National Immunisation Programme
Debate between Lord Evans of Rainow and Lord Kakkar
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
I am grateful to my noble friend, who raises an important point. As I said, the UK has the most extensive immunisation programme in the world, with our vaccine confidence and uptake rates among the highest globally. However, we still have a lot of work to do on the communication of these outstanding products. NHS England’s Vaccination Strategy was published in December 2023; it sets out how the NHS and its partners will reduce morbidity and mortality from vaccine-preventable diseases by increasing vaccination uptake and coverage. The strategy outlines plans to maximise convenience for local communities, improve confidence and tackle complacency, by making every contact with local NHS services count. We all experienced the vaccination programme during Covid-19, and the NHS has learned from that by providing services locally so that people who find it difficult to travel around London or big cities have a convenient, familiar civic centre in which to get vaccinated. We have learned from Covid, but clearly we have a lot more to do.
Lord Kakkar (CB)
My Lords, I draw noble Lords’ attention to my registered interests. Research, development and production of vaccines will increasingly represent an important part of our national security strategy. Is the Minister content that there is sufficient investment in those three elements to ensure that we can secure our biosecurity in the future?
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
The noble Lord is absolutely right to raise this. As I said in the previous answer that I gave to my noble friend, the Government are investing significantly in the manufacturing capacity and the supply chain within the United Kingdom. In the event of an emergency, we have a supply chain within the United Kingdom so that we can supply the vaccines needed for its population.
Whooping Cough
Debate between Lord Evans of Rainow and Lord Kakkar
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
The noble Baroness asks a very detailed question. There is currently a conference going on specifically on that subject. I do not have the information in the pack, but that is ongoing. She is absolutely right. As I said earlier, we had 2,793 cases in England between January and March and it is rising. It is a severe outbreak and we are looking into it.
Lord Kakkar (CB)
My Lords, I draw noble Lords’ attention to my interests in the register. To pick up the point of my noble friend Lord Patel, there is a difference in the trajectory with regard to the outcome of disease between the United Kingdom and other European countries. Might that be a manifestation of the fact that there have been changes in the way we address public health measures in our country? Beyond the question of vaccination, we need to look once again at the delivery of public health services in our country.
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
I am grateful to the noble Lord for that question. He raises a very important point. I have said before at this Dispatch Box, and indeed within the department, that we should always look at other nations’ health services. The NHS is an outstanding institution but it does not have the answer to everything, so we should look at our European neighbours to see what lessons can be learned there.
NHS: Hospital Waiting Times
Debate between Lord Evans of Rainow and Lord Kakkar
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
The noble Lord makes an important point. Excess deaths from all causes involving cardiovascular disease have reduced year on year since 2020 to December 2023. Relative excess deaths involving cardiovascular diseases were higher in the years prior to that—2021 and 2022. Clearly, we still have a lot more to do on that front.
Lord Kakkar (CB)
My Lords, I draw the House’s attention to my registered interest. Is the Minister able to confirm whether there is a systematic approach to assessment of risk for poor clinical outcome for those patients on the waiting list? This would help in the earlier identification of those where the poorest outcome might be predicted and therefore drive intervention earlier in those cases.
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
The noble Lord raises a good point, as always. It is not always the number of people on waiting list, it is the amount of time they spend on it. As I said in a previous answer, the NHS now triages at an earlier stage to try to identify exactly those patients who need earlier intervention.
Deaths: Younger Age Cohorts
Debate between Lord Evans of Rainow and Lord Kakkar(10 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
My noble friend makes a good point and is a doughty campaigner on such matters. We could all do with looking after ourselves, taking physical exercise and eating less.
Lord Kakkar (CB)
My Lords, I draw noble Lords’ attention to my registered interests. A substantial research effort that not only attended the Covid-19 pandemic but came subsequently to that has resulted, particularly in the field of the management of cardiovascular disease, in the identification of novel biomarkers and advanced imaging techniques that will allow for earlier and more accurate detection of disease and risk. Is the Minister content that the output of that research effort is appropriately mobilised by the NHS through the health innovation networks across the NHS in England?
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
I pay tribute to the noble Lord’s expertise in this matter. I cannot say that I am content, but I can say that the Government have improved the NHS health check, our national cardiovascular disease prevention programme, investing almost £17 million in an innovative new digital NHS health check to be rolled out from spring 2024, which is expected to deliver an additional 1 million checks in the first four years, and investing £10 million in a pilot to deliver up to 150,000 CVD checks in workplace settings. In the olden days, when we had manufacturing factories, the workforce had nurses who used to look after their health and well-being. Sadly, that is not the case these days and the Government are trying to replicate that in the workplace. But the noble Lord raised an important point, and I will take it back to the department so that I can be reassured about what he asked.
NHS Waiting Times: Long-Term Sickness Absence
Debate between Lord Evans of Rainow and Lord Kakkar
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
The Government do not have a specific analysis in my pack here, but the right reverend Prelate is absolutely right. This is important for children and young people growing up in households where both parents work, and, if that does not happen for whatever reason, it can have a significant effect on those young carers. So the right reverend Prelate is absolutely right to bring this up, but I cannot give him a full answer and will write to him.
Lord Kakkar (CB)
My Lords, I draw noble Lords’ attention to my registered interests. While patients with chronic conditions wait for intervention, there is inevitable disease progression. Have His Majesty’s Government been able to make an assessment of the impact on the ultimate clinical outcome of these delays, as a result of disease progressing?
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
I am sorry, but I do not have a specific answer to that precise question, so I will write to the noble Lord in detail. He raises an important point: obviously, being on the waiting list for a long time is not good from the point of view of pain and a general deterioration in health.
Metastatic and Secondary Breast Cancer
Debate between Lord Evans of Rainow and Lord Kakkar
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
The noble Lord is right to mention the 10-year cancer plan because we are doubling down and we are committed to improving cancer outcomes in this country. We have made significant progress.
Lord Kakkar (CB)
My Lords, I draw the House’s attention to my registered interests. It is one thing to collect data, but it is quite another to ensure that those data are appropriately curated and are available to drive improvements in clinical practice and provide the opportunity to accelerate the innovation agenda for the NHS through research and development. Is the Minister content that His Majesty’s Government are making sufficient progress regarding curation and access of NHS data to drive those important priorities?
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
I am aware that the data is made available to the research community. However, as I said in a previous answer, it is reliant on good-quality data and working with the research community. If the noble Lord knows of any specific examples, I am very happy to take that away and look into it specifically.
Drugs: Supply and Availability
Debate between Lord Evans of Rainow and Lord Kakkar
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
I share the concerns of the noble Baroness. Medicine supply problems can occur for a number of reasons, and occasionally the NHS experiences shortages of specific medicines, which may be temporary and localised. We want to assure people that the department has well-established processes to prevent, manage and mitigate medicine shortages. The noble Baroness mentioned HRT. There are 70 hormone replacement therapy products, and the vast majority are in good supply. There have been issues with the supply of a limited numbers of HRT products, primarily due to a very sharp increase in demand, but the supply position for the majority of HRT products has improved considerably over the last year.
Lord Kakkar (CB)
My Lords, I draw the attention of the House to my registered interests. What assessment have His Majesty’s Government made of the importance of securing an effective environment for clinical research, in ensuring that major developers of innovative therapies continue to provide those therapies to the citizens of our country?
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
The noble Lord raises a very important point. The Government are always keen to engage with the development community on a case-by-case basis. As we have discussed from this Dispatch Box in the past, there are moneys available. It is very important that we all work closely together to make sure that those medicines of the future are made available for the population.
Brain Tumours
Debate between Lord Evans of Rainow and Lord Kakkar
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness, who is right to point out that the number of people surviving brain cancer has not moved in recent years. I assure her that the Government are doing all that we can. The money is there. Working with the charitable organisations, we must attract more projects and investigations on this very complicated and difficult disease.
Lord Kakkar (CB)
My Lords, I refer to my registered interests. Is the Minister content that there is sufficient investment in the basic infrastructure to deliver clinical research in the NHS to ensure that novel therapies to treat brain cancers can be evaluated in a timely and efficient fashion, especially within the context of the substantial challenges that the NHS is facing as it deals with clinical backlogs?
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
There is already a significant investment in people and facilities for cancer research. The research infrastructure supports brain tumour research studies, mainly in the NHS. This infrastructure is instrumental in the delivery of research funded by the NIHR, charities and others, so it is important in supporting and building the research community. However, resources are significant, and it is difficult to disaggregate brain tumour spending and add to the £10.7 million that we have already allocated.