Asked by: Saqib Bhatti (Conservative - Meriden)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the level of misuse of nitrous oxide in the West Midlands.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The most reliable current source for prevalence of drug misuse is the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW). The Office for National Statistics publishes CSEW estimates for use of illicit drugs and psychoactive substances, including nitrous oxide, by adults aged 16-59. However, there are no available regional estimates for nitrous oxide due to small survey samples.
The latest estimates for drug misuse are for the year ending June 2022 available at:
Drug misuse in England and Wales - Appendix table - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk).
Data on school age drug misuse, primarily 11-15 year olds, is collected by NHS Digital and the latest data are available at:
Smoking, Drinking and Drug Use among Young People in England, 2021 - NDRS (digital.nhs.uk).
Asked by: Saqib Bhatti (Conservative - Meriden)
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 ensure that there are an adequate number of radiologists in clinics and hospitals in the Solihull Borough available to scan women at risk of breast cancer.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Warwickshire Solihull and Coventry Breast Screening service has received funding from NHS England and NHS Improvement to increase its mammography, radiography and radiology staffing capacity. Further to this locally targeted action, regional partners including Health Education England and NHS England and NHS Improvement have undertaken a workforce review of breast screening to tackle current shortages of trained staff. This will support all breast screening services, including the Warwickshire Solihull and Coventry service to have sufficient and sustainable staffing into the future.
Asked by: Saqib Bhatti (Conservative - Meriden)
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 provision of breast cancer screening in the Solihull Borough after the four-month closure of the Warwickshire Solihull and Coventry Breast Cancer Screening Service as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Warwickshire Solihull and Coventry Breast Cancer Screening Service is working to screen all women who have missed an appointment by 31 March 2022, with NHS England and NHS Improvement monitoring progress.
The service has been able to gradually increase its capacity through the offer of open invitations rather than fixed time appointments and increasing the levels of permanent, third party and trainee staff, allowing the service to offer screening at additional times.
Asked by: Saqib Bhatti (Conservative - Meriden)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists's report, Building back better: Speech and language therapy services after covid-19, published 16 March 2021, what steps he is taking to ensure that speech and language therapy services in the most deprived areas are adequately resourced to support children and young people who have developed a higher level of need as a result of delays in identification and reduced support during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
As part of COVID-19 recovery plan we are looking carefully at how we can support disabled children and their families, including those with speech and language needs, across the country, including in the most deprived areas. We are working with the Department for Education and NHS England and NHS Improvement to improve the provision of health and care services to disabled children.
Asked by: Saqib Bhatti (Conservative - Meriden)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists' report, Building back better: Speech and language therapy services after covid-19 report, published 16 March 2021, what steps he is taking to ensure that support for pre-school children’s communication and language development is prioritised in education recovery plans.
Answered by Vicky Ford
As part of the government’s announcement on providing an additional £1.4 billion for education recovery, we announced a £153 million investment for high-quality professional development for early years practitioners. This includes new programmes focusing on key areas such as speech and language development, and physical and emotional development for the youngest children. This is in addition to £10 million for a pre-reception early language programme, and £17 million for the Nuffield Early Language Intervention, which improves the language skills of reception age children who need it most during the COVID-19 outbreak.
We have also been working in partnership with Public Health England and its partners (including the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists), the local government association and the Early Intervention Foundation to support local area health and early years partnerships (which includes schools, nurseries, and speech and language therapists) to work in a more integrated way and improve information flow to identify speech, language and communication needs as early as possible.
Asked by: Saqib Bhatti (Conservative - Meriden)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions his Department has had with its counterpart in Italy in respect of British tourists' entry to Italy whose covid-19 vaccine was manufactured at Serum Institute in India.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The Serum Institute of India (SII) manufactures both Vaxzevria and Covishield vaccines and both branded vaccines are exactly the same COVID-19 AstraZeneca vaccine. All SII-made doses approved by the United Kingdom (UK) regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and administered in the UK were branded as the ’COVID-19 vaccine AstraZeneca’ which is now known commercially as ‘Vaxzevria’.
The government continues to liaise with counterparts in Italy and we are seeking Italian confirmation that they will recognise all AstraZeneca doses administered in the UK. We will ensure that Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office Travel Advice is kept up to date following any developments.
Asked by: Saqib Bhatti (Conservative - Meriden)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the report of the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review entitled First Do No Harm published in July 2020, what recent steps he has taken to progress implementation of the recommendation for a redress agency for people harmed by medicines and medical devices.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
The Government response to the Report of the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review was published on 21 July. The Government stated that it did not accept recommendation three to establish a redress agency as set out in the report. The Government and others have previously established redress schemes without the need for an additional agency.
Asked by: Saqib Bhatti (Conservative - Meriden)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the report of the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review report entitled First Do No Harm, published in July 2020, what recent steps he has taken to progress implementation of the recommendation that a register of the General Medical Council should be expanded to include a list of financial and non-pecuniary interests for all doctors, as well as doctors’ clinical interests and specialisms.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
The Government agrees that doctors’ financial and non-pecuniary interests should be available publicly. However, we do not think that the General Medical Council’s register is the best place to hold this information. We have engaged with healthcare professional regulators, to ensure it is a requirement that all registered healthcare professionals declare their interests and that this information is published locally by healthcare providers.
We are working with NHS England and NHS Improvement and the Independent Healthcare Providers Network to ensure this approach is consistently applied across the National Health Service and independent sector. We have worked with the Care Quality Commission to ensure that implementation is monitored. Our response has been informed by participants in a patient reference group and we have worked closely with the devolved administrations to ensure a consistent, United Kingdom-wide approach.
Asked by: Saqib Bhatti (Conservative - Meriden)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the report of the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review report entitled First Do No Harm, published in July 2020, what recent steps he has taken to progress implementation of recommendation seven of that report on establishing a central patient-identifiable database.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
NHS Digital has put together a programme of work to establish an information system to collect information on surgical implants and devices from healthcare providers in England, currently focussed on pelvic floor, or mesh and related procedures, as a priority.
This will be followed by the development of a United Kingdom-wide Medical Device Information System (MDIS) with regulations being made under section 19 of the Medicines and Medical Devices Act 2021. This system will mean that in future, subject to regulations, we can routinely collect medical device, procedure and outcome data from public and private provider organisations across the UK and data submitted directly from patients. Formal public consultation on the MDIS regulations will begin later this year with the aim of laying the regulations in due course.
Asked by: Saqib Bhatti (Conservative - Meriden)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the report of the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review report entitled First Do No Harm, published in July 2020, what recent steps he has taken to progress implementation of recommendation five of that report on the rollout of specialist centres.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
As of April 2021, eight National Health Service trusts are working with NHS England and NHS Improvement to provide specialised services for women with complications of mesh inserted for urinary incontinence and vaginal prolapse. We continue to consider specialist centres for those adversely affected by medicines taken during pregnancy. Further detail on this recommendation will be included in the full response to the report to be published this year.