Asked by: Stephen Gilbert (Liberal Democrat - St Austell and Newquay)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether it is his policy that specialised commissioning hubs will be able to deviate from national standards in their commissioning of specialised care.
Answered by Jane Ellison
NHS England has a number of direct commissioning responsibilities, including for a range of prescribed specialised services for which national commissioning policies and service specifications are developed and published.
The majority of other NHS services fall within the commissioning responsibilities of clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) and for these services it is for CCGs to determine commissioning policies and service requirements on a local basis.
It is important that the respective commissioning approaches fit together in a way that provides clinically and cost effective and cohesive care for patients and for that reason NHS England is supporting a range of collaborative commissioning approaches between its specialised commissioning teams, clinical advisors and CCGs.
National service specifications and clinical commissioning policies will still apply for those specialised services that will be collaboratively commissioned with CCGs.
Asked by: Stephen Gilbert (Liberal Democrat - St Austell and Newquay)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent discussions officials in his Department have had with NHS England on the fast track interim policy agreed by NHS England during the appraisal of sofosbuvir by the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence.
Answered by George Freeman
NHS England has advised that it is currently developing interim proposals to allow selected patients with cirrhosis to have early access to some of the new drugs that are expected to be available to treat hepatitis C later in 2015. NHS England aims to have these interim policies in place by the first half of 2015.
These will provide access to treatment in advance of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s final technology appraisal guidance on these products which is expected to be published shortly.
Asked by: Stephen Gilbert (Liberal Democrat - St Austell and Newquay)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what plans NHS England has to support patients with cirrhosis to access treatment for hepatitis C after the waiver for the implementation period of National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidance for the medicine sofosbuvir.
Answered by George Freeman
NHS England has advised that it is currently developing interim proposals to allow selected patients with cirrhosis to have early access to some of the new drugs that are expected to be available to treat hepatitis C later in 2015. NHS England aims to have these interim policies in place by the first half of 2015.
These will provide access to treatment in advance of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s final technology appraisal guidance on these products which is expected to be published shortly.
Asked by: Stephen Gilbert (Liberal Democrat - St Austell and Newquay)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 3 November 2014 to Question 212409, whether any clinical policies developed in the last three years have not followed this process.
Answered by Jane Ellison
Since NHS England took on responsibility for specialised commissioning in April 2013, the specialised services Clinical Reference Groups have developed all clinical policies for specialised services. These clinical policies have all passed through the NHS England governance committees process, which is outlined in the answer I gave to the hon. Member on 3 November 2014 to Question 212409.
Asked by: Stephen Gilbert (Liberal Democrat - St Austell and Newquay)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the (a) process and (b) timelines followed by the NHS to determine a specialised clinical commissioning policy are; and what the roles and responsibilities are of the NHS committees involved.
Answered by Jane Ellison
Clinical policies are developed by the appropriate service specific clinical reference group and reviewed by the Clinical Prioritisation Advisory Group (CPAG). CPAG then makes a recommendation whether to commission the service or treatment in question. CPAG recommendations are ratified by the Specialised Commissioning Oversight Group (SCOG).
The length of time to produce a clinical commissioning policy is variable depending on the complexity of the subject area. The timeline is typically between 6-9 months but can be shorter.
SCOG has operational oversight of specialised commissioning and has delegated authority to make decisions on the recommendations made by CPAG, which provides advice to NHS England about any decision-making that defines access to clinical services. The Directly Commissioned Services Committee, a sub-committee of the NHS England Board, oversees the delivery of directly commissioned services within the overall strategy set by NHS England. The SCOG reports to this committee.
Asked by: Stephen Gilbert (Liberal Democrat - St Austell and Newquay)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department has taken to act on the recommendations made by the Health and Care Professions Council to extend statutory regulation to new groups of healthcare professionals.
Answered by Dan Poulter
The Health and Care Professions Council made 11 recommendations for professional groups to be brought within the framework for statutory regulation.
Operating Department Practitioners have been regulated. The Modernising Scientific Careers programme provides healthcare scientists in scope of the recommendations with standardised and accredited education and training that enables formalised regulation, whether voluntary or statutory.
Accredited voluntary registration by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA) provides an appropriate and proportionate response to risks presented by many groups to patient safety. It is open to groups whose recommendations have not been progressed to applying to the PSA.