Asked by: Steve Brine (Conservative - Winchester)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of babies aged 0-3 months who developed group B Strep infection in 2019 were BAME.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
The data is not held in the format requested.
Asked by: Steve Brine (Conservative - Winchester)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress has been made on the Group B Streptococcus testing GBS3 trial; and when that trail is expecting to resume as covid-19 lockdown restrictions are eased.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, some aspects of the GBS3 trial were stopped temporarily, including the randomisation of sites to the different arms of the trial and recruitment of participants. However, the team continued with other research related tasks to ensure smooth site opening for the trial re-start.
Training, randomisation and opening of sites to the trial requires the full engagement of maternity and microbiology services. The GBS3 trial hopes to randomise the first sites in September and begin recruiting women early in 2021 but this is dependent on the status of services at the time. The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) has set out the Restart Framework to guide the restart of NIHR research activities which is available at the following link:
https://www.nihr.ac.uk/documents/restart-framework/24886
Asked by: Steve Brine (Conservative - Winchester)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans the Government has to support Strep B Awareness Month from 1 July to 31 July 2020.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
Public Health England’s national programme Start4Life provides advice and practical guidance to parents-to-be and families with babies and under-fives, to help them adopt healthy behaviours and build parenting skills. The Start4Life website can be accessed at the following link:
Start4Life has been supporting Group B streptococcus Awareness month by posting from social media channels throughout July. The posts have been designed to raise awareness of Group B Strep, testing in pregnancy and the warning signs to look for in newborn babies.
Channels include Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Start4Life has also been re-sharing posts made by Group B Strep Support, a United Kingdom charity.
Asked by: Steve Brine (Conservative - Winchester)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what his policy is on NHS trusts working with local manufacturers and businesses to secure supply of personal protective equipment; and whether trusts will be reimbursed for stock acquired locally.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
There are no restrictions in place on individual organisations sourcing personal protective equipment (PPE) from suppliers, providing the PPE is compliant with requirements.