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 she has made of the adequacy of the potential cost of Kaftrio for the NHS, in the context of the cost of Kaftrio in the EU market.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is the independent body that develops recommendations on whether medicines represent a clinically and cost-effective use of National Health Service resources at the price proposed by the company. Companies can agree discounts on the price of medicines in the context of the NICE evaluation process.
NICE is currently developing guidance for the NHS on the clinical and cost effectiveness of Kaftrio and other cystic fibrosis medicines, and recently consulted on its draft recommendations. Kaftrio is currently available as a treatment option for eligible NHS patients under the terms of an interim access agreement, which was originally reached in 2019.
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, which sites have piloted Palantir software.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England’s pilot programmes of Palantir’s Foundry software include the Improving Elective Care Coordination for Patients Programme (IECCPP) and the Optimised Patient Tracking and Intelligent Choices Application (OPTICA) pilot.
The pilots have demonstrated the potential benefits of a Federated Data Platform, which will be a vital upgrade for the National Health Service, allowing it to make better use of its data to improve outcomes for patients, including reducing waits and discharging people quicker.
The following table shows the 42 trusts who are actively participating in one or both pilot programmes:
Trust | IECCP | OPTICA |
Barts Health NHS Trust | X |
|
Bolton NHS Foundation Trust | X |
|
Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust | X | X |
Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust | X | X |
Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust | X | X |
County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust |
| X |
Croydon Health Services NHS Trust | X |
|
East Suffolk and North East Essex NHS Foundation Trust | X |
|
East Essex Healthcare NHS Trust | X |
|
Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust | X | X |
Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust | X |
|
Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust | X |
|
Harrogate & District NHS Foundation Trust |
| X |
Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust |
| X |
Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust | X | X |
James Paget University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust |
| X |
Kingston Hospital NHS Foundation Trust | X |
|
Kettering General Hospital NHS Foundation Trust | X |
|
Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust | X |
|
Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Trust |
| X |
London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust | X | X |
Medway NHS Foundation Trust | X |
|
Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust | X | X |
Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust |
| X |
North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust | X |
|
North Tees and Hartlepool Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust | X | X |
Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust | X |
|
Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust | X |
|
Queen Elizabeth Hospital Kings Lynn NHS Foundation Trust |
| X |
Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust | X |
|
Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust | X |
|
Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust | X |
|
Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust | X |
|
Southport and Ormskirk Hospital NHS Trust | X |
|
South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust | X | X |
South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust | X | X |
The Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust | X | X |
United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust | X |
|
University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust | X | X |
University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust | X |
|
University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust | X |
|
West Hertfordshire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust | X |
|
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 her Department's press release entitled Prime Minister launches Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Mission, published 14 August 2022, what progress her Department has made on its commitment to reach dementia research funding of £160 million a year by 2024; and if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of the Autumn Statement on that commitment.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to supporting research into dementia and has committed to double funding for dementia research. We will double funding for dementia research to £160 million per year by 2024/25. The Government spent over £413 million on dementia research from 2017/18 to 2021/22.
In August 2022, the former Prime Minister launched the Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Mission, along with £95 million of Government funding. The Mission is part of the commitment to double dementia research funding and aims to speed up the development of new treatments. In the Autumn Statement the Chancellor announced up to £20 million funding to launch a Clinical Trial Delivery Accelerator, focused on dementia. This investment also contributes to meeting the commitment to double dementia research funding and will scope out innovative new tools and approaches to clinical research in the National Health Service. It will leverage the United Kingdom’s world-class strengths in data, digital sciences and genomics capabilities to increase the speed and quality of clinical trials, while driving down the cost of large-scale trials.
The National Institute for Health and Care Research launched a number of new initiatives to support dementia research, such as investing nearly £11 million to develop new digital approaches for the early detection and diagnosis of dementia.
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 anonymisation process her Department plans to use for the federated data platform.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Federated Data Platform (FDP) and Associated Services contract has been awarded to a consortium led by Palantir Technologies which include Accenture, PWC, Carnall Farrar and NECS. This will see new software made available to trusts to manage their data, to deliver better outcomes to patients. The pilots identified benefits including shorter waiting lists, and quicker discharges from hospital.
The software will be more secure than anything currently used in the National Health Service thanks to new privacy enhancing technology (NHS-PET), which will provide robust protection and a standard approach to support safe data access and use. The NHS-PET has been procured from a different supplier, namely IQVIA. The first use of the new NHS-PET will be for the FDP.
The supplier of the FDP will only operate under the instruction of the NHS when processing data on the platform. The supplier will not control the data in the platform, nor will they permitted to access, use, or share it for their own purposes. The contract contains strict stipulations about confidentiality, and there is governance in place to monitor delivery and usage.
As part of the FDP Programme mobilisation, the team are working with the suppliers to design anonymisation processes in line with data minimisation arrangements and in accordance with the policies outlined above.
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, who is responsible for continuous process improvement in (a) NHS England, (b) Integrated Health and Care Boards and (c) NHS Hospital Trusts.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
In April 2023, NHS England published their delivery and continuous improvement review. Through the review, NHS England set an expectation that all National Health Service providers, working in partnership with their integrated care boards, will embed a quality improvement method aligned with the improvement approach to support increased productivity and enable improved health outcomes.
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 many people directly report to the Chief Scientist of NHS England; who the Chief Scientist of NHS England reports to; and if his Department will publish an updated list of the responsibilities of the Chief Scientist.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) for England works across the health and care system and has a range of roles and responsibilities, directly reporting managerially to the NHS England Medical Director. Dependent on the function being delivered there are other reporting lines and accountabilities. The CSO oversees the delivery of approximately 100 people across multiple teams within the National Health Service; this includes eight direct reports and 10 individuals with specific accountabilities reporting to the CSO.
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, who will own the intellectual property for the Federated Data Platform.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The supplier will continue to own the intellectual property right to its core Software as a Service (SaaS) and will grant NHS England and National Health Service organisations the right to use the software for the contract term. This will also include updates and amendments to the SaaS product or any additional third-party software that forms part of the contracted SaaS product.
Any products commissioned by NHS England or other NHS organisations delivered by the supplier outside of their standard SaaS product offering will be owned by NHS England. NHS England may grant the supplier the right to use the component for the contract term as necessary for service provision.
NHS England or the NHS organisation will retain all ownership and rights to all data contained within the platform and at no time do the rights to use this data transfer to the supplier. The supplier will have no rights to the data whether or not such data is personal data.
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 steps her Department is taking to improve health outcomes for children with cystic fibrosis.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the Rt. hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings on 17 November 2023 to Question 1009.
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.