Asked by: Stephen McPartland (Conservative - Stevenage)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of potential savings to the NHS budget of prescribing the most cost-effective inhaler medication to each NHS patient.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
No such estimate has been made. We expect clinicians to consider the cost of a medicine in making prescribing decisions but recognise that there may be valid reasons why the prescribing of a higher cost product may sometimes be appropriate to meet the clinical needs of individual patients. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence supports clinically and cost effective prescribing through the production of evidence-based guidance for healthcare professionals.
Asked by: Stephen McPartland (Conservative - Stevenage)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if his Department will introduce the mandatory collection of data relating to the number of people diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis by a multi-disciplinary team; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by David Mowat
There are no plans to introduce the mandatory collection of data relating to the number of people diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) by a multi-disciplinary team.
Although data is collected for patients attending specialised respiratory services, NHS England does not collect data specifically on patients with IPF. The service specification covers a broader range of respiratory diseases and does not include IPF as a data requirement.
NHS England is able to quantify the number of patients who qualify and receive high cost drugs for IPF. In addition, the British Thoracic Society holds a voluntary register of IPF cases.
Asked by: Stephen McPartland (Conservative - Stevenage)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment his Department has made of the number of patients diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis by a multidisciplinary team in each of the last five years; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by David Mowat
No assessment has been made of the number of patients diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis by a multidisciplinary team in each of the last five years. This information is not held in the format requested.
Asked by: Stephen McPartland (Conservative - Stevenage)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the average cost of providing care to a person with (a) decompensated cirrhosis and (b) hepatocellular carcinoma has been in the last 12 months for which figures are available.
Answered by David Mowat
The information is not available in the format requested. Such information as is available is shown in the table below and is from reference costs, which are the average unit cost to National Health Service trusts and foundation trusts of providing defined services in a given financial year. Reference costs are published annually, with most recently available data being for 2014-15.
Reference costs for acute care are collected by healthcare resource group (HRG), which are standard groupings of clinically similar treatments that consume similar levels of healthcare resource. HRGs are organised by chapters and sub-chapters, representing different body systems, and HRG sub-chapters GC and PG describe hepatobiliary and pancreatic system disorders for adults and children respectively. The average costs in the following table will therefore include the costs to NHS hospitals of treating decompensated cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma, as well as the costs of other related disorders.
These costs do not include high cost drugs, or treatment in outpatient or other settings outside of hospital. They reflect the costs of a single episode of care under one consultant for a patient admitted to hospital for elective and non-elective treatment. Patients admitted to hospital may have multiple episodes of care and each one of these episodes will be recorded separately.
Table: Average cost to NHS hospitals of treating hepatobiliary and pancreatic system disorders, 2014-15
| Average cost per unit of activity (£) |
Malignant, Hepatobiliary or Pancreatic Disorders | 1,984 |
Non-Malignant, Hepatobiliary or Pancreatic Disorders | 1,751 |
Paediatric, Hepatobiliary or Pancreatic Disorders | 2,344 |
Source: Reference costs, Department of Health
Notes:
GC12C Malignant, Hepatobiliary or Pancreatic Disorders, with Multiple Interventions
GC12D Malignant, Hepatobiliary or Pancreatic Disorders, with Single Intervention, with CC Score 5+
GC12E Malignant, Hepatobiliary or Pancreatic Disorders, with Single Intervention, with CC Score 2-4
GC12F Malignant, Hepatobiliary or Pancreatic Disorders, with Single Intervention, with CC Score 0-1
GC12G Malignant, Hepatobiliary or Pancreatic Disorders, without Interventions, with CC Score 6+
GC12H Malignant, Hepatobiliary or Pancreatic Disorders, without Interventions, with CC Score 3-5
GC12J Malignant, Hepatobiliary or Pancreatic Disorders, without Interventions, with CC Score 1-2
GC12K Malignant, Hepatobiliary or Pancreatic Disorders, without Interventions, with CC Score 0
GC17A Non-Malignant, Hepatobiliary or Pancreatic Disorders, with Multiple Interventions, with CC Score 9+
GC17B Non-Malignant, Hepatobiliary or Pancreatic Disorders, with Multiple Interventions, with CC Score 4-8
GC17C Non-Malignant, Hepatobiliary or Pancreatic Disorders, with Multiple Interventions, with CC Score 0-3
GC17D Non-Malignant, Hepatobiliary or Pancreatic Disorders, with Single Intervention, with CC Score 9+
GC17E Non-Malignant, Hepatobiliary or Pancreatic Disorders, with Single Intervention, with CC Score 4-8
GC17F Non-Malignant, Hepatobiliary or Pancreatic Disorders, with Single Intervention, with CC Score 0-3
GC17G Non-Malignant, Hepatobiliary or Pancreatic Disorders, without Interventions, with CC Score 8+
GC17H Non-Malignant, Hepatobiliary or Pancreatic Disorders, without Interventions, with CC Score 5-7
GC17J Non-Malignant, Hepatobiliary or Pancreatic Disorders, without Interventions, with CC Score 2-4
GC17K Non-Malignant, Hepatobiliary or Pancreatic Disorders, without Interventions, with CC Score 0-1
PG71A Paediatric, Hepatobiliary or Pancreatic Disorders, with CC Score 2+
PG71B Paediatric, Hepatobiliary or Pancreatic Disorders, with CC Score 1
PG71C Paediatric, Hepatobiliary or Pancreatic Disorders, with CC Score 0
Asked by: Stephen McPartland (Conservative - Stevenage)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what discussions officials of his Department have had with their counterparts in (a) Wales on the Welsh Liver Disease Delivery Plan and (b) Scotland on the Sexual Health and Blood Borne Virus Framework.
Answered by David Mowat
There have been no discussions with counterparts in Wales on the Welsh Liver Disease Delivery Plan or Scotland on the Sexual Health and Blood Borne Virus Framework.
Public Health England contributes to the Lancet Commission on Liver Disease and the Lancet Commission have also reviewed the Welsh Liver Disease Delivery Plan.
Asked by: Stephen McPartland (Conservative - Stevenage)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the average cost of a liver transplant was in the last year.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
NHS England advises that the overall cost of operations for 2015-16 is currently being finalised. However, based on 2014-15 financial information, the average cost per operation in that year was £67,131.
These figures are for the United Kingdom as liver transplantation is a service that NHS England commissions on behalf of England and the three devolved nations.
Asked by: Stephen McPartland (Conservative - Stevenage)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of trends in the number of patients with severe asthma being referred to a specialist by their GP over the last three years.
Answered by Jane Ellison
No such assessment has been made.
Asked by: Stephen McPartland (Conservative - Stevenage)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps are being taken to ensure that patients with asthma are referred for specialist treatment after two courses of oral corticosteroids or 12 courses of short-acting beta-agonists.
Answered by Jane Ellison
Software used in general practice will help identify those patients who might benefit from referral to a specialist service. However, it is for clinicians, using their clinical judgement, to decide when it is appropriate to refer individual patients for specialist treatment. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence is currently developing a new guideline on asthma management which is expected to be published in June 2017.
Asked by: Stephen McPartland (Conservative - Stevenage)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will make it his policy for patients to be able to choose a location convenient to them for receiving radiotherapy treatment; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Jane Ellison
It is a National Cancer Peer Review measure that all cancer patients are managed by a cancer-type specific multi-disciplinary team (MDT). This MDT agrees, oversees and co-ordinates the full range of care the patient receives, and considers the importance of ensuring that any cancer treatment is viewed as part of each patient’s whole cancer pathway, including clinical and supportive care. In certain circumstances, a patient may choose to have some aspects of their care delivered by a different team at a different hospital, particularly if they wish to stay with family or friends in a different part of the country to where they live whilst they receive their radiotherapy treatment. In these circumstances, the patient’s care is referred from the local MDT to the chosen MDT during this period.
Asked by: Stephen McPartland (Conservative - Stevenage)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he plans to take to ensure that clinical commissioning groups implement the NICE guideline on diagnosis of food allergy in children and young people in a primary care setting.
Answered by Jane Ellison
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) clinical guideline, ‘Food allergy in children and young people’, published in 2011, sets out best practice on the care treatment and support for children and young people with food allergy. NICE clinical guidelines are designed to support health care professionals in their work, and commissioners should consider them when developing local services, but they do not replace the knowledge, skills and experience of clinicians in deciding how best to manage patients.
Immunotherapy for the long-term management of allergic disease may be provided as part of the NHS England’s nationally commissioned specialised allergy service. NHS England has set out what these providers must have in place to offer high quality specialised allergy care, ensuring equity of access to patients wherever they live. Around 0.1% of people with allergies in the United Kingdom, some 20,000 people, are likely to require referral to a specialist centre. NHS England’s allergy service specification, which provides more information about specialised allergy services, can be viewed at the following link:
www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/b09-spec-allergy.pdf