Asked by: Tom Tugendhat (Conservative - Tonbridge)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an assessment of the reasons people with brain cancer are seeking treatment outside the UK, particularly in Germany, including the trend in the level of such treatments.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Ensuring patients have access to the latest and most effective treatment options is a top priority for the Government.
That is why we are committed to supporting an innovative clinical research ecosystem in the United Kingdom so that patients in this country can be among the first to benefit as we make the National Health Service fit for the future.
The Government is supportive of Scott Arthur’s Private Members Bill on rare cancers, which will make it easier for clinical trials into rare cancers, such as brain cancers, to take place in England by ensuring the patient population can be easily contacted by researchers. This will ensure that the NHS will remain at the forefront of medical innovation and is able to provide patients with the newest, most effective treatment options, and ultimately boost survival rates.
Asked by: Tom Tugendhat (Conservative - Tonbridge)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what funding provisions are being put in place for hospice care, in the context of rising costs of living and changing needs of the staff.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Palliative care services are included in the list of services an integrated care board (ICB) must commission. This promotes a more consistent national approach and supports commissioners in prioritising palliative care and end of life care. To support ICBs in this duty, NHS England has published statutory guidance and service specifications.
We understand the financial pressures faced by the hospice sector which is why we are supporting eligible adult, and children and young people’s hospices in England with a £100 million capital funding boost to ensure they have the best physical environment for care.
Additionally, we are also providing £26 million of revenue funding for children and young people’s hospices for 2025/26 and have also recently confirmed the continuation of this vital funding of at least £26 million, as it will be adjusted for inflation, each year from 2026/27 to 2028/29 inclusive. This amounts to approximately £80 million over the next three years.
On hospice staff-related costs specifically, independent organisations, such as charities and social enterprises, are free to develop and adapt their own terms and conditions of employment, including pay scales. It is for them to determine what is affordable within the financial model they operate.
In the long term, through our Modern Service Framework (MSF), we hope that, by supporting ICBs to commission more strategically, we can move away from grant and block contract models. This would be more sustainable and help hospices plan ahead.
I refer the Rt Hon. Member to the Written Ministerial Statement HCWS1087 I gave to the House.
Asked by: Tom Tugendhat (Conservative - Tonbridge)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has had discussions with NICE on the potential merits of innovative brain cancer treatments in Germany that are not currently available on the NHS.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
My Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, has had no discussions with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) on the potential merits of innovative brain cancer treatments in Germany that are not currently available on the National Health Service.
In England, NICE makes recommendations for the NHS on whether new licensed medicines should be routinely funded by the NHS based on an assessment of clinical and cost effectiveness. The NHS is legally required to fund NICE recommended medicines, normally within three months of final guidance, and cancer medicines are eligible for funding from the point of a positive draft NICE recommendation. NICE aims wherever possible to issue guidance on new medicines close to the time of licensing to ensure that patients are able to benefit from rapid access to clinically and cost effective new medicines.
Asked by: Tom Tugendhat (Conservative - Tonbridge)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what guidance his Department is giving to Kent and Medway Clinical Commissioning Group to ensure sufficient covid-19 vaccine centres are located around the county to meet demand and without overcrowding.
Answered by Maggie Throup
Guidance was supplied to all clinical commissioning groups (CCG), including Kent and Medway CCG, on 13 December in 2021 in response to the national expansion of the COVID-19 booster programme. The guidance is available at the following link:
This guidance highlighted the priority for all CCGs to ensure additional capacity to maximise throughput and efficiency at existing sites, opening additional vaccination sites and extending opening times. NHS England and NHS Improvement provided 71 vaccination sites in Kent and Medway in mid-December 2021. A static vaccination site opened in Sovereign Way Car Park, Tonbridge from 1 December 2021 and a second mobile trailer for the Bat and Ball area in Sevenoaks opened in early February 2022. Community pharmacy provision was increased by 50% in Kent and Medway.
As of 13 February 2022, over 1.4 million people in Kent and Medway CCG have received their first dose, over 1.2 million people have received their second dose, and over one million people aged 18 years old and over have received either their booster, third primary dose or fourth dose as a booster.
Asked by: Tom Tugendhat (Conservative - Tonbridge)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an announcement on the covid-19 vaccine priority applicable to students planning to study abroad in the 2021-22 academic year; and if he will make it his policy that those students will be eligible to receive both doses of that vaccine prior to the start of that academic year.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
There are no plans to do so.
On 13 April, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) published their final advice on phase two of the COVID-19 vaccination programme, which was to continue with an age-based programme. Students planning to study abroad in the 2021-22 academic year will receive their vaccinations in line with that advice when they become eligible because of their age, individual clinical risk factors, or because they are students who work as frontline health or social care workers or are unpaid carers. In line with other adults in the United Kingdom, they can expect to receive their first dose by the end of July 2021 and their second dose within 12 weeks of their first.
Asked by: Tom Tugendhat (Conservative - Tonbridge)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what financial support will be provided to venues currently operating as covid-19 vaccination sites to compensate such venues for loss of income when their normal bookings would be able to be resumed under the Government’s roadmap for easing covid-19 restrictions.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
Non-National Health Service vaccination sites have been secured under formal lease or licence where required. As payment of rental and other costs for the use of these sites has been agreed in each case, there is no expectation of payment for loss of income.