provide resilience for future pandemics.
Moderna has demonstrated expertise in mRNA development and has offered a strategic partnership with Her Majesty’s Government under which it would invest in a new state of the art manufacturing facility in the UK for the production of respiratory vaccines. This would be capable of accelerating production, with UK priority access, in the event of a future health emergency.
[HCWS131]
Monkeypox Update
Sajid Javid Excerpts(1 year, 11 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Sajid Javid)
The United Kingdom Health Security Agency (UKHSA) yesterday published its updated vaccination strategy in response to the current monkeypox outbreak.
Based on the currently available vaccine supply, UKHSA recommends that the available doses of the vaccine should be used for a selective vaccine strategy with the aim of interrupting transmission in the subset of individuals at increased risk. This approach is supported by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI).
Although anyone can contract monkeypox, data from the latest outbreak shows higher levels of transmission within, but not exclusive to, the social networks of gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (GBMSM). Therefore, the updated strategy recommends that vaccination should be offered as soon as feasible to GBMSM at highest risk. Targeted pre-exposure vaccination is also recommended for others, including healthcare workers who are at high risk of exposure.
In view of the current epidemiology and vaccine supply available, wider vaccination in low-risk GBMSM individuals or the general population is not advised at this time.
NHS England is due to set out details on how eligible people can get vaccinated shortly.
To see the full updated strategy, which includes details of the recommendations for both pre and post-exposure vaccination, please visit: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/monkeypox-outbreak-vaccination-strategy.
[HCWS130]
Access to GP Services and NHS Dentistry
Sajid Javid Excerpts(1 year, 11 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Sajid Javid)
That is rubbish!
Wes Streeting
It is rubbish, but it is his record.
Why is it that so many people are accessing NHS services because of a failure to invest in social care, where staff can be recruited and deployed a lot faster? On the dentistry contract, the last Labour Government acknowledged that the 2006 contract was not good enough, which is why we put the reform of that contract in our 2010 manifesto. The difference is that we will not wait 12 years to deliver the promise after the election of the next Labour Government. Those are just some of the practical steps that we would take immediately and that the Government could take immediately.
Let me tell the House about some of the fundamental issues we would fix. First, mental health services in this country are in such a state that GPs are seeing more and more of their own cases present with mental ill-health. A Labour Government would recognise that there has been a surge in mental ill-health following the pandemic and we would not leave it to overwhelmed GPs to see them. That is why we have committed to recruiting 8,500 new mental health professionals, including specialist support in every school and mental health hubs in every community. We would pay for that by ending the charitable status of private schools and closing the tax loopholes enjoyed by private equity fund managers—and do not tell me the Health Secretary does not know where they are; he was using them before he became a Member of Parliament.
That policy—[Interruption.] Conservative Members are funny. They ask for our policies but they do not like it when we provide the answers, because we have them and they do not. That policy, which would put mental health hubs in every community and support in every school and speed up access to treatment for everyone in our country, would help to reduce pressure on GPs and to deliver better mental health treatment in every community and faster access to a GP for everyone else who needs to see them. It also tells you something about the choices we would make and the priorities we would have as a Labour Government: better public services enjoyed by the many, paid for by closing tax perks for the few.
I know that there is lots of cynicism about politics. We have a Prime Minister who wants people to believe that we are all the same, that things cannot change and that his shambles of a Government are the best that Britain can do. All I would say to the people of Britain is this: judge them on their record and judge Labour on ours. They have been in power now for 12 years. They delivered the highest NHS waiting lists in history, before the pandemic. They delivered record staffing shortages in the NHS with 100,000 vacancies, before the pandemic. They delivered cancer care that worsened in every year since they came to office, before the pandemic. Now they tell us that patients will be paying more and waiting longer.
The last Labour Government were in power for 13 years, and we delivered the highest patient satisfaction in the history of the NHS, the lowest waiting times on record and more doctors, nurses and new hospitals. There were no threats of strikes in the NHS when we were in government because staff could see the difference we were making and so could the patients. We did not get everything right—nobody is perfect—but Labour’s record on the NHS is one that this Government could not even begin to touch. The longer we give the Conservatives in power, the longer patients will wait. Well, people are sick, and they are tired of waiting. This Government’s time is up.
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Sajid Javid)
I welcome this chance to come to the House to discuss primary care and dentistry, but I have to say that the audition by the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) did not go very well. I hope that he can see the irony—some might even say the hypocrisy—of his sudden interest in access to public services, today of all days. It is thanks to the strikes that he has been so vocal in supporting the fact that people right across the country cannot make their appointments, that GPs and dentists cannot get to work and that patients do not have access to the treatments they desperately need.
Several hon. Members rose—
Sajid Javid
I will take some interventions in a moment.
The hon. Gentleman has had every opportunity to do the right thing, to put patients first and to condemn these unjustified and reckless transport strikes, yet at every turn he has chosen to back his union paymasters.
Catherine West
The Secretary of State speaks about opportunities. In this House, we had a number of opportunities to get workforce reform, workforce numbers and a plan for our health service into the Health and Care Act 2022. Why did he miss those opportunities?
Sajid Javid
We are seeing record investment in the workforce, and we are seeing record increases. For the first time ever, the NHS is also coming up with a 15-year long-term workforce strategy, which I hope the hon. Lady welcomes.
The Government have always been on the side of patients and the people who care for them. I pay tribute to everyone working in primary care and dentistry for the difference they make day in, day out to their patients’ lives. I know that the pandemic has brought some unimaginable pressures, and equally I know that many of those pressures have not gone away now we are living with covid.
The hon. Member for Ilford North talks as though he does not know where the pressures have come from—as though he has had his head under a rock for two years. The NHS has said it believes that between 11 million and 13 million people stayed away from the NHS, including their GPs and dentists. Rightly, many of those people are now coming forward for the treatment they need—and I want them to come forward.
John Redwood
When the Secretary of State does the much-needed manpower review, will he ensure that a fast-growing area such as Wokingham with lots of new houses gets proper provision for that growth? Will the manpower plan also address how we recruit the doctors we have authority to get?
Sajid Javid
I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend’s important point. In fact, I met my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) about that last week, and I agree with them both.
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
Last month, a constituent contacted me who had developed severe dental pain. He phoned 40 dentists and not one of them could take him on as an NHS patient. It got so bad that he phoned 111 but was told that he was not eligible to see an emergency dentist. What advice would the Secretary of State give to someone in those circumstances? Many other hon. Members on both sides of the House will be able to tell similar stories. In the end, my constituent had to pay to go private, but that should not have happened. Why are our constituents being placed in that position?
Sajid Javid
I am sorry to hear about the right hon. Gentleman’s constituent. If he will allow me, in a moment, I will come on to the pressures that dentistry is facing and, most importantly, what we are doing about them.
Those pressures have come about for two reasons. First, there was a fear of infection, which was understandable in a context where 10 minutes in a dentist’s chair during the pandemic could have meant 10 days in self-isolation or, perhaps, worse. Dental practices were almost uniquely at risk of spreading covid, so their activity was rightly severely constrained across the world—not just here in England and across the UK—by the infection prevention rules that were necessary at the time. Despite all the innovations in dentistry over the last few years, dental surgeries do not have a Zoom option.
Secondly, the British people stayed away because of their innate sense of responsibility during the pandemic. As all hon. Members saw in their constituencies, people understood our critical national mission. Our GPs were doing their duty vaccinating people in care homes and in thousands of vaccination centres up and down the country, protecting the most vulnerable and working hard to keep us all healthy and safe.
When omicron struck—we all remember that period, which was not that long ago—I stood before this House and asked GPs to stop all non-emergency work once again. I did not take that decision lightly, but we were faced with a stark choice of having more lockdowns or accelerating our vaccine programme. We chose to accelerate, with help from all corners of the NHS and with the backing, at that time, of the hon. Member for Ilford North. I remember him standing at the Dispatch Box pledging his full support for that effort and rightly stating that the Government were acting
“in the best interests of our NHS, our public health, and our nation.”—[Official Report, 13 December 2021; Vol. 705, c. 795.]
He recognised that it was the right thing to do then; he has now conveniently changed his mind. I wonder why.
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
But people like Mark in my constituency cannot find an NHS dentist. This is not about covid; it was happening before covid. The investment just is not there. He is in pain; he is in agony. The Secretary of State needs to step up, step in and get things right.
Sajid Javid
We are putting record amounts of investment into the NHS, including more funding into dentistry—I am about to come on to that right now—which will help with those pressures.
Clive Efford
Covid is just a pathetic excuse, because even if it was the sole reason, the Secretary of State should have been planning for when we came out of it, but nothing he has said explains why we had record numbers of patients on waiting lists even before covid started.
Sajid Javid
I think that many people working across the NHS will be listening to the hon. Gentleman and realising that he has no idea about the pressures that covid has created for everyone working there, especially those on the frontline.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
Excuse me for raising this issue, but I want to draw attention to the fact that there has been news released that the Secretary of State’s Government have declined to introduce mandatory reporting of complications resulting from mesh. In the context of problems with waiting lists, and wider issues, if we do not introduce a mandatory reporting scheme to identify problems with a medical product, more people will end up requiring medical intervention and medical treatment, so I urge the Government to look again at their declining to introduce mandatory reporting.
Sajid Javid
The hon. Lady raises an important issue. That is why the Government commissioned an independent report. We have responded to that report. We are still listening to what hon. Members such as herself and others are saying on this important issue, and then we will do a follow-up of the report within a year, so that will be later this year. I know that she will take an interest in that.
Paul Bristow (Peterborough) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that a lot of the issues with primary care services are about leadership? In my constituency, we have the brilliant Thistlemoor surgery with Dr Neil Modha and Dr Azhar Chaudhry, who serve 29,500 patients, 80% of whom do not have English as a first language. Same-day, face-to-face GP appointments are the norm in that practice. In contrast, a Thorney surgery has just temporarily closed a surgery in my constituency due to a lack of admin staff, which is not the fault of the admin staff themselves. Will he back my campaign to make sure that that GP surgery is open again serving local people as soon as possible?
Sajid Javid
My hon. Friend is campaigning passionately for primary care services in his constituency, and he points to some fantastic practices. I congratulate all the people involved in delivering that and support him in his work with his local commissioners to make sure that they are getting even better local primary care.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend recognise that the crisis in NHS dentistry, which affects my constituency as it does his, well predates the pandemic, and indeed goes back to at least 2006 when the then Labour Government changed the way in which dentists are paid? Will he undertake to look at the units of dental activity system, which disincentivises dentists from providing dental work particularly in the most disadvantaged communities?
Sajid Javid
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right in his analysis, and I can give that undertaking. I will say a bit more about that in a moment.
If the hon. Member for Ilford North wants to talk about funding for the NHS, I am happy to oblige. Under the last NHS long-term plan, before the pandemic, we made a historic commitment of an extra £34 billion a year. Because of the pandemic, we then necessarily put in £92 billion of extra funding. At the last spending review, we increased funding still further so that the NHS budget will reach £162.6 billion by 2024-25, supported in part by the new health and social care levy.
We have made sure the NHS has the right level of resourcing to face the future with confidence, but we must also be alive to the consequences. The British people expect every pound spent to be spent well, and they expect us to be honest with them that every extra pound the hon. Gentleman calls for will be a pound less spent on education, infrastructure, housing and perhaps defence. I believe in a fair deal for the British people, and especially for our young people. We will be making plenty of changes alongside this funding.
Jonathan Edwards
One of the major problems we face in Wales and across the UK is the need to replace retiring GPs and dentists. There has been a welcome increase in the number of international medical graduates training in Wales, but the British Medical Association informs me that very few GP practices and dental practices in Wales are registered as skilled worker visa sponsors. Will the Secretary of State raise this with the Home Office to see what can be done to help GPs and primary care practitioners retain those international graduates to work in Wales and across the UK, if they so decide?
Sajid Javid
We are working with our colleagues in the Home Office on this and other skills and healthcare issues, so I can give the hon. Gentleman that assurance. He talks about the major problem he is facing in Wales, and that major problem is a Labour Government. I hope he agrees—[Interruption.] He is nodding.
Look at the performance of Labour in Wales, whether on health or education: the median waiting time for outpatients in Wales is almost double the median waiting time in England. People in Wales are waiting more than three years, whereas the longest wait in England is more than two years. Thanks to the covid recovery plan we set out in this House a few months ago, the number waiting more than two years has been slashed by more than two thirds in just four months, and it will be almost zero next month.
Thousands of people in Wales are waiting two or three years. In fact, one in four patients in Labour-run Wales are waiting longer than a year. In England it is one in 20, which is far too high and will be lowered, but in Wales it is one in four. It is not surprising the hon. Member for Ilford North had nothing to say about his colleagues in power in Wales.
Sajid Javid
I would like to hear what the hon. Lady thinks of the Labour Government in Wales and their abysmal performance when it comes to healthcare.
Kate Hollern
There is much better performance from the Welsh Government than from the UK Government. The Prime Minister promised 6,000 more GPs, which has not happened.
I wrote to the Secretary of State about Blackburn having only 33 GPs per 100,000 people, whereas the south-west has 73. I wrote to him about a young man whose cancer was misdiagnosed, but I have not had a response. I would say Wales is doing much better than the Secretary of State.
Sajid Javid
That is a very strange comment about the hon. Lady’s colleagues in Wales. Either she does not know or she is deliberately saying something she does not quite believe. Perhaps I can make her aware of the facts in Wales, where the number of people waiting more than two years for treatment currently stands at more than 70,000. That is more than three times the figure in England. That is more than three times the figure in England. It is at 70,000, and the hon. Lady seems to be very comfortable with that. I am surprised—it tells us all we need to know about Labour’s ambitions for government if she thinks that is acceptable.
Sajid Javid
Maybe the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) can tell us whether she agrees with her hon. Friend the hon. Member for Blackburn (Kate Hollern) on Wales.
Sarah Champion
The Secretary of State knows we are having a debate about the whole UK, but I am asking him specifically about England and his responsibility. Can he answer the original question from my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Kate Hollern), which was about the Prime Minister’s 2019 commitment to 6,000 extra GPs? We know there are 1,000 newly qualified foreign GPs who are about to be deported by his Government, plus students who are unable to complete their studies because this Government are not providing them with the money for the final years. Under the management of the Secretary of State’s Government in the last decade, we have lost 4,500 GPs. Can he talk about what he plans to do to replace them?
Sajid Javid
I am happy to talk about that. Because of the record funding this Government have put in, both pre and post pandemic, we are seeing record increases in the workforce across the NHS. When it comes to GPs, since March 2019 we have seen an increase of some 2,389. On top of that, we have seen a further increase of more than 18,000 full-time equivalent staff working in other important primary care roles. That is in England—I am talking about England numbers.
Of course, we are working hard towards the targets we have set. We are also seeing more GPs in training in our medical schools than ever before, with more medical schools operating than ever before. I hope the hon. Lady will welcome that result and that investment.
Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)
We are talking about GP and dentistry services today, but the wider primary care family includes community pharmacy and ophthalmology, the vast majority of which are not NHS providers but operate under contract providing NHS services. In my excellent right hon. Friend’s second year in the Health Secretary job, will there be a ruthless focus on the wider primary care landscape? When it comes to prevention, surely those people must be the front door of the NHS to ensure that the system is sustainable in the long term.
Sajid Javid
Yes, absolutely. I know my hon. Friend speaks with great experience in this area. I am just about to come on to some of the changes we will be making to primary care, which I am sure he will welcome.
Andrew Selous
When the Secretary of State goes back to the Department, will he have a quick look at how it is that, in Leeds, north-east Lincolnshire, Fylde and Wyre and Stockport in the past six-and-a-half years, we have increased the number of GPs by between 18% and 22%? I am curious to know whether there are any lessons we can draw from those areas for the rest of the country. Will he ask his officials to look into that to see whether there are useful points for us?
Sajid Javid
I will, and I will get back to my hon. Friend on that issue with more detail. I hope he welcomes the investment we are seeing and the record numbers of doctors and GPs in training.
Richard Fuller
I know my right hon. Friend is coming on with some more ideas, but from talking to GPs across my constituency, one of the issues I have found is that, as we have diversified primary care staff beyond GPs to paramedics and others, the role of what might be called receptionists and telephonists has moved far more into triage. It is now a more complicated role. Is he attracted to the idea in the Policy Exchange document of creating an NHS gateway to provide more medically qualified staff at that first point of entry to GPs, but on a nationalised basis, available via internet, telephony and the cloud?
Sajid Javid
Yes, I am. I have seen the report my hon. Friend refers to and have discussed aspects of it with its authors, so the short answer is yes.
Sajid Javid
I will later.
In terms of the changes we are making, let me first turn to primary care. The hon. Member for Ilford North, in his motion today, is calling on me to
“urgently bring forward a plan to fix the crisis in primary care”,
as he puts it. That is his motion. He is probably too busy supporting the strikers to have read my speech to the NHS Confederation last week. Had he bothered to listen to or read what I said in that speech, or the similar words from Amanda Pritchard, the chief executive officer of NHS England, he would have heard me acknowledge that our current model of primary care simply is not working. I have made no secret of that, or of my desire for change.
We are now working on a plan for change and, based on today’s motion, I will be glad to count on the hon. Gentleman’s support when we bring those plans forward, because what he has asked for, we are already doing. Our plans, for example, include a much bigger expansion in what our fantastic pharmacists can do. In fact, on the very day that I made that speech in Liverpool, we also announced a new pilot scheme to allow people with signs of cancer to be assessed and referred by pharmacists. That is yet another example of how we are working hard to enhance the role of our brilliant pharmacists and thereby freeing GPs to spend more time with their patients.
Imran Hussain
Thus far, if I have got this right, the Secretary of State has told us that there have been record levels of investment across our NHS services, including GPs and hospitals, and that any minor concerns that have arisen are because of the covid years. Does he think that the British public have been asleep for the last 12 years? Does he think that the British public will buy this? The stark reality on our streets—the Secretary of State may want to go and have a look—is as dire as it has ever been.
Sajid Javid
As I said—I am glad that the hon. Gentleman was listening—there have been record levels of funding in the NHS, and, as we set out in our spending plans, that will continue. But that is no thanks to the hon. Member for Ilford North and his colleagues, who all voted against that record funding. They wanted to deny those resources to their constituents. He should reflect on the impact of that had their wish gone through the House.
On the changes that we are making, we are going further, from improving telephone services to letting others such as nurses and pharmacists complete fit notes. Appointment numbers are already exceeding pre-pandemic levels—for example, in April, GPs and their teams were delivering 1.26 million appointments per working day. That is a phenomenal achievement, which the hon. Gentleman should be commending, not castigating.
The hon. Gentleman raised Wakefield and primary care. He was using dodgy numbers, so he was corrected by my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire. He also gave out further dodgy information by somehow claiming that the King Street walk-in centre was under threat. I do not know if you have seen this in the by-elections, Mr Deputy Speaker, but the Labour party has a history of just making things up and creating fake news to scare local people. That is the respect that they show for local people. The walk-in centre has never been under threat. The local clinical commissioning group has confirmed that it has never been under threat. If he had any decency, he would stand up and withdraw his remarks. I give him that chance.
Wes Streeting
I would have thought that the Secretary of State would have learned by now that it is silly to give way to me when he makes these facile points. It is absolutely the case that the walk-in centre’s future was in jeopardy. It is absolutely the case that Simon Lightwood campaigned to save it. If that is what Simon Lightwood can achieve as a candidate, imagine what he will do as Wakefield’s next Labour MP.
Sajid Javid
The hon. Gentleman is now using the past tense. A moment ago, he claimed that it was under threat. He clearly has no issues with giving false information in this House. The truth is that, if Wakefield wants a better future, as everyone in Wakefield deserves, only one by-election candidate can provide that, and that is Nadeem Ahmed.
We intend to go much further to build a truly 21st-century offer in primary care. That includes Dr Claire Fuller’s independent review, which I found to be extremely valuable, and the changes that will stem from that as well as the many others that we will bring forward shortly. We will work with the population and the profession alike. The hon. Gentleman was right to focus on the importance of the profession, but he did forget to mention, as I referred to earlier, that since March 2019 we have more than 2,380 additional GPs in primary care, record numbers of doctors in training and more than 18,000 additional primary care professionals.
Let me turn briefly to the important steps we are taking in dentistry. Urgent care has been back at pre-pandemic levels since December 2020, and the 700 centres for urgent care that we set up to provide treatment for patients during this difficult period have helped thousands of patients across the country. At the start of this year we put an additional £50 million into NHS dental services, which boosted dental capacity by creating 350,000 extra appointments. Dentists are currently required to deliver 95% of pre-covid activity, and we are planning to return to 100% shortly. I commend all the dentists who are already achieving that.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
The Secretary of State referred to an additional £50 million. As he knows, the way in which that was framed made it difficult for dentists to draw down the money. Will he tell the House how much of it has been drawn down and used?
Sajid Javid
I do not have the exact figures to hand, but I know that millions of pounds were drawn down and used to deliver tens of thousands of appointments across the country. That made a huge difference to a great many people.
Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) (Con)
The urgent care centres are an important innovation, but it is also important for them to be accessible throughout the country. There are seven in Kent, but the one nearest to my constituents is 33 miles away. Could my right hon. Friend intervene with the NHS in the south-east to bring about a more even distribution?
Sajid Javid
My right hon. Friend’s point is important and well made, and I will look at the issue closely and get back to him, if I may.
As we have already heard today—but it is such an important point—the challenge for NHS dentistry predated the pandemic. It is not just about the number of dentists in England, but about the completely outdated contracts under which they are working, which were signed under a Labour Government. [Interruption.] Labour Members do not like it, but it is true. These contracts mean that we are operating almost with one hand tied behind our backs. They do not incentivise prevention, they hold back innovation, and they mean that hard-working families cannot get the dental services that they deserve. However, we will now be changing that; our work with the sector, along with the work of Health Education England on recruitment and retention, will be vital for the future.
Sajid Javid
I will in a moment.
If there is one thing that unites all our work on primary care and dentistry, it is this. We are shifting to a new mode of operating—one that is about helping the whole population to stay healthy, not just about treating those who ask for help. We need to get to a place where we are healthier for longer, because freedom is hollow without our health.
Our new Health and Social Care Act 2022 is an important step in that ambition. Statutory integrated care systems will be responsible for the funding to support the health of their respective areas—not just treating people, but helping people to stay healthy in the first place. The Act also allows us to make safe and effective public health interventions such as water fluoridation, and we will set out further plans for that shortly.
Prevention, personalisation, people and performance: those will be our watchwords for modernising NHS services. They will sit at the heart of everything to come, from the health disparities White Paper to the update of the NHS long-term plan. While the Opposition continue to go off the rails, we remain firmly on track, laying down our plans to deliver a truly 21st-century offer for the profession and, most of all, for patients.
Several hon. Members rose—
Antimicrobials: Evaluation and Purchase
Sajid Javid Excerpts(1 year, 11 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Sajid Javid)
The ability of bacteria—and other types of pathogen—to develop and propagate resistance to the available therapeutic drugs and medicines, such as antibiotics, used to treat them is a significant and growing threat. Alongside extensive efforts to tackle this threat, as set out in the Government’s five-year National Action Plan, we have sought to reduce the need for antibiotics. This is being achieved through both effective infection prevention and control, and through careful stewardship of the antibiotics that we have at our disposal, by reducing inappropriate prescribing. It is also essential that we incentivise the development—by pharmaceutical companies—of new antimicrobials, which has historically been challenging. To address this challenge, we committed to develop and test a new purchasing model for antimicrobials that de-links payments for antibiotics from the volumes used.
As a result, NHS England and Improvement (NHSEI), the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) launched a joint project in July 2019 to test a “subscription-style” payment for two antibiotics, basing the annual payment on a NICE-led assessment of the value of the medicines, rather than on the volumes of drugs used. On 12 April 2022, NICE published guidance estimating the value of the two antibiotics to the NHS. This guidance informed negotiations between NHSEI and the two companies to agree payment levels in the “subscription-style” contracts.
I would like to inform the House that the contracts between NHSEI and the two pharmaceutical companies have now been signed. Payments to the companies for their antibiotics, Cefiderocol—manufactured by Shionogi —and Ceftazidime with Avibactum—manufactured by Pfizer—will start on 1 July 2022.
This world-leading project represents an important development in our approach to incentivising innovation in antimicrobial drugs and in our efforts to tackle antimicrobial resistance (AMR). We will continue to build on this work to develop routine arrangements for the evaluation and purchase of new antimicrobials as they are developed. I will be writing to my counterparts in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to formally invite them to participate in these next steps, to ensure that the project can be adapted and scaled across the UK.
Maintaining momentum on our international advocacy and action on market incentives is crucial. We hope other countries will offer similar incentives in their own domestic markets, so that collectively we can achieve a meaningful incentive for global investment in antimicrobials. This project is representative of our leading role in this area, aligning with the Government’s vision for a Global Britain.
[HCWS116]
Oral Answers to Questions
Sajid Javid Excerpts(1 year, 11 months ago)
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Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Sajid Javid)
First, may I associate myself with your remarks, Mr Speaker, about the Falklands war as we remember those who lost their lives and their loved ones?
We are making good progress on tackling the covid-19 backlog, having already halved the number of patients with the longest waits and delivered more than a million tests and checks at our new community diagnostic centres. Our elective recovery plan commits an additional £8 billion to deliver approximately 30% more elective activity than before the pandemic, and we have ambitions to go further to transform services, improve patient care and ensure value for money.
Chris Clarkson
The cost of living is foremost on everybody’s minds now, so what assurances can my right hon. Friend give me that my constituents in Heywood and Middleton—a part of the world he knows very well—will get bang for their buck from the extra money they are paying into the NHS and that the money will go on testing and treatment, not management and miscellany?
Sajid Javid
I am pleased to give that assurance to my hon. Friend. We are ensuring that every penny is spent on the elective recovery and makes the greatest possible contribution to tackling those covid-19 backlogs. We are investing £8 billion more over the next three years, and that will increase elective activity. I am also pleased to say that in his region, we have already opened some four new community diagnostic centres; just those four have done 60,000 more checks and tests for his constituents.
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
Following the covid-19 outbreak and the roll-out of vaccines, thousands of immunocompromised people are still shielding, so can the Secretary of State update the House on where we are on delivering Evusheld, which would allow them to have the freedom that we all enjoy?
Sajid Javid
It is an important question, and the hon. Lady will know that specific guidance is already set out for those who are immunocompromised. As she will also know, Evusheld has conditional marketing authorisation from the independent Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. With the MHRA and others, further tests are going on via the UK Health Sciences Authority, because it is essential to ensure that Evusheld works well and satisfies clinicians when it comes to omicron.
Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
To tackle the covid backlog, it is essential that we expand the capacity of the NHS, and that means more people, so what is the Secretary of State doing to ensure that we recruit the skilled professionals we need for the NHS?
Sajid Javid
My right hon. Friend is absolutely correct, and that is why that is one of our biggest priorities. As well as asking the NHS to come up for the first time with a 15-year, long-term workforce strategy, we are also recruiting at a record rate, with more doctors and nurses working for the NHS than ever before.
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)
Demand for eye care services is at an all-time high, with more than 632,000 people waiting on the NHS waiting lists for ophthalmology treatments. Delays to diagnosis and treatment could lead to a loss of sight, as well as stress and anxiety for patients. Given the stark figures, it is vital that we invest in eye health, such as through the national eye care recovery and transformation programme, which, worryingly, is due to end this year. Does the Secretary of State agree that it is essential that funding for this programme is retained so that he can bring down waiting lists and ensure good-quality eye care?
Sajid Javid
The hon. Lady is right to talk about the importance of eye care services. That is why we are putting record investment into dealing with those covid backlogs. As she rightly points out, many of those are in eye care and ophthalmic facilities and surgeries. That record investment is going in, and we will keep it under review to make sure it is leading to the outcome that we all want to see.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
More than 2 million people are affected by the backlog in cancer care. Smoking is the leading cause of cancer, and we know that a key component of tackling the backlog is prevention. Given that, can the Secretary of State assure the House that no current or former tobacco lobbyist working in or with No. 10 will have any influence on the Government’s tobacco control plan, prevention strategy or planned response to the Khan review?
Sajid Javid
As the hon. Gentleman will know, all decisions are rightly made by Ministers. I agree about the importance of tackling smoking. The Government are committed to a smoke-free 2030, which is exactly why I commissioned the independent Khan review. I welcome its findings and we are carefully considering them.
John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)
Suzanne Webb (Stourbridge) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Sajid Javid)
The Government’s commitment to deliver 50 million more general practice appointments is critical for improving access to primary care across the country. Our workforce are crucial for that, and we are well on track to deliver 26,000 more full-time primary care staff by March 2024, with more than 18,000 primary care staff already recruited since 2019.
Suzanne Webb
I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. Does he agree that when it comes to accessing primary care services, the Government have given GPs the support and guidance that they need and that GPs must now make every effort to see our constituents face to face, which is what they expect? What more can be done to support GP practices to make their processes more efficient for patient access to test results and blood tests and for booking appointments?
Sajid Javid
I agree with my hon. Friend and am incredibly grateful, as she is, for the huge contribution of GPs during the pandemic in helping to deliver the largest vaccination programme that the NHS has ever seen. Because of the pandemic, we also provided record support to GPs that helped to cut bureaucracy, helped them to share their workload and helped clinicians to give even more support to patients.
We are starting to see the results of that, with face-to-face appointments going up—we would like to see them go up much further. We would also like to see increases in appointments, including for access to blood tests. My hon. Friend might know that yesterday we published our new data strategy, which sets out how, using the NHS app, we will give more people access to their health results.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
The United States company Operose Health runs 70 GP surgeries across the country, including the Randolph Surgery in my constituency. Yesterday’s “Panorama” broadcast indicated serious concerns about its quality of service, staffing levels and patient safety. Since then, constituents of mine have approached me to reflect their concerns about the service. What steps is the Secretary of State taking now, urgently, to establish what has gone wrong? Will he meet MPs with those surgeries to discuss our concerns?
Sajid Javid
First, I will ensure the hon. Lady gets the meeting she requests. She will know that NHS GP services all have to meet the same requirements, the same regulations and the same standards across the country. Where patients are not getting that care and those standards are not being met, we expect local commissioners to take action.
Ms Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)
Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Sajid Javid)
In health and care, strong leadership can make the difference between life and death. I have been clear that we can accept only the highest possible standards and that in some cases poor leadership has been tolerated for too long. That is why I have accepted in full the recommendations of General Sir Gordon Messenger’s independent review and will set out a delivery plan to begin what I think will be the biggest shake-up in health and social care leadership in a generation.
Daniel Kawczynski
Bearing in mind that the NHS will receive approximately £180 billion of taxpayers’ money this year, improving leadership and management in the NHS is extremely important, and nowhere more so than in the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust. Despite the trust obtaining £312 million from the Treasury to improve accident and emergency services, a lack of coherent leadership has resulted in no decision being taken as to how the money will be spent. With rising costs in the construction industry, that is of great concern to us. Will the Secretary of State intervene with our local hospital trust to make sure that the money is spent as expeditiously and quickly as possible?
Sajid Javid
My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the importance of leadership. I am pleased to tell him that my Department has just received the strategic outline case for his local A&E’s Future Fit programme, which is currently being reviewed. As he undoubtedly knows, the business case process is led by the trust and is already supported by some early funding; I understand that the trust aims to present the full business case by 2023, with construction starting in the same year and to be completed by 2028. The Minister for Health will shortly visit Shropshire and will meet my hon. Friend and other colleagues.
Mr Speaker
This is a strange grouping, but it is a very important question, so do answer it, please.
Sajid Javid
I thank my hon. Friend for her tireless campaigning on the issue, which she brought up recently in the Health and Social Care Committee. I am pleased to tell her that elective orthopaedic surgery at the Princess Royal Hospital will resume from 20 June.
My hon. Friend is right about the importance of the Messenger review. There were many examples of excellent leadership in it, but sadly there were also examples of poor leadership, including bullying and blame cultures. That is why it is essential that we have this huge reform.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
As hard as all hospital leaders and managers work, sometimes something goes wrong on their watch. What follows is one such example.
On Friday, I met Joanna, a lovely mum of two young children, who was diagnosed with secondary cancer three months ago. Since then, she has been passed from pillar to post and has received no treatment at all. Unfortunately, she is now receiving palliative care. What Joanna wants more than anything is to stop what happened to her happening to anyone else. Will the Secretary of State personally look into Joanna’s case to make sure that she finally gets the treatment she urgently needs, and that no one else is failed by the system as Joanna has been?
Sajid Javid
Yes, of course I can give the hon. Lady that commitment. I am very sorry to hear about Joanna; I think of her, her loved ones and her two children. I will absolutely look personally into the case. I hope that the hon. Lady agrees that where we see poor outcomes, it is important to make sure that we have the best possible leadership in place.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
I have already raised the issue of the governance at Walsall Manor Hospital. I welcome the Messenger-Pollard review—the Secretary of State will know that there is also a report called “The snowy white peaks of the NHS”, which says roughly the same thing—but I have been fobbed off because the leadership at Walsall and Wolverhampton remains the same. Could he look into why Walsall Manor should not have its own chief executive?
Sajid Javid
These are important issues, and I have discussed this with the right hon. Lady. I will take another look at the management of Walsall Manor.
Sarah Atherton (Wrexham) (Con)
Last week, a BBC Wales documentary reported on the shocking state of Wrexham Maelor Hospital and the NHS in north Wales, which is led by the Welsh Labour Government and was in special measures before covid. The average wait for referred treatment in England is 13 weeks, but in Wales it is 24 weeks. In the words of Nuffield Trust, the
“treatment…may as well not be there”.
Wrexham deserves better, so does the Minister agree that the Welsh Labour Government need to vastly improve the NHS in north Wales before more lives are lost?
Sajid Javid
I do of course agree with my hon. Friend. There are huge challenges for the NHS here in England, but as she has highlighted, the challenges are much greater in Wales because of how the Labour Government there neglected the NHS, way before the pandemic as well as during it. When it comes to leadership, although the Messenger review was commissioned for England, I think they would do well to learn some lessons from it.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
Operose Health is one of the biggest employers in the primary care sector. When it bought up 70 surgeries across England, including in Hammersmith and Fulham, the Government were warned that this would put patient care at risk in pursuit of profit. That is what Operose’s US parent company, Centene, is notorious for. Now that the Secretary of State has evidence of Operose employing half the average number of GPs per patient, and of not reading clinical correspondence for six months, what is he going to do about it?
Sajid Javid
The hon. Gentleman might know that in 2007 the then Labour Government changed the law to allow takeovers such as that to happen. He might want to reflect on that. In terms of local management, there are consistent high standards that need to be met locally, and local commissioners should be made aware of what he has just said.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Sajid Javid)
Today, we remember the 72 people who lost their lives and their loved ones affected by the Grenfell Tower tragedy five years ago.
In the Department of Health and Social Care, we are getting on with the job. We are focused on tackling the covid backlogs. Our new community diagnostic centres are springing up in towns and cities across the country, with 90 of the 160 planned already open and 1 million more tests, checks and scans already delivered. Last week, I set out our plans to modernise health and social care leadership, accepting all the recommendations of the leadership review by General Sir Gordon Messenger and Dame Linda Pollard. Just yesterday, I launched our new data strategy, called “Data saves lives”, to close the digital divide between health and care.
Wendy Chamberlain
Last month, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation published an interim statement on the autumn booster programme, in which—once again—unpaid carers have not been included. It is vital that they have equal access to vaccines to paid carers to keep their loved ones safe, as they continue to do right now. Will the Secretary of State advise me when we might receive a final statement from the JCVI on the autumn booster programme?
Sajid Javid
I thank the hon. Lady for raising the importance of getting vaccinations right. She will know that we rely on the independent advice of our clinicians—the committee known as the JCVI—and I think it is right that it is independent. Ultimately, it decides on its advice, and it is for Ministers whether to accept it. However, she has made an important point about unpaid carers, and I will ask the JCVI to see if that can be properly considered in the autumn booster review.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
Sajid Javid
I am happy to respond to my hon. Friend. He is right that we of course want to ensure that everyone has timely access to NHS dentistry and that the profession is an appealing career choice. Health Education England has a dental education and reform programme, which will help retain new dentists in the NHS by placing training in areas of greatest need, and offer more flexibility and more career pathways. I can also tell him that, in Lincolnshire, commissioners are already looking at ways to support NHS dentistry through support such as the golden hello incentives.
Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)
I associate myself with the Secretary of State’s remarks as we remember the anniversary of the Grenfell Tower tragedy and support the families in their ongoing quest for justice. I also associate Opposition Members with your remarks, Mr Speaker, on the 40th anniversary of the end of the Falklands war.
Last night’s shocking BBC “Panorama” investigation into Operose Health revealed the extent of the crisis in GP surgeries, with patient referrals and test results left unread for up to six months, and with patients being seen by less qualified staff standing in for GPs without supervision. This is exactly what happens when private profit is placed above patient health and safety. Why is the Secretary of State asleep at the wheel instead of launching an investigation into this scandal?
Sajid Javid
As I said earlier, the hon. Gentleman should reflect on the rule changes made by a previous Labour Government that allowed the management of many GP practices to change hands. When such serious allegations are made, it is right that local commissioners investigate them properly and independently. When it comes to GP access and capacity, I hope he will welcome that we are making a record investment, with over £0.5 billion of support during the pandemic, and recruiting GPs at a record rate.
Wes Streeting
The British people are sick and tired of hearing Conservative Ministers, after 12 years in government, passing the buck to everyone else and failing to take responsibility.
Let us look at another scandal that has happened on the Secretary of State’s watch. It has now been weeks since he was warned about the negligence, the cover-up and the bribing of whistleblowers to stay silent about the scandals at the North East Ambulance Service. Since then, he has done precisely nothing to investigate the scandal. When will he address patient safety, get a grip and stop passing the buck? Or is this another case of the Government being, in the words of the Culture Secretary, found “wanting and inadequate”?
Sajid Javid
I told Members last week that I will review whether we can have an independent review of the North East Ambulance Service, and the NHS has agreed to an independent review. The hon. Gentleman stands up week after week and tries to claim he is on the side of patients and NHS workers, but we know he is actually on the side of those who are on strike—that is where his loyalties lie. Will he reflect on how many nurses will not be able to get to work and how many appointments will be unattended because of the transport strike? I know he wants to be the second coming of Tony Blair, but he is no more than a pound shop Ed Miliband.
Holly Mumby-Croft (Scunthorpe) (Con)
Sajid Javid
My sincere condolences to the family of David Hopkins. Cancer diagnosis and treatment is an absolute priority, which is why we are putting £2.3 billion into campaigns and new initiatives to encourage people with suspected cancer to come forward. I am pleased that the referral rate is currently 120% of the pre-pandemic level. I will, of course, read the APPG’s report. I visited the largest neurology hospital in the UK last month with my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), and I am determined to ensure that our investment in this vital area of research goes straight to the frontline.
Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)
The Government have noted that Sir Robert Francis will give evidence on his work on the infected blood inquiry on 11 and 12 July, and said that they will act after hearing his evidence. What discussions has the Secretary of State had with Cabinet colleagues on the potential impact on victims’ mental health of the lengthy waiting times for compensation in relation to contaminated blood?
Sajid Javid
The hon. Gentleman raises a very important issue. The House is well aware of the Government’s work to bring justice to those who have been affected by contaminated blood, and we will continue to take that seriously.
Luke Hall (Thornbury and Yate) (Con)
A new hospital at Thornbury would provide greater primary care and outpatient services, more GP appointments and a proactive frailty hub to support the elderly to stay in their own home longer. Our bid was submitted against the sustainability and transformation plan wave 4 capital pot, and I thank the Minister for all his work and effort in speaking to me, South Gloucestershire Council and our clinical commissioning group about this bid. Will he update the House on the timescales for its outcome?
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
Sajid Javid
I am afraid that it was not clear to me which tests the hon. Gentleman was talking about; all I heard was “300,000 tests”. So if he cares to write to me, I will respond properly to his question.
Jeremy Hunt (South West Surrey) (Con)
Has the Secretary of State read the study in the British Journal of General Practice that says that people who see the same GP over many years are 30% less likely to go to hospital, 30% less likely to need out-of-hours care and 25% less likely to die? If he has, will he consider changing the GP contract to restore individual patient lists and reverse the change of two decades ago so that everyone has their own family doctor?
Sajid Javid
I have not read that review, but now that my right hon. Friend has mentioned it I will certainly take a look at it. He raises an important point about access to GPs. He is right to say that many people would want to see the same GP again and again—that would be their preference. One can see how that may lead to better clinical outcomes, but I hope he will respect the fact that others do not mind if they do not see the same GP and just want rapid access. It is important that we get the right balance.
Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)
Sajid Javid
The hon. Gentleman is right to talk about the importance of timely access to GPs, whether in Bradford or across the country. There are, of course, challenges across the country, which is one reason why we put in place an action plan, including some £500 million of extra funding, during the pandemic. On his plea for an urgent treatment centre, I will make sure that the Health Minister will meet him.
James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)
Before the jubilee weekend, I was pleased to welcome the Minister to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital to see the cracking RAAC—reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete—which the Department understands needs to be replaced. So will he take the opportunity to build a new QEH, fit for the future? When will the patients and staff at QEH know that they are on the list? They are impatient for a decision.
Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)
Sajid Javid
As I have said before, no country got every decision right during the pandemic, but one thing we did get right was our response in terms of diagnostics, vaccinations and antivirals. That combination allowed us to become the first country in Europe to open up and therefore also to boost our economy. I will make sure that the hon. Gentleman gets the meeting he has asked for.
Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)
As the Secretary of State knows from our previous discussions, we have serious concerns about West Midlands ambulance service and the significant delays we have experienced in north Staffordshire. The way to address the problems is by NHS partners working together, and Staffordshire fire service has said that it wants to do more to help the ambulance service. Will my right hon. Friend agree to do as much as he can to improve ambulance services in Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire?
Sajid Javid
My hon. Friend makes a very good point and some good suggestions. West Midlands ambulance service is my local ambulance service too, and I recently met its chief executive officer and chairwoman. As he knows, the NHS has published and is executing a 10-point plan for emergency service recovery, but I shall certainly take what he says into account.
Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)
Sajid Javid
I am pleased to say that we have more nurses working for the NHS than at any point in its history, and last year we recruited an additional 10,900.
Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State accept that some people have died as a direct result of having had covid-19 vaccines?
Sajid Javid
I accept that the vaccine has not worked in the intended way for every single person. I am afraid that this is a risk with any vaccine that has ever been approved in any major country. It is right, however, that when something goes wrong with a vaccination, it is looked at appropriately, and I am happy to discuss this further with my hon. Friend.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
Nick Fletcher (Don Valley) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for his recent visit to Doncaster Royal Infirmary. I apologise for the fact that the lights went out while he was there—it was not planned, but it did bolster my campaign for a new hospital. Will he meet me again during Men’s Health Week, to discuss a men’s health strategy, which many Members across the House believe would help an awful lot of men?
Sajid Javid
Yes, that is a very important issue and I will be happy to meet my hon. Friend.
Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)
When I wrote to the Minister recently about my concerns about NHS dentistry waiting times, I was advised that my constituent was not restricted by geography, which implied that he should travel for an appointment, but the whole of the east of England has been identified by the Association of Dental Groups as a dental desert. The Minister is well aware of this problem, the severe workforce shortages and the broken dentistry contracts. When will the Government stop blaming the dental practices, get on with the job and get the workforce this country needs?
Sajid Javid
The right hon. Gentleman will know that I have visited the site and spoken to local members of the trust. It is a project that we support, and we are in the final stages of the final approvals.
Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP)
As was pointed out by the hon. Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant), this Government promised medical cannabis on the NHS 1,183 days ago. Since then, a child with epilepsy will have experienced, at a modest estimate, 35,490 seizures. We have free NHS prescriptions, which proves that the medicine exists and is approved for use in the United Kingdom. How much longer must those children suffer?
Health and Social Care Update
Sajid Javid Excerpts(1 year, 11 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Sajid Javid)
I would like to inform the House that the final version of “Data saves lives: reshaping health and social care with data” has been published today. It builds on the groundbreaking use of data during the pandemic and sets out ambitious plans to harness the potential of data in health and care, while maintaining the highest standards of privacy and ethics.
When facing this country’s greatest public health emergency for generations, one of the most effective tools at our disposal has been the power of data. Now, as we look to live with covid, we must apply those same tools as we tackle the most pressing challenges facing the country including elective recovery and integration of health and social care.
Earlier this year, I made a speech setting out my four priorities for reform in health; prevention, personalisation, performance and people. We cannot deliver the change we need to see, and our 10 year plans for cancer, dementia and mental health, unless we embrace the opportunities from data-driven technologies. Last week, Sir Gordon Messenger and Dame Linda Pollard published their review into leadership of health and social care, and I accepted their recommendations in full. Today’s data strategy is the next step in our plans to modernise the NHS.
This strategy shows how we will use data to bring benefits to all parts of health and social care; from patients and care users, to staff on the front line, to the pioneers driving the most cutting-edge research.
It is backed by a series of concrete commitments, including investing in secure data environments to power research into new treatments, using technology to allow staff to spend more quality time with patients, and giving people better access to their own data through shared care records and the NHS app. The strategy will support NHS providers to tackle the covid backlog, providing them with the means to monitor and optimise capacity through improved data sharing and the development of advanced analytics. This is all on top of the huge investment that we have already made; for instance investing £200 million in our data for research and development programme.
It is vital that, as we deliver these benefits, we work in a way that maintains the high level of public trust in how the NHS uses health and care data. That means maintaining the highest standards of privacy and ethics, investing in secure data environments and cyber security, involving the public in decisions about how data is used in the future, listening and responding to their views and concerns.
We published a draft of this strategy in June 2021, and I would like to thank the hundreds of people and organisations who provided feedback which was invaluable in shaping this final version of our strategy for the future.
I would also like to thank Dr Ben Goldacre for his work on the Goldacre Report, which was published in April, and made a compelling case for how data can drive innovation and improve healthcare. I fully support his recommendations and this strategy shows how we will take them forward.
I will deposit a copy of the draft strategy in both Libraries.
[HCWS98]
Smokefree 2030: Independent Review
Sajid Javid Excerpts(1 year, 11 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Sajid Javid)
In 2019, this Government set the bold ambition for England to be smokefree by 2030—reducing smoking rates to 5% or less.
Today, Dr Javed Khan OBE published his independent review on Smokefree 2030, providing this Government with a wide range of recommendations for how we can achieve this ambition.
Tragically, smoking remains the single biggest cause of preventable illness and death across the country. There are still almost 6 million smokers in England—and two out of three will die from smoking unless they quit.
Although smoking rates have fallen, we know that they are currently not falling fast enough.
The Government are committed to levelling up society and extending the same chances in life to all people and all parts of our country. However, smoking is one of the largest drivers of health disparities and rates vary substantially across different parts of the country. As stated by Dr Khan in his independent review, at its most extreme, smoking prevalence is 4.5 times higher in Burnley than in Exeter.
Smoking is a significant drain on the household finances of our most disadvantaged families. In Halton in Cheshire, smokers spend an estimated £3,551 a year on tobacco, nearly 15% of their income. Reducing smoking presents a huge economic opportunity in higher disposable income and higher labour productivity.
Smoking is particularly high amongst certain populations, and one third of all cigarettes smoked in England are smoked by people with a mental health condition. Nearly 10% of mothers smoke at the time of giving birth, increasing the risk of sudden infant death syndrome by over three times compared to mothers who do not smoke. Further, the risk of stillbirth is increased by at least 60% if the father smokes. Smoking is also known to increase the risk of miscarriage.
Behind all of these statistics are individuals, families and communities who are suffering from the harms of tobacco. This Government are committed to doing more to help smokers to quit and stop people from taking up this deadly addiction. We also know that most smokers want to quit.
For these reasons, we asked Dr Khan to undertake this independent review to help the Government reduce the devastation that smoking causes in our communities. There are a number of recommendations in Dr Khan’s independent review. The Government will now consider their response.
There is a call for greater investment—from local authority-led stop smoking services, through to improved data and evidence. The Government are already investing funding through the public health grant, but we will examine where we can go further.
There is a call to offer vaping as a substitute for smoking. Vaping is far less harmful than smoking and is an effective quitting device. It is recognised that there is much more Government can do to tackle the myths and misconceptions that surround vaping. We have worked with the MHRA to provide guidance to support bringing e-cigarettes to market as licensed therapies and this Government will take forward a range of work on vaping as a substitute for smoking in due course.
Dr Khan also calls for the NHS to prioritise further action to stop people from smoking. Smoking costs the NHS £2.5 billion every year. The benefits of focusing on preventing smoking-related illnesses, rather than treating them, are clear for patients and the NHS themselves.
This Government are determined to address the challenges raised in the independent review and to meet the Smokefree 2030 target. We know that more action needs to be taken to protect our people from this dangerous addiction.
The Department will now carefully consider the recommendations set out in this independent review. The independent review will help to inform our upcoming White Paper on health disparities, which we plan to publish this summer. To complement this, the Department will also be publishing a new tobacco control plan in due course.
We would like to thank Dr Khan for his far-reaching work on the independent review, and for his clear and challenging recommendations.
A copy of the independent Khan review will be deposited in the Libraries of both Houses.
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Monkeypox
Sajid Javid Excerpts(1 year, 11 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Sajid Javid)
Following the increased prevalence of cases of monkeypox in England, and transmission within the community for the first time, I would like to inform the House that as of Wednesday 8 June 2022, the following amendments have been laid and come into force:
The Health Protection (Notification) Regulations 2010 have been amended to include monkeypox as a notifiable disease in Schedule 1 and monkeypox virus as a notifiable causative agent in Schedule 2.
The National Health Service (Charges to Overseas Visitors) Regulations 2015 have been amended to include monkeypox in Schedule 1.
The public health assessment remains that the threat to the public is low. These amendments will support the UK Health Security Agency, or UKHSA, and our health partners to swiftly identify, treat and control the disease, and reduce potential financial barriers to overseas visitors in England who require NHS-funded secondary care services in relation to monkeypox.
Health Protection (Notification) Regulations 2010
From today, 8 June 2022, monkeypox is a notifiable disease and there is now an explicit legal duty on doctors to notify the “proper officer” of the relevant local authority if they see a patient they suspect of having the monkeypox virus in England. While we believe cases have been reliably notified to date, this amendment puts beyond doubt the legal obligation of doctors to report cases of suspected monkeypox. Placing a legal duty on doctors to report suspected monkeypox cases, and provide the relevant patient information, will strengthen our understanding of the virus and its transmission within the UK and, if required, support the implementation of timely prevention and control measures.
We have also placed a legal duty on laboratories to notify the UKHSA if they identify monkeypox virus when they test a sample in England, by listing the virus as a notifiable causative agent. Positive laboratory samples will be an important core dataset, strengthening surveillance and helping to inform our understanding of outbreak progression and trends to underpin action. Laboratory notification will also help to identify the links between cases and act as an important contingency if case notification by doctors has not occurred.
National Health Service (Charges to Overseas Visitors) Regulations 2015 (“the charging regulations”)
The charging regulations require providers of NHS-funded secondary care to make charges to people not ordinarily resident in the UK (“overseas visitors”) except where an exemption category applies.
We have taken swift action to ensure that, should an overseas visitor in England need NHS- funded secondary care services in respect of monkeypox, they will not face any charge for them. Providing such services without charge removes a potential financial barrier to overseas visitors presenting for NHS-funded secondary care, therefore ensuring that the risk to the public’s health from infected visitors is minimised. This brings monkeypox into line with most other infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis and covid-19.
The inclusion today of monkeypox in Schedule 1 of the charging regulations will mean that overseas visitors will not be charged for the diagnosis and treatment of monkeypox. The charging regulations have also been amended so that if any charges have already been incurred during this outbreak, they must be cancelled, or, if paid, they must be refunded.
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