Written Statements

Thursday 23rd May 2024 Written Statements

Thursday 23 May 2024

Bluetongue Virus

Thursday 23rd May 2024 Written Statements

[The Minister for Food, Farming and Fisheries (Sir Mark Spencer)]

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is publishing its framework for managing an outbreak of bluetongue virus serotype 3 in England.

Bluetongue is a disease affecting ruminants (such as cattle, sheep and deer) and camelids (such as llamas and alpacas) and is spread primarily by biting midges. It does not affect people or food safety.

BTV-3 first appeared in the Netherlands in September last year. We immediately stopped imports of susceptible species and related products from the affected region and required all imports from neighbouring regions to be tested for bluetongue to prevent the potential import of disease, and we continue to do this.

However, our proximity to the continent and the prevalence of disease puts us at risk of wind-borne incursion of infected biting midges, regardless of our stringent border controls. We detected our first case of BTV-3 in November 2023 as part of our annual bluetongue surveillance programme in Kent, then later in Norfolk.

We moved rapidly to contain disease by establishing temporary control zones in both locations, humanely culling animals that presented a risk of onwards transmission, and undertaking extensive testing and surveillance to understand prevalence and spread. Some 47,425 tests were undertaken, identifying 126 infected animals across 73 premises in four counties. Following this surveillance, there have been no further detections of BTV-3 and there are no current bluetongue temporary control zones in force.

While this represents a very low prevalence, we must not be complacent about the challenge this could pose to our livestock sector. Our latest risk assessment indicates that there is a high likelihood of a new introduction of bluetongue into livestock in Great Britain from wind-borne biting midges from northern Europe this year.

This disease control framework for bluetongue virus serotype 3 in England in 2024, published today by the Department, looks to mitigate the impacts of such an incursion on our vitally important livestock and farming sectors.

Although animal health and disease control are devolved matters, disease does not respect boundaries and the Government and devolved Administrations work closely through the UK-wide animal diseases policy group to consider and plan for animal disease outbreaks, and BTV-3 is no exception. Close working on the response to last year’s incursion and planning for 2024 has taken place, and continues to take place, to ensure consistency of approach as far as possible. This framework recognises that England’s proximity to disease on the continent confers a likely additional responsibility on the Department to stem spread to other parts of the United Kingdom. The Government will work closely with the devolved Administrations to support the objectives of the Great Britain bluetongue disease control strategy https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/bluetongue-gb-disease-control-strategy and the UK contingency plan for exotic notifiable diseases of animals https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/great-britain-and-northern-ireland-contingency-plan-for-exotic-notifiable-diseases-of-animals.

The framework has been developed on the back of extensive analysis of the potential trajectory of disease and close engagement with sector representatives on our livestock core group, as well as roundtables held with a wide range of sector groups. It provides an overarching guide to how any bluetongue outbreak will be managed so that livestock keepers and other potentially affected businesses can understand the possible effects for them individually and collectively. We want to ensure that our control strategy is proportionate. We will continue to work with industry to keep it briefed on the latest disease and veterinary assessments.

A safe and effective vaccine will be the best long-term protection against BTV-3. The Department and the Veterinary Medicines Directorate began conversations with manufacturers back in February and several vaccines are in development. Some have in recent weeks been expedited for emergency use on the continent. This is not the approach that the Department has settled with industry.

It is clear that confidence in the safety and efficacy of any vaccine is of paramount importance, not only for encouraging good take-up among keepers, but in protecting exports of beef, lamb and dairy products. The vaccine approved by the Dutch authorities has emergency use approval but not market authorisation. Vaccines without market authorisation can have potentially negative implications for trade and may impact our strong export market for meat and dairy products.

That is why we continue to actively engage with vaccine manufacturers on the development of an authorised BTV-3 vaccine and published a prior information note on 10 May to identify further potential suppliers. We are also actively monitoring vaccine data from EU countries and engaging with their Governments to learn from their experiences.

While this essential due diligence is undertaken, aside from some potential small-scale culling at the outset to prevent disease becoming established, disease control efforts primarily centre on movement controls of susceptible livestock and germinal products. These have the effect of delaying spread but cannot hold back disease indefinitely or eradicate it—as circulation becomes established in biting midge populations and their range expands over time, movement controls lose their effectiveness and will need to be modified or withdrawn. The plan sets out some of the steps that will be considered in tightening or lifting movement controls over time.

The framework also recognises the impact that movement controls can have on animal keepers and other affected businesses. It seeks to minimise burdens as far as practically possible, while maintaining the integrity of measures to mitigate risk of spread of this exotic disease. This includes, for example, a new online system that keepers can use to apply to the Animal and Plant Health Agency for licences to move their animals from disease control zones in the event of an outbreak.

Supporting farmers to take preventative action, the Government will offer free bluetongue tests to keepers in the high-risk south-east and eastern counties, from Norfolk down to East Sussex, who are planning to move animals out of these counties. This testing will be available as soon as the risk increases but before the first detection of disease. Keepers will be able to check on the APHA bluetongue interactive map if they are in an eligible area. We are introducing the scheme to give animal keepers the tools to manage the risk of disease spread outside of the higher-risk counties during the period before disease is confirmed.

All testing will be carried out at the UK’s bluetongue virus national reference laboratory at the Pirbright Institute, supported by our official laboratory network, where needed, to ensure sufficient capacity, and this scheme will go live when the risk level changes—this is likely to be in the coming weeks when temperature increases, wind patterns from the continent and prevalence of disease there coalesce to make incursion and spread likely.

We recognise how important it is that farming businesses across the country have access to the best possible advice to help them understand the disease, prepare and access the support that we are putting in place. That is why we have had and will continue our programme of engagement with industry, to ensure that they have all the information that they need and we understand the key issues they are facing. This is alongside our ongoing preparedness work, regular meetings with key stakeholders and webinars for vets and show organisers. We will continue to strengthen and expand our guidance to farmers, livestock keepers, show organisers, importers, exporters and associated industries—available via www.gov.uk/bluetongue —as the situation develops.

Finally, vigilance for bluetongue clinical signs in susceptible animals is key. We encourage keepers to monitor animals frequently, getting in touch with APHA immediately if they have any suspicions of this notifiable disease.

[HCWS500]

Contingencies Fund Advance

Thursday 23rd May 2024 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maria Caulfield)]

I hereby give notice of the Department of Health and Social Care’s intention to seek a Contingencies Fund advance to make the recently announced interim infected blood payments.

The Minister for the Cabinet Office was absolutely clear in his announcement on 21 May that additional interim payments of £210,000 will be delivered within 90 days, starting in summer, to all UK living infected beneficiaries of the UK infected blood support schemes.

The Department of Health and Social Care’s capital annually managed expenditure ambit does not provide cover for compensation payments already approved by Parliament through legislation. While this will be received through the main estimate, this advance will enable interim payments to be made ahead of Parliament formally approving the ambit and the associated expenditure through an estimate, in line with the Government’s commitment.

Parliamentary approval for additional capital of £837,000,000 for this new expenditure will be sought in a main estimate for the Department of Health and Social Care. Pending that approval, urgent expenditure estimated at £837,000,000 will be met by repayable cash advances from the Contingencies Fund.

[HCWS498]

Dentistry

Thursday 23rd May 2024 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Dame Andrea Leadsom)]

On 7 February 2024 the Government published our report, “Faster, simpler and fairer: our plan to recover and reform NHS dentistry”, to accelerate the recovery of NHS dentistry from the covid-19 pandemic. The plan will fund up to 2.5 million additional appointments, or more than 1.5 million additional courses of dental treatment and is already delivering, with over 500 more dental practices showing themselves as open to new patients as of 9 May. Our commitment is to improve access to NHS dental care so that those who need to see a dentist are able to, especially in under-served parts of the country.

A key priority for this Government is to grow capacity within dentistry so that there are more NHS dentists delivering care to patients. The NHS long-term workforce plan sets an ambition to increase dentistry places by 40%. This is the biggest numerical expansion of NHS training places in the history of the NHS and will mean that by 2031 we are training 1,100 dentists each year.

However, training more dentists is not the sole solution to current workforce challenges in NHS dentistry. We need dentists to do more NHS work alongside, or instead of, their private work.

More than 35,000 dentists are registered with the General Dental Council in England. However, only 24,151 dentists delivered at least some NHS activity in England in 2022 to 2023. This means that nearly one third of registered dentists are not contributing to NHS dentistry and may be exclusively working in private practice. Furthermore, data published today by the NHS Business Services Authority shows that of those that are delivering NHS dental activity, some dentists are making only a token commitment to NHS dentistry.

The Government estimate that training an individual dentist from the beginning of dental school through to graduation can cost up to approximately £292,000, of which costs in the region of £200,000 are not repayable by the student. We believe it is right and fair to seek better value for the significant investment that the taxpayer makes in the education and training of the dental workforce, and for graduate dentists to invest their skills and expertise in the NHS for the benefit of patients. This NHS experience will be of great benefit to them throughout their practice, as well as enabling better access for patients.

That is why we are today publishing a consultation on introducing a “tie-in” for graduate dentists. The introduction of a minimum NHS service requirement, or “tie-in”, would aim to ensure that newly qualified dentists spend at least some of their time delivering NHS dental care in the years following the completion of training. This may include working in a “high street” primary care dental practice, secondary care, community dentistry or dental public health.

The consultation will seek views on two main principles:

Newly qualified dentists should commit to delivering at least a minimum amount of NHS dental care, for a minimum number of years after graduating.

Newly qualified dentists should repay some of the public funding invested in their education and training if they do not deliver a minimum amount of NHS dental care.

The morale and wellbeing of our highly skilled and hard-working dental workforce is of utmost priority. I want to thank the many hard-working dentists for all their efforts as we have seen real improvements over the past year. We want to make NHS work more attractive to ensure NHS dentists are incentivised to deliver NHS care. As part of this, we have already announced a package of reforms to improve patient access and provide fairer remuneration for dentists. We are also supporting our excellent dental staff to work at the top of their training, and encouraging more hard-working dentists to those areas of England that are currently under-served. This is accompanied by detailed policy work on further reforms to the 2006 dental contract, in discussion with the profession, to properly reflect the care needed by different patients and more fairly remunerate practices. We want the outcome of this work to be better for patients and better for the workforce.

The publication of this consultation marks an important step in the delivery of both our plan to recover and reform NHS dentistry and the NHS long term workforce plan. We aim to make dental services faster, simpler and fairer for patients and the dedicated dentistry workforce. I would encourage all those with an interest in the policy proposal, whether professionals, organisations or members of the public, to share their views and to shape our approach.

[HCWS499]