Asked by: Vince Cable (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham)
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 help ensure the supply of (a) olanzapine and (b) quetiapine meets demand for those drugs.
Answered by Steve Brine
Departmental officials are aware that there were some short term supply issues which affected the availability of olanzapine and quetiapine tablets in May/June 2017.
A major generic supplier of olanzapine tablets experienced some short term manufacturing issues which consequently meant other suppliers experienced an increase in demand at short notice, which they could not readily meet. However, the manufacturing issues were resolved quickly and the overall supply of olanzapine tablets improved within a few weeks.
In terms of quetiapine supply issues, this was caused by a major generic supplier, with large market shares of quetiapine tablets, discontinuing this product range without notifying the Department. This led to significant market disruption as other suppliers experienced a large increase in demand at short notice. However, suppliers were able to bring in additional supplies to cope with the extra demand and supplies improved by July 2017.
During this period, Departmental officials were in regular contact with all United Kingdom licensed suppliers of both quetiapine and olanzapine and worked closely with them to discuss their supply position and to ensure sufficient suppliers remained available to meet UK requirements.
We are not aware of any current supply issues affecting olanzapine and quetiapine and several suppliers have confirmed that supplies are readily available.
Asked by: Vince Cable (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what representations his Department has made to manufacturers of (a) olanzapine and (b) quetiapine on the supply of those drugs since 2017.
Answered by Steve Brine
Departmental officials are aware that there were some short term supply issues which affected the availability of olanzapine and quetiapine tablets in May/June 2017.
A major generic supplier of olanzapine tablets experienced some short term manufacturing issues which consequently meant other suppliers experienced an increase in demand at short notice, which they could not readily meet. However, the manufacturing issues were resolved quickly and the overall supply of olanzapine tablets improved within a few weeks.
In terms of quetiapine supply issues, this was caused by a major generic supplier, with large market shares of quetiapine tablets, discontinuing this product range without notifying the Department. This led to significant market disruption as other suppliers experienced a large increase in demand at short notice. However, suppliers were able to bring in additional supplies to cope with the extra demand and supplies improved by July 2017.
During this period, Departmental officials were in regular contact with all United Kingdom licensed suppliers of both quetiapine and olanzapine and worked closely with them to discuss their supply position and to ensure sufficient suppliers remained available to meet UK requirements.
We are not aware of any current supply issues affecting olanzapine and quetiapine and several suppliers have confirmed that supplies are readily available.
Asked by: Vince Cable (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what representations his Department has received on the extent to which (a) olanzapine and (b) quetiapine have not been prescribed on account of limitations on the availability of those drugs over the last three years; and what information his Department holds on the number of people who were prescribed (a) olanzapine and (b) quetiapine but were not able to receive those drugs due to limited availability in (i) 2016, (ii) 2017 and (iii) 2018 to date.
Answered by Steve Brine
A search of the Department’s Ministerial correspondence database has identified one item of correspondence received in 2017 about the availability of olanzapine and quetiapine. This figure represents correspondence received by the Department’s Ministerial correspondence unit only. We are not aware of any further representations.
We do not hold any information on items prescribed but not dispensed.
Asked by: Vince Cable (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with which manufacturers of (a) olanzapine and (b) quetiapine his Department has had discussions since 2017.
Answered by Steve Brine
Departmental officials are aware that there were some short term supply issues which affected the availability of olanzapine and quetiapine tablets in May/June 2017.
A major generic supplier of olanzapine tablets experienced some short term manufacturing issues which consequently meant other suppliers experienced an increase in demand at short notice, which they could not readily meet. However, the manufacturing issues were resolved quickly and the overall supply of olanzapine tablets improved within a few weeks.
In terms of quetiapine supply issues, this was caused by a major generic supplier, with large market shares of quetiapine tablets, discontinuing this product range without notifying the Department. This led to significant market disruption as other suppliers experienced a large increase in demand at short notice. However, suppliers were able to bring in additional supplies to cope with the extra demand and supplies improved by July 2017.
During this period, Departmental officials were in regular contact with all United Kingdom licensed suppliers of both quetiapine and olanzapine and worked closely with them to discuss their supply position and to ensure sufficient suppliers remained available to meet UK requirements.
We are not aware of any current supply issues affecting olanzapine and quetiapine and several suppliers have confirmed that supplies are readily available.
Asked by: Vince Cable (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many prescriptions for dalteparin have been issued in (a) primary and (b) secondary care in each of the last three years.
Answered by Steve Brine
The information is not available in the requested format. We do not hold data for items dispensed in secondary care. Information for items dispensed in primary care is shown in the following table.
Number of prescription items of dalteparin sodium written in the United Kingdom and dispensed in the community in England, 2015 to 2017.
Year | Total |
2015 | 155,955 |
2016 | 146,816 |
2017 | 139,993 |
Source: Prescription Cost Analysis
Asked by: Vince Cable (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham)
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 the pre-authorisation of parental orders to enable legal parenthood to be conferred on surrogate parents at the point a child is born.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
The Government has supported a review of all surrogacy legislation by the Law Commission. Issues around the process and rules of applying for parental orders will be considered as part of the review.
Asked by: Vince Cable (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the (a) equity and (b) efficacy of existing time limits in relation to parental orders for surrogate parenthood.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
The Government has supported a review of all surrogacy legislation by the Law Commission. Issues around the process and rules of applying for parental orders will be considered as part of the review.
Asked by: Vince Cable (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what his Department's policy is on prescriptions for dalteparin within primary care.
Answered by Steve Brine
The Department does not have a specific policy on the prescribing of dalteparin. Clinical commissioning groups hold the budget for primary care prescribing. It is their responsibility to give prescribing guidance to their member general practitioner practices, taking into account best practice, national guidance and the needs of their local populations.
Asked by: Vince Cable (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the number of referrals to hospital each year for the purpose of obtaining dalteparin on repeat prescription.
Answered by Steve Brine
The Department has made no such estimate.
Asked by: Vince Cable (Liberal Democrat - Twickenham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of individuals detained in hospital under the Mental Health Act identify as BAME.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
The proportion of individuals detained in hospital under the Mental Health Act identifying as Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) during 2016-17 was 24.6%. Further information is given in the following table.
This is based on information collected as part of the Mental Health Services Dataset (MHSDS). The data used to produce this analysis are known to be incomplete at national level. Further details are available in the Mental Health Act Statistics, Annual Figures: 2016-17 publication, which is available at the following link:
The number of people detained under the Mental Health Act, by ethnicity, 2016/17, England
| Count | Proportion | Base Population |
All people detained | 37,367 | - | 55,268,067 |
All people detained, where ethnicity was recorded | 34,866 | 100% | 53,012,456 |
White | 26,276 | 75.4% | 45,281,142 |
BAME | 8,590 | 24.6% | 7,731,314 |
Mixed | 990 | 2.8% | 1,192,879 |
Asian | 2,525 | 7.2% | 3,763,900 |
Black | 3,795 | 10.9% | 1,846,614 |
Other | 1,280 | 3.7% | 927,921 |
|
|
|
|
Not Known | 2,501 | - | - |
Source: MHSDS
Notes:
ONS Census 2011 - table reference: DC2101EW - Ethnic group by sex by age, QS211EW - Ethnic group (detailed).Records where ethnicity was not recorded, not stated or not known have been excluded from the total.
Data provided on the Mental Health Act from the MHSDS is likely to be an undercount. This is due to coverage issues meaning the data for 2016/17 are incomplete at England level. Further information about the Data Quality of the Mental Health Act data is available in the Background Data Quality report from the Mental Health Act Statistics 2016/17 publication:
http://digital.nhs.uk/pubs/mha1617