Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they have any further plans to use public deliberation methods in healthcare beyond the 10 Year Health Plan.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
People and communities are at the heart of everything the Government and the National Health Service does. The Department’s and NHS England’s statutory guidance sets out how the health system at both a local and national level has a legal and ethical duty to involve the public in planning, proposals, and decisions regarding NHS services.
Public deliberations are one method that can be used to involve the public in decision making and are already in use, beyond the 10-Year Health Plan, in national health policy, for example our current national engagement on data in health and social care.
Public engagement will remain a core part of all elements of the healthcare system, and we encourage local and national teams to consider deliberative methods depending on the type of project and resources available. Any other future public engagement or deliberative events would be considered on an as-needs basis.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of England's international ranking in terms of access to new and effective treatments for NHS patients.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department has made no assessment of the number of medicines that are available for the treatment of National Health Service patients in England compared with other countries. Analysis from the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations’ Waiting to Access Innovative Therapies Indicators compares availability of new medicines across European countries. The availability in England of medicines that received a European Union marketing authorisation between 2019 and 2022 was slightly higher than the European average.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that people from under-represented communities are able to engage in the development of the NHS 10 Year Health Plan.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We want to ensure the 10-Year Health Plan reflects the diversity of the people who use the National Health Service every day, and it is important that everyone can have their say as we develop it.
The online Change NHS platform is available in multiple formats, with a range of ways to respond to help make it accessible. This includes easy-read, British sign-language formats, and language translations, with other formats available online and by request.
However, the online platform is one part of the wider engagement; we have run a series of in-person and online events in every region across England, and recruitment for these events has used recognised and best-in-class sampling methods to ensure people and staff from different backgrounds and experiences are included. Our in-depth deliberations with the public will consider their priorities and expectations on how we make the NHS fit for the future.
We are also working with partners who have an interest in health and care to hear from local communities, especially those whose voices often go unheard. We continue to monitor which groups we are hearing from and will tailor our approach to ensure we hear from under-represented groups.
We have also asked local health systems to plan engagement with their local communities, front line staff and partner organisations, taking care to ensure they cover their ‘Core20PLUS5’ groups and reach those who are under-represented. The NHS England Core20PLUS5 approach aims to inform action that targets the most deprived 20 per cent of the population and other inclusion health groups, with the aim of reducing health inequalities.
We have provided ‘workshop in a box’ materials to support local health systems and voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations to run workshops with their communities. These materials are also available in alternative formats, including easy-read and British sign-language formats. We have recently written to charities representing groups that are currently under-represented in the engagement exercise to ask them how we can help ensure that these voices are heard in the engagement exercise.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the adequacy of the support available to those on low incomes to access cancer treatments and appropriate care.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England and the integrated care boards are responsible for commissioning and ensuring the healthcare needs of local communities in England are met, including to those on low incomes to access cancer treatments and appropriate care.
The National Health Service in England runs schemes to provide financial assistance for travel to a hospital, or other NHS premises, for specialist NHS treatment or diagnostics tests, when referred by a doctor or other primary healthcare professional. This includes the NHS Healthcare Travel Costs Scheme (HTCS), which provides financial assistance to patients who do not have a medical need for transport, but who require assistance with the costs of travelling to receive certain NHS services. Patients who do not qualify for the HTCS and who are on a low income may be able to claim the costs from the Department for Work and Pensions through Universal Credit or Personal Independence Payment.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many patients self-fund access to ruxolitinib to treat myelofibrosis, which is available privately but not on the NHS.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommends ruxolitinib as an option for treating disease-related splenomegaly or symptoms in adults with primary myelofibrosis, also known as chronic idiopathic myelofibrosis, post polycythaemia vera myelofibrosis or post essential thrombocythaemia myelofibrosis, in people with intermediate-2 or high-risk disease. Ruxolitinib is available to National Health Service patients in line with NICE’s recommendations.
Information on the number of patients who self-fund ruxolitinib for myelofibrosis is not held centrally.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to increase mental health clinical staff within the NHS.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government recognises that more staff are needed. That is why, as part of our mission to build a National Health Service that is fit for the future, we will recruit an additional 8,500 mental health workers to cut waiting times and provide faster treatment. We recognise that bringing in the staff needed will take time and we are working with NHS England on options to deliver this expansion of the mental health workforce.
More broadly, we have launched a 10-Year Health Plan to reform the NHS. This plan will set out a bold agenda to deliver on the three big shifts needed to move healthcare from hospital to the community, analogue to digital, and sickness to prevention. A central part of this will be our workforce and how we ensure we train and provide the staff, technology, and infrastructure the NHS needs to care for patients across our communities.
In summer 2025, we will publish a refreshed Long Term Workforce Plan to deliver the transformed health service we will build over the next decade and treat patients on time again. We will ensure the NHS has the right people, in the right places, with the right skills to deliver the care patients need when they need it.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government when they will publish a timeframe for implementing The Hughes Report: Options for redress for those harmed by valproate and pelvic mesh, published on 7 February 2024.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is carefully considering the valuable work done by the Patient Safety Commissioner and the resulting Hughes Report. The report sets out options for redress for those harmed by valproate and pelvic mesh. The Government will be providing an update to the Patient Safety Commissioner’s Report at the earliest opportunity.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government when they plan to introduce and implement a redress scheme for sufferers of sodium valproate, as recommended in the The Hughes Report: Options for redress for those harmed by valproate and pelvic mesh, published on 7 February 2024.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is carefully considering the valuable work done by the Patient Safety Commissioner and the resulting Hughes Report. The report sets out options for redress for those harmed by valproate and pelvic mesh. The Government will be providing an update to the Patient Safety Commissioner’s Report at the earliest opportunity.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how they are monitoring the impact of the maternal respiratory syncytial virus vaccination programme on paediatric hospitalisations; and what steps they are taking to assess and improve the programme.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Through the Severe Acute Respiratory Infection Watch programme, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) undertakes surveillance of hospitalisations due to confirmed respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).
The UKHSA also undertakes monitoring and evaluation of immunisation programmes, including the effectiveness of vaccines in preventing hospital admissions. Such an analysis is being developed for the maternal vaccination programme for infant RSV prevention.
The UKHSA also provided analysis on RSV prevention considerations for very and extremely premature babies as part of the October 2024 meeting of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they will publish the latest data on uptake for the maternal respiratory syncytial virus vaccination programme, broken down by (1) region, and (2) integrated care system.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Coverage of the respiratory syncytial virus maternal vaccine programme will be measured in women who were at least 28 weeks gestation at the time of the start of the programme, and after they give birth. The first coverage data for this cohort will be published in January and will be broken down by region and integrated care system.