Asked by: Lord Mackinlay of Richborough (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to support individuals with limb loss to use the healthcare system by innovation in assistive technologies.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Appointments for prosthetics services are offered over a range of media, including via video and telephone. All patients, including individuals with limb loss, can access environmental controls if they meet the criteria as set out within the service specifications Environmental Control Equipment for Patients with Complex Disability (All Ages) and Complex Disability Equipment – Prosthetic Specialised Services For People Of All Ages With Limb Loss, copies of which are attached.
NHS England’s Clinical Priorities Advisory Group has approved a new service specification titled Prosthetic Specialised Services For People Of All Ages With Limb Loss, due for publication in May 2025. This will be implemented by all 35 specialist centres providing prosthetics care. It will improve outcomes for those with limb loss by offering personalised care and enabling patient choice. It also includes metrics which can be used to monitor access times and the quality of care.
NHS England is also reviewing the Clinical Commissioning Policy relating to multi-grip hand and upper limb prosthesis. To inform this review, an audit exploring data relating to the uptake and the latest clinical outcomes is underway, with results expected in Summer 2025. Alongside this, NHS England is commissioning a horizon scan of the latest prosthesis innovations.
The Department will continue to encourage greater innovation in the health sector to help support the three big shifts in healthcare, from hospitals to communities, from analogue to digital, and from treatment to prevention, which are set out as part of the Government’s Health Mission.
The upcoming Life Sciences Sector Plan, as part of the United Kingdom’s industrial strategy, and the 10-Year Health Plan present significant opportunities to enable patients to benefit from the strengthening of the UK’s life sciences sector, ensuring that innovation is embedded across the healthcare system. This will build on the Department’s Medical Technology Strategy, published in February 2023, and the subsequent One Year On Report in April 2024, outlining our priorities for improving the adoption and spread of safe, effective, and innovative medical technologies across the National Health Service.
Asked by: Lord Mackinlay of Richborough (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to require acute trusts to report on numbers of sepsis cases and outcomes.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
There is a lack of reliable estimates of the incidence and prevalence of sepsis cases due to inconsistency in the definitions used to describe sepsis, and differences in the coding between professionals and organisations in the United Kingdom. The Department continues to work with NHS England and the UK Health Security Agency to improve our understanding of sepsis data and to monitor trends in infection incidence and deaths from sepsis, which are complex and multifactorial.
Although it is not the main purpose of NHS England’s dataset, the data NHS England currently collects provides information on the number of admissions and discharges for sepsis, as well as the number of deaths. At this time, there are no plans to require trusts to report on the number of sepsis cases and outcomes.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) publishes data on the number of death registrations where sepsis was the underlying cause of death, and where sepsis was mentioned anywhere on the death certificate, in England and Wales between 2001 and 2023. The copy of the published ONS data for deaths involving sepsis in England and Wales between 2001 and 2023 is attached.
Asked by: Lord Mackinlay of Richborough (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, following the rise in cases of tuberculosis, whether they plan to implement nationwide tuberculosis vaccinations, instead of the current policy of vaccinating only high-risk regional areas only.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) immunisation to protect against tuberculosis (TB) is not routinely given as part of the National Health Service vaccination schedule. The BCG vaccine is only recommended for infants at greater risk of exposure to more serious childhood forms of the disease, and those people who are at greater risk through their work.
The BCG programme is based on the advice of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI). In 2005 the JCVI advised that the BCG vaccine offer move from a universal school-based programme to a risk-based programme. This advice reflected the changing patterns in the epidemiology of the disease.
TB incidence in children in the United Kingdom was higher in 2005 than in 2022, when data on the incidence in children was last published. The JCVI’s advice and current Government policy does not therefore support an expansion of the current BCG programme. The JCVI keeps its advice on all vaccination programmes under review and considers new evidence as it becomes available.
Asked by: Lord Mackinlay of Richborough (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of whether the Immigration Health Surcharge covers the full cost to the NHS of treatment for those required to pay it.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Immigration Health Surcharge is set at an amount equivalent to the estimated average cost of providing healthcare to migrants. The estimate is based on the average cost of healthcare per head of the general population, adjusted to reflect that migrants use the National Health Service less than the average person. The current level of the Immigrant Health Surcharge is £1,035 per person per year, which reflects our latest assessment of the average cost.
Asked by: Lord Mackinlay of Richborough (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate his Department has made of the influenza infection fatality rate in the UK in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Maggie Throup
Influenza infection levels and related deaths are not routinely collected in the format requested, therefore this specific estimate has not been made. The number of influenza infections and deaths due to influenza-related complications varies with each flu season.
Asked by: Lord Mackinlay of Richborough (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to make it mandatory for NHS dentist practices to notify all stakeholders of a planned closure one year in advance.
Answered by Steve Brine
NHS England has no plans to make it mandatory for National Health Service dental practices to notify all stakeholders of a planned closure one year in advance.
The General Dental Services Regulations and Personal Dental Services Agreement Regulations state that, either commissioners or NHS providers may terminate the contract by providing a minimum three months’ notice.
Asked by: Lord Mackinlay of Richborough (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 22 November 2017 to Question 113472, for what reasons the period from April 2010 to March 2013 was excluded from the total amount of money from the public purse spent on Talk to Frank since its creation.
Answered by Steve Brine
The Talk to FRANK service is currently operated by Public Health England (PHE), and the information supplied in response to Question 113472 was drawn from PHE financial records.
During the period April 2010 to March 2013, the Talk to FRANK service was operated jointly by the Home Office and the Department of Health.
In the 2017 report ‘An evaluation of the Government’s Drug Strategy 2010’, the Government spend on media and information activity under the Drug Strategy 2010, 2010/11 to 2014/15 (including on FRANK) is provided on page 73:
Asked by: Lord Mackinlay of Richborough (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much money was spent from the public purse on the drug information service FRANK in (a) the most recent year for which information is available and (b) total since FRANK was established.
Answered by Steve Brine
During the financial year April 2016 to March 2017 Talk to FRANK received 94,760 calls. It should be noted that the Talk to FRANK service offers a range of contact methods and its customer support team also answered 39,163 emails, texts and webchat messages. The FRANK website also received five million web visits in 2016/17.
During the current financial year (April 2017 to March 2018) we are planning to spend £978,000 on the Talk to FRANK service.
Since the Talk to FRANK service was established in 2003 (but excluding the period April 2010 to March 2013) £9,117,242 has been spent on the service (including the current year’s £978,000 budget).
Asked by: Lord Mackinlay of Richborough (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many telephone calls the service Talk to FRANK received in the most recent year for which data is available.
Answered by Steve Brine
During the financial year April 2016 to March 2017 Talk to FRANK received 94,760 calls. It should be noted that the Talk to FRANK service offers a range of contact methods and its customer support team also answered 39,163 emails, texts and webchat messages. The FRANK website also received five million web visits in 2016/17.
During the current financial year (April 2017 to March 2018) we are planning to spend £978,000 on the Talk to FRANK service.
Since the Talk to FRANK service was established in 2003 (but excluding the period April 2010 to March 2013) £9,117,242 has been spent on the service (including the current year’s £978,000 budget).
Asked by: Lord Mackinlay of Richborough (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what plans he has to make the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin vaccination available on the NHS to all babies and children under the age of 16.
Answered by Steve Brine
The Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) immunisation programme is a risk-based programme, with the key component being the neonatal programme which targets those most at risk from or exposure to tuberculosis. The BCG vaccine is also offered to at risk individuals under the age of 16. There are no plans to extend this further.