Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - 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 pathologists and genomics scientists work together to speed up the delivery of genomics results for lung cancer tissue samples.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Genomic testing in the National Health Service in England is provided through the NHS Genomic Medicine Service (NHS GMS) and is delivered by a national genomic testing network of seven NHS Genomic Laboratory Hubs (GLHs).
NHS England undertakes several activities to improve the delivery of cancer genomic testing, including through quarterly assurance meetings with the NHS GLHs and NHS GMS Alliances to address reporting delays and resolve backlogs, working with clinical experts to establish clinically relevant cancer genomic testing turnaround times and optimising cancer pathways to meet these times.
To support more extensive cancer genomic testing, NHS England is working to ensure collaboration between pathology and genomics networks to address issues including capacity, networking, and the optimisation of cancer tissue pathways, including for lung cancer tissue samples.
Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure equitable screening participation based on (1) socioeconomic status, (2) ethnicity, and (3) smoking status, in the targeted lung cancer screening programme.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We know that some cancers disproportionately impact those living in deprived areas, notably lung cancer. The Lung Cancer Screening Programme is designed to identify cancer at an earlier stage and is aimed at high-risk individuals or people with a history of smoking between the ages of 55 to 74 years old.
The National Health Service is currently rolling out the National Lung Cancer Screening Programme to people with a history of smoking. The public health functions agreement between NHS England and the Department sets out that the Lung Cancer Screening Programme has a target to invite 50% of the eligible population by the end of March 2026.
Additionally, reducing inequalities is a key priority for the National Cancer Plan, which will look at the targeted improvements needed across different cancer types to reduce disparities in cancer survival. This includes looking at protected characteristics, such as ethnicity, as well as inequalities related to socioeconomic status, and geographic location.
Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the remarks by Baroness Merron on 18 September (HL Deb cols 2398–2400), whether any DNA samples collected for the Generation Study are (1) tested for conditions that may develop after five years old, and (2) kept for genome sequencing again at five years old.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Generation Study is designed to inform policy around the use of genomics in newborn screening. The study is only testing for treatable conditions where there is robust evidence that the condition is highly likely to develop within the first five years of life. Suspected positive results are reviewed and confirmed through further tests. If genomic testing is used within future screening programmes, informed parental consent will still be required. There are no plans to screen for conditions that appear later in life or remain asymptomatic. If genomic testing becomes part of routine screening, parental consent would be required.
There are currently no plans as part of the study to sequence the genome again at five years old.
Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to establish a single digital tracking system for cancer tissue samples provided for genomic testing so they can be tracked at every point of their journey.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Genomic testing in the National Health Service in England is provided through the NHS Genomic Medicine Service (GMS) and delivered by a national genomic testing network of seven NHS Genomic Laboratory Hubs.
The NHS GMS has a national digital programme to develop an order management system, which will enable the ordering and tracking of genomic test requests from the initial request of the genomic test, through to sample processing, and the return of genomic testing’s clinical results to clinicians. This system will include the ability for all appropriate users of the system to track the progress of cancer diagnostics, with the physical sample handling being managed by specialist Cellular Pathology Genomic Centres that are being established in each NHS GMS geography.
Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan for the Genomic Laboratory Hubs to adopt standardised reporting templates for genomics reports.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Professional groups, including the Association for Clinical Genomic Science, produce best practice guidance and standard templates for members on reporting genomic results to clinicians. In line with the data and digital elements in the NHS Genomics Strategy, NHS Genomic Laboratory Hubs will be mandated to provide standardised reporting and structured data. This would support a consistent approach to reporting genomic data and will enable the development of a unified genomic record which, in turn, would enable patients to access insights from their genomic data when and where they are needed, as well as facilitating access to clinical trials, supporting other research, and informing population health initiatives.
Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the remarks by Baroness Merron on 18 September (HL Deb cols 2398–2400) about genome screening of newborn infants, how long (1) newborn infants' DNA samples, and (2) genome sequencing data, will be kept.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Data and samples are stored for 16 years. At approximately 16 years old, children who participated in the study will be asked to give their own consent to remain in the programme. If they choose not to or if they cannot be contacted, they will be withdrawn from the study, which includes removing their sample. If they consent to remain in the study, then their data and sample would be stored throughout the child’s life, unless consent is withdrawn. Parents are also able to withdraw their children from the study at any time before children reach the age of 16 years old.
Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to increase the use of urine tests to detect chronic kidney disease among patients with cardiovascular risk markers.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England is trialling home testing for kidney disease through urine tests. Kits have been sent to individuals considered to be most at risk including people with diabetes, hypertension, and other cardiovascular diseases.
Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - 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 the treatment and care of patients with cardio-renal-metabolic diseases is looked at holistically rather than in isolation; and what assessment they have made of whether multi-disciplinary teams are an effective way of joining up care.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Multi-disciplinary teams are essential to the delivery of holistic care, including for complex conditions such as cardio-renal-metabolic diseases. Multi-disciplinary teams, which enable care to be centred around patients and increasingly delivered in the community rather than in hospital settings, are a key part of delivering the radical shifts set out in the 10-Year Health Plan for England
Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the risks of using the NHS number as the consistent child identifier in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill; and whether they will publish their assessment of the ability of the NHS to issue new NHS numbers in bulk, following reports of NHS numbers being stolen following a cyber attack in June 2024.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The potential for the National Health Service number to be used as a single unique identifier (SUI) for children is being explored in a series of pilots, which will include consideration of risk. The Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill does not specify the use of the NHS number as an SUI, but allows regulations to do so, if it is appropriate.
There is no expectation that the NHS will need to issue new NHS numbers in bulk. Misuse of personally identifiable information is guarded against via governance processes that are the responsibility of data controllers and processors.
Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what pilot programmes and trials of the use of drone technology in healthcare are either planned or have already been initiated.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to innovation in drones and other growth sectors, and work is ongoing across the Government, including between the Department and the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), to support the safe and effective introduction of drones into medical logistics. Further information on the work ongoing across the Government is available on the GOV.UK website, in an online only format.
The Department continuously reviews the available evidence surrounding the use of drones in medical logistics and is supportive of new trials to further build this evidence base, in particular regarding the benefits of the use of drones to deliver urgent medical supplies in remote and urban areas.
The Future of Flight Programme, led by the Department for Transport and taking place across the Government, will deliver routine Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) drone use in the United Kingdom by 2027. As part of this programme the Department for Transport, the Department for Health and Social Care, and the CAA continue to work closely together to unlock BVLOS drone use cases for the National Health Service. Enabling drones to safely operate to trial NHS services currently requires airspace segregation to ensure the safety of other crewed aircraft. This is a complex process, and the CAA and the Department for Transport are working to simplify it as part of the Future of Flight Programme and the Airspace Modernisation Strategy while we work towards full airspace integration. Progress on this work is monitored through the Future of Flight Industry Group which is co-chaired by the Minister for Aviation, Maritime and Security.
The Department of Health and Social Care has not conducted a formal cost-effectiveness assessment of drone versus traditional delivery methods. Outside of trials, drones are not currently integrated into NHS logistics or emergency response frameworks.