Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Government's response to the independent report by Lord O’Shaughnessy entitled Commercial clinical trials in the UK, published on 26 May 2023, what progress his Department has made towards rolling out Clinical Trials Acceleration Networks; and what budget he plans to allocate to support those networks.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government published the full response to the Lord O’Shaughnessy review on 22 November 2023.
The response sets out that Clinical Trial Acceleration Networks will be renamed Clinical Trial Delivery Accelerators, with two initial Accelerators designated in dementia and vaccines. Accelerators will work with trial sponsors and delivery teams to deliver studies in innovative ways that maximises efficiency and prioritises diversity in regions, setting and trials, and to place people, regardless of their background or community in the right trials, in the right place at the right time.
There is up to £20 million of funding to establish the dementia Accelerator and to support the pre-existing Vaccines Innovation Pathway to deliver functionality expected from an Accelerator. This funding was announced in May 2023 as part of the initial response to the O’Shaughnessy review.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment her Department has made of the reasons for disparities in the number of cases of (a) Crohn's disease and (b) ulcerative colitis by (i) region and (ii) socioeconomic status.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
An assessment in these specific terms has not been made by DHSC. Such information may be available at Integrated Care Board level.
A healthy population reduces pressure on the National Health Service and wider public services and supports a strong economy through increased productivity and labour market participation.
The Government’s ambition is to improve healthy life expectancy by five years by 2035 and reduce the gap between areas where it is highest and lowest by 2030, as per the commitment in the Levelling Up White Paper.
The gap in the number of years people live in good health is stark and unacceptable. Health disparities exist across a wide variety of conditions, including inflammatory bowel disease, and contribute to the unacceptable variation in life expectancy and healthy life expectancy.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to take steps to promote to patients the use of hybrid closed loop technology for patients with type one diabetes.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Institute for Care and Excellence (NICE) has published its draft guidance on Hybrid Closed Loop (HCL) technology which recommends the cohorts of patients with type 1 diabetes that it should be rolled out to. The draft guidance is out for comment until 28 November 2023. If there are no appeals, then the final guidance will be published in December 2023. Recognising HCL represents a step change in care for patients living with type 1 diabetes, NICE has agreed with NHS England a planned five year roll out for this technology recognising that both clinicians and patients require training to safely use the HCL technology.
The Department welcomes NICE’s draft guidance and supports the NHS England phased approach to adoption. NHS England will make clinicians aware of the priorities for access, to help reduce healthcare inequalities.
If a patient meets the eligibility criteria for the hybrid closed loop, then their clinician can recommend this in line with NICE recommendations. NHS England is engaging with integrated care board leads, trust clinical leads working within children, young people and adults services, professional bodies and patient representative groups as part of the implementation strategy’s development.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to take steps to promote to clinicians the use of hybrid closed loop technology for patients with type one diabetes.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Institute for Care and Excellence (NICE) has published its draft guidance on Hybrid Closed Loop (HCL) technology which recommends the cohorts of patients with type 1 diabetes that it should be rolled out to. The draft guidance is out for comment until 28 November 2023. If there are no appeals, then the final guidance will be published in December 2023. Recognising HCL represents a step change in care for patients living with type 1 diabetes, NICE has agreed with NHS England a planned five year roll out for this technology recognising that both clinicians and patients require training to safely use the HCL technology.
The Department welcomes NICE’s draft guidance and supports the NHS England phased approach to adoption. NHS England will make clinicians aware of the priorities for access, to help reduce healthcare inequalities.
If a patient meets the eligibility criteria for the hybrid closed loop, then their clinician can recommend this in line with NICE recommendations. NHS England is engaging with integrated care board leads, trust clinical leads working within children, young people and adults services, professional bodies and patient representative groups as part of the implementation strategy’s development.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Department plans to take steps to ensure that all patients with protected characteristics are included in the roll-out of hybrid closed loop technology for patients with type 1 diabetes.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has published final draft guidance on the use of the hybrid closed loop (HCL) systems for managing blood glucose levels in type 1 diabetes to the National Health Service in England. The draft guidance is out for comment until 28 November 2023. If there are no appeals, then the final guidance will be published in December 2023.
NHS England are engaging with integrated care boards (ICBs) and other stakeholders as part of the development of the HCL implementation strategy. The strategy will provide advice and guidance to ICBs and NHS providers on the phased approach to implementation. Prioritisation will be based on patient need within the eligible population and through the National Diabetes Audit, activity rates and outcomes will be reported to monitor unwarranted variation in access and address health inequalities.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an assessment of the adequacy of the implementation of the (a) actions and (b) recommendations made by the Getting it Right First Time specialty report on gastroenterology in reducing unwarranted variation in care, published on 9 September 2021.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) programme data for gastroenterology is now available on the Model Health System, helping teams gauge their performance and work to recover services impacted by the pandemic. More than 70 metrics are available, relating to endoscopy, hepatobiliary, luminal gastroenterology, and nutrition services. These enable trusts and system users to see their performance across areas such as emergency admission rates and day case rates.
GIRFT is working with the NHS England Endoscopy Transformation Team to carry out visits to teams in the National Health Service regions across England, to encourage networking and quality improvement by utilising updated data metrics. A National Endoscopy Dashboard has been developed and is published on the NHS Futures website.
Joint work is ongoing between GIRFT and various specialty societies, such as the British Society of Gastroenterology (BSG) and Royal College of Physicians (RCP), helping to reinforce and disseminate recommendations from the report. This joint working has also resulted in the development of resources to support with implementation. These include:
- The BSG Quality Standards Framework;
- RCP Modern Outpatient Care guidance;
- GIRFT Clinically-led Outpatient Guidance; and
- National audit of ERCP (endoscopic retrograde cholangio pancreatography) practitioners & ERCP services.
GIRFT is also working with 51 trusts as part of a ‘Further Faster’ pilot to deliver rapid clinical transformation with the aim of reducing 52-week waits. The pilot brings together clinicians and operational teams with the challenge of collectively going ‘further and faster’ to transform patient pathways and working to reduce unnecessary appointments and improve access and waiting times for patients.
Clinical transformation groups have been established across 16 specialties, and some of the biggest reductions in waiting times to date among Cohort 1, encompassing 25 trusts, have been in gastroenterology. Trusts in the pilot have also been issued with a GIRFT Gastroenterology Further Faster Handbook to support their ongoing improvement.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of reinstating the positions of National Clinical Director for (a) gastroenterology and (b) liver disease.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
A National Clinical Director provides clinical advice and leadership on the NHS England Internal Medicine Specialised Services portfolio, which includes specialised gastroenterology and liver disease. A National Speciality Advisor provides clinical advice more specifically to the hepatobiliary and pancreas programme.
The Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) programme has invested in clinical leadership in gastroenterology, which is one of its priority workstreams. The programme will be establishing a liver disease programme in 2024/25, including recruiting to a clinical lead role.
The National Clinical Director for Cancer is leading work on on-the-spot liver scans, that has already found that around one in ten people in communities visited have advanced liver damage that needs further monitoring or treatment as it could lead to liver cancer.
NHS England is funding preventative interventions that support individuals to reduce the harm caused by alcohol use and obesity. To support this work, NHS England has invested in a National Clinical Director for Diabetes & Obesity and a National Speciality Advisor for alcohol dependence.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how the National Institute for Health and Care Research's Dementia Translational Research Collaborative plans to work with a Clinical Trial Acceleration Network for dementia to increase the UK’s share of clinical trials.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Dementia Translational Research Collaboration (D-TRC) is funded by the Department via the National Institute for Health & Care Research. The D-TRC plays a critical role in coordinating dementia research in early phase clinical trials in the United Kingdom and seeks to offer a wider, more collaborative and cohesive network. The D-TRC's over-arching goal is the elevation of the UK as the world-leading place to conduct early phase clinical trials in dementia.
The Government will publish a full response to the Lord O’Shaughnessy independent review into commercial clinical trials in autumn 2023. The response will include an update on progress and implementation of the initial five headline commitments and foundational actions that the government made in May 2023 as well as all other recommendations in the review.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment of (a) the potential impact of the level of the Voluntary Scheme for Branded Medicines Pricing and Access payment percentages on and (b) other factors affecting the decisions by pharmaceutical companies on whether to invest in the UK.
Answered by Will Quince
The Government has considered in broad terms the link between volume-based rebate payments in our medicine pricing schemes and various kinds of investment in our Impact Assessment of updates to the Statutory Scheme for branded medicines pricing, which operates alongside voluntary scheme for branded medicines pricing and access. The Government’s 2023 Impact Assessment of updates to the Statutory Scheme is available at the following link:
We are in close discussions with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and the Department for Business and Trade about the business environment for life sciences and its impact on investment.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much the UK Health Security Agency Vaccine Development and Evaluation Centre spent on research and development in the (a) 2021-22 and (b) 2022-23 financial years; and how much it expects to spend in 2023-24.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The UK Health Security Agency’s Vaccine Development and Evaluation Centre (VDEC) only formally existed from 1 April 2023, so finances for previous financial years are not available in the format requested. The forecasted research and development expenditure for the whole VDEC programme for 2023/24 is £7.2 million. It should be noted that this is a maximum forecast including a contingency pot and actual spend may be less.
This spend will be included in the organisational spend published in the Statement of Comprehensive Net Expenditure, noting in the publication that VDEC spend will not be separated out from overall program spend.