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The National Institute for Care and Excellence (NICE) has published its draft guidance on Hybrid Closed Loop (HCL) technology which recommends the cohorts of patients with type 1 diabetes that it should be rolled out to. The draft guidance is out for comment until 28 November 2023.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The Department welcomes NICE’s draft guidance and supports the NHS England phased approach to adoption.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The National Institute for Care and Excellence (NICE) has published its draft guidance on Hybrid Closed Loop (HCL) technology which recommends the cohorts of patients with type 1 diabetes that it should be rolled out to. The draft guidance is out for comment until 28 November 2023.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.
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 the potential merits of introducing regular reporting to Parliament on (a) the progress and (b) the impact on private sector research and development of the Voluntary Scheme for Branded Medicines Pricing and Access.
Answered by Will Quince
The Department has no plans to re-instate the reports to Parliament on the 2019 Voluntary Scheme for Branded Medicines Pricing and Access (VPAS), which were a requirement under the 2014 The Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme (PPRS). This requirement was removed from the 2019 VPAS with the agreement of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry.
We are open to ideas about how a successor voluntary scheme should operate from 2024 onwards and look forward to working with industry to agree a mutually beneficial scheme that supports the sustainability of National Health Service spend on branded medicines, better patient outcomes and enables a strong life sciences industry in the United Kingdom.
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 his Department is taking to ensure that Indian migrant workers in the health and social care sector are paid at least the national minimum wage by recruitment agencies.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
For the Skilled Worker route, which includes health and care roles, international recruits must be paid at least the required minimum salary of £20,960 and £10.75 per hour, whichever is higher. The minimum salary is based on a 37.5-hour week but will need to be higher if the individual is contracted to work more hours. Failure to pay international staff the minimum salary requirement is in breach of United Kingdom immigration law. Illegal employment practices should be reported to the Gangmaster and Labour Abuse Authority who will investigate fully.
All employers of international health and care staff must follow the Code of Practice for the international recruitment of health and social care personnel in England to make sure staff are recruited ethically and are treated with respect. The code is available at the following link:
Providers should only engage with agencies and other recruiting organisations that are on the Ethical Recruiters List, which is available at the following link:
https://www.nhsemployers.org/articles/ethical-recruiters-list
Organisations on this list have committed to adhering to the Code of Practice.
The Home Office’s sponsor licence system places clear and binding requirements and obligations on employers looking to recruit and manage overseas workers. Sponsors are monitored to ensure that workers are paid appropriately. This includes regular checks with HM Revenue & Customs. Any discrepancies found are investigated and, if appropriate, action is taken against the sponsor.