Asked by: Lord Mendelsohn (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, following the detection of the BA.2.86 COVID-19 variant in the UK, what assessment they have made of COVID-19 PCR testing (1) capacity, and (2) availability in England.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Appropriate levels of testing for COVID-19, including polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing have remained to support diagnosis for clinical care and treatment, and to protect very high-risk individuals and settings.
Lateral flow device (LFD) testing is predominantly used and continues to be effective in detecting positive results, including of new variants. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) currently holds a stock of LFDs to support current testing policy and enable expanded deployment, should cases rise or risks to the National Health Service increase.
UKHSA continues to monitor prevalence and other factors to determine if additional testing, either LFD or PCR, is needed.
Asked by: Lord Mendelsohn (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what support, including financial, Integrated Care Boards have received to enact the Government’s precautionary action to bring forward COVID-19 and flu vaccinations this autumn.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The acceleration of the COVID-19 and flu programme was laid out in a system letter on 30 August 2023, which has been published on NHS.UK in an online-only format.
In addition to the financial arrangements set out in the Autumn 2023 GP and Community Pharmacies enhanced service specifications, and Standard Contract schedules, interim arrangements to support programme acceleration have been put in place to recognise additional administrative, organisation and delivery costs.
Commissioned providers are able to claim an additional acceleration payment of £10, in addition to the Item of Service (IoS) fee, for each COVID-19 vaccination administered to care home residents between Monday 11 September and Sunday 22 October 2023 inclusive; and a separate one-off additional payment of £200 for each completed care home by 11.59pm on Sunday 22 October 2023 that is confirmed to the commissioner by the submission of a live time survey no later than 11.59pm on Sunday 29 October 2023.
To support the acceleration of COVID-19 vaccinations to other eligible cohorts, an additional £5 acceleration payment, in addition to the IoS fee, is available for each COVID-19 vaccination administered to eligible people between 11 September and 31 October 2023, excluding care home residents, housebound people, and any health and care worker vaccinations commissioned under the NHS Standard Contract.
The COVID-19 vaccination primary care service specifications and NHS Standard Contract schedules have been updated to reflect the financial arrangements outlined above in line with usual processes.
Asked by: Lord Mendelsohn (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of a community surveillance method, such as the ONS COVID-19 Infection Survey, to monitor the spread of COVID-19 this autumn and during the upcoming winter.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The approach to COVID-19 surveillance is being actively reviewed by the UK Health Security Agency. Protecting the public from COVID-19 remains one of our top priorities. We continue to monitor the threat posed by COVID-19 through our range of surveillance systems and genomics capabilities, which report on infection rates, hospitalisations and the risks posed by new variants.
Asked by: Lord Mendelsohn (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what measures they are taking to ensure that those with vulnerabilities can access COVID-19 treatments in a timely manner, given the transition of COVID-19 treatment to routine pathways and the removal of important support systems such as digital enablers.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Following positive National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommendations for community-based COVID-19 treatments, integrated care boards (ICBs) will have a statutory responsibility for providing access from 27 June. As with other treatments, it will be for ICBs, who are closer to their local population, to determine the appropriate access arrangements within the treatment window.
NHS England has written to highest-risk patients who can be digitally identified to advise them of the changes in the pathway and to advise them to contact local services as per local pathways. UK Health Security Agency, the Department and NHS England have also been working with patient groups to raise awareness of the changes as we move out of pandemic-specific arrangements.
NHS England has also been working with local systems to support the development of the new pathways, and provide assurance that new arrangements will be in place to ensure access for patients, NHS England will continue to monitor the transition to routine pathways.
Patients newly diagnosed with a qualifying condition or treatment regime should be advised by their treating clinician at that point that they may be eligible, and how to access services if they test positive for COVID-19. Clinicians will then consider COVID-19 as a potential diagnosis when assessing patients, determine whether the individual is at highest risk and act accordingly, in line with their clinical judgement.
Asked by: Lord Mendelsohn (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether the UK is out of step with other countries in its eligibility restrictions for COVID-19 antiviral treatments, such as precluding those over 70 and with COVID-19 symptoms from accessing them.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Here in the United Kingdom, the Government has made available a range of treatment options for eligible hospitalized and non-hospitalized patients with COVID-19. These are being used to treat UK patients in line with evidence-based recommendations from National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), following the established processes in this area.
NICE has determined eligibility of access following a review of the available evidence and taking into consideration reports such as the Independent Advisory Group’s report on higher-risk patients eligible for COVID-19 treatments.
The UK’s guidance, as with the World Health Organization living guideline, have been published in MAGICapp, a global evidence ecosystem used by global partners to help formulate local access policies.
Asked by: Lord Mendelsohn (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what measures they are taking to support integrated care boards during the transition of COVID-19 treatments to routine pathways and to ensure equitable access across England.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government has made available a range of treatment options for eligible hospitalised and non-hospitalised patients with COVID-19 and the NHS will continue to deliver treatment for COVID-19 patients in line with evidence-based recommendations from National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.
Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for the continued delivery of COVID-19 treatments, including where appropriate transitioning the delivery of community-based COVID-19 treatments away from COVID-19 Medicine Delivery Units to routine care pathways by the end of this month. ICBs have the flexibility to create a routine patient access pathway that best meets local needs and circumstances, including for immunocompromised patients. NHS England is working closely with local health systems and supporting ICBs to develop service delivery plans.
Asked by: Lord Mendelsohn (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what practical steps they are taking to embed lessons from the pandemic response to ensure future pandemic preparedness.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The United Kingdom has flexible and well-tested pandemic response capabilities. Learning the lessons from COVID-19, we are working with the Centre for Pandemic Preparedness in the UK Health Security Agency to ensure a flexible and capabilities-based approach to pandemic preparedness which will see emergency planners develop and maintain a generic suite of response capabilities across Government. This will enable an approach that can be flexibly deployed to meet the demands of any future pandemic and provide a whole-system response.
We cannot perfectly predict the characteristics of a new pandemic pathogen and therefore our strategic approach to pandemic preparedness constantly evolves in response to new scientific information, lessons learned from prior pandemics, responses to other infectious disease outbreaks and rigorous exercises to test our response mechanisms.
Public hearings for Module 1 of the UK COVID-19 Inquiry commenced on 13 June 2023 and will run for six weeks. The Department acknowledges there are valuable lessons to be learnt from COVID-19 to inform our preparedness for future pandemics.
Asked by: Lord Mendelsohn (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government further to the Written Answers by Lord Markham on 11 April (HL6530) and 12 April (HL6941), in which he stated that the DHSC will continue to fund and provide COVID-19 testing and that the welfare of immunocompromised patients remains a priority for the spring booster vaccinations, by what means (1) people eligible for priority treatment when testing positive will be identified and prioritised with the removal of the Webview and Shielding Persons List, and (2) those eligible for future vaccinations because of their vulnerable status will be identified.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government will maintain a range of capabilities to protect those at higher risk of severe illness from COVID-19. Improved treatments and the continued effectiveness of vaccines mean that most people are at much lower risk compared to earlier in the pandemic.
Integrated care boards (ICBs) now have a statutory duty to provide funding within 90 days of the publication of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidance to ensure that the recommended treatments are available for National Health Service patients. To support the transition to routine NHS services NHS England has written to potentially eligible individuals and local NHS systems, healthcare professionals and patient groups to update them on the eligibility criteria and upcoming changes to the way treatments are accessed. ICBs have also been asked to work with local service providers to develop and communicate access arrangements to ensure prompt access to treatments. Newly eligible individuals will be advised on how to access COVID-19 treatments following diagnosis of a qualifying condition or commencement of qualifying treatment.
Eligible individuals should be offered the spring booster providing there is at least three months from the previous dose. General practitioners will use updated search systems to identify eligible individuals and invite them to book an appointment online or via a walk-in service.
Asked by: Lord Mendelsohn (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Markham on 5 April (HL6529), where the National Institute for Health and Care Research rapid study on those that remain vulnerable to poor outcomes from COVID-19 despite vaccination has been published; and if it has not been, what plans they have to do so.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
It will be published in the BMJ shortly.
Asked by: Lord Mendelsohn (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further the Written Answer by Baroness Neville-Rolfe on 13 April (HL7017), what surveillance the UK Health Security Agency is currently undertaking in line with their Living with COVID-19 plan published in February 2022, given that the ONS has no plans to test and report on respiratory infections.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to maintaining robust COVID-19 surveillance activities across primary and secondary care, as well as in high-risk settings. This will be underpinned by the continuation of genomic sequencing to detect and assess severity and vaccine effectiveness against new variants.
The approach to COVID-19 surveillance is being actively reviewed to ensure it is proportionate, cost effective and considered alongside how the Government monitors a range of other respiratory diseases. The UK Health Security Agency will continue to publish regular reports on COVID-19 which will contribute to our situational awareness; these include our weekly surveillance reports, which provide data on infection rates and hospitalisation numbers.