Measles

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Maria Caulfield

Monday 22nd January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Maria Caulfield]

The Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee is right. That is why we have met with both the west midlands and the London teams to hear from those on the ground what resources they need in order to become more nimble in the vaccine roll-out. The communities that are not coming forward are the ones that are not engaging with the routine MMR vaccine programme, so we need to be more nimble, which is why we are hearing from those vaccinating on the ground about vaccine buses going into communities, pop-up clinics in schools, and GPs putting on extra vaccine clinics. From our data, we have a list of the children who are unvaccinated, and more than a million letters have gone out to their parents to urge them to come forward.

My hon. Friend is right about using pharmacy, with Pharmacy First as a model, to make it even easier for people to come forward, but the real barrier is people’s reluctance to get vaccinated for a variety of reasons, whether it is vaccine fatigue through covid or because they missed their routine appointments and find it difficult to come forward at an extra clinic. We are engaging with local authorities and the Department for Education to try to make it as easy as possible for children and adults to get vaccinated.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

There are clear inequalities in vaccination uptake, including MMR, which reflect various socioeconomic inequalities. What extra support is being given to those areas, and to places such as mine, and why, as the Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee suggests, was the risk assessment of the UK Health Security Agency seemingly ignored by the Government?

[Maria Caulfield]

I can assure the hon. Lady that it was not ignored by the Government. Over the past 12 months, we have been pushing vaccinations to those who have not come forward, and to communities that struggle with vaccination uptake, which is why in the past 12 months there has been a 10% increase. As I say, that is not enough. There are still people who need to come forward for vaccination who have not done so. I emphasise to the House that this is an acute outbreak of measles. If someone has their first dose of the measles vaccine today, within two weeks they will have roughly 92% immunity. If they go on to have the second vaccine, they will have roughly 98% immunity, which will be lifelong.

Draft Health Protection (Coronavirus, Testing Requirements and Standards) (England) (Amendment and Transitional Provision) Regulations 2023

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Maria Caulfield

Wednesday 22nd November 2023 General Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maria Caulfield)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Health Protection (Coronavirus, Testing Requirements and Standards) (England) (Amendment and Transitional Provision) Regulations 2023.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I will begin by setting out the policy context for the regulations, and then explain the effects of the proposed changes. We all remember that during the covid-19 pandemic the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Testing Requirements and Standards) (England) Regulations 2020 focused on enabling providers who met appropriate quality standards to rapidly enter the private covid-19 testing market. At the time, the right balance was struck between protecting public health and growing the market quickly, both of which were necessary public health outcomes. Now that the threat of covid-19 is reduced and there is no longer an urgent need to grow the testing market quickly, the Department has reviewed the 2020 regulations and proposes that all private providers must be now be fully accredited before they provide testing services.

The 2020 regulations introduced a three-stage accredit- ation process for organisations providing covid-19 testing commercially, to speed up entry to the market. Stage 1 required a private provider to make an application to the United Kingdom Accreditation Service for accreditation, and to make a declaration to the Department that it met and would continue to meet certain minimum standards. Stage 2 required an applicant to demonstrate within four weeks of applying for accreditation that it met the requirements published by UKAS. Between January and June 2021, stage 3 required providers to complete their application within four months.

In June 2021, we passed legislation to update stage 3, thereby requiring applicants to achieve a positive recommendation from UKAS within four months of completing stage 2. As long as a provider received that recommendation, it then had a further two months to achieve accreditation. Providers that failed to meet those deadlines, or failed to satisfy UKAS that they met the relevant standards, had to stop supplying tests. At the time, our approach ensured that enough providers were able to enter the market to meet the public’s demand for covid-19 testing, while still putting providers through an appropriate approvals process.

However, we are now more than three years on from the start of the pandemic, the living with covid strategy has been in place for over a year and the World Health Organisation has declared that covid-19 is no longer a public health emergency of international concern. It is, therefore, the right opportunity to review and update covid-19 legislation on private providers to bring in requirements and standards to strengthen consistency, safety and high-quality covid-19 testing services.

The proposed changes will empower consumers to choose a private testing service with confidence, while continuing to improve safety and quality.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

I notice that there is no impact assessment associated with the regulations—why is that? Will the changes to the regulations take into account the investigation into Immensa and the errors that resulted in 39,000 covid tests being inaccurately assessed as negative? Will the Minister reassure us that that will be the case, and explain why there was no impact assessment?

[Maria Caulfield]

Certainly. I will come in a moment to the standards we are changing to meet those concerns.

First, under the new regulations, from 1 January 2024, in order to enter the private covid testing market private providers will have to achieve accreditation against the appropriate ISO standard by a signatory of the international laboratory accreditation co-operation mutual recognition agreement. That should give Members confidence that providers will now have to meet an internationally recognised standard. There will be consistent testing standards across the board that meet the ISO standard and are accredited by a signatory of that mutual recognition agreement. The new requirements will replace the three-stage accreditation process required under the existing regulations, which I just outlined, to make sure that providers meet a certain standard.

Secondly, we are removing the requirement for providers to get sign-off from the Department at the start of the application process, because they will have to be accredited before they can enter the market; thirdly, we are shifting the legal responsibility for clinical services to the clinical organisation, rather than it resting with customer-facing organisations; and finally, we are removing the duplicative provision for the validation of testing and ensuring that the regulations reflect the publication of the updated ISO standard, which is 15189:2022.

The changes in the regulations are forward-looking and do not affect private providers that have applied for accreditation before the instrument comes into force. Those providers will still need to complete the application process but can do so using the current staged accreditation system.

On the point made by the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth, we are moving to a system in which accreditation will have to be achieved against the new ISO standard, and that will apply across the board and be comparable to other countries. We will move away from the three-stage process that we used during the emergency phase of the pandemic, when we had to balance risks and benefits. The risk at that time related to the need to get as much testing out to the public as possible, but that has now reduced, so it is important to set high standards so that people have confidence in the tests they get done.

The regulations will reduce the bureaucracy involved in applying for accreditation while still delivering the rigorous accreditation requirements that are important for public health. I therefore commend the regulations to the Committee.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Maria Caulfield

Tuesday 24th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

13. What assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the number of excess deaths in 2022.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maria Caulfield)]

Excess deaths data are published on the gov.uk website, which was most recently updated on 12 January. They show that causes of death from conditions such as ischemic heart disease contributed to excess deaths in England in the past year.

[Debbie Abrahams]

The UK’s all-cause mortality for working-age people was 8.3% above the average for the previous five years and the fifth highest in Europe. On top of that, excess deaths are disproportionately experienced by the most deprived and by people of African, Caribbean and Asian descent. Given that these figures are driven by structural inequalities, and that those inequalities are getting worse—the richest 1% have bagged nearly twice as much wealth as the remaining 99% in the past two years—does the Minister think that it is appropriate to recommend that people pay for their GPs?

[Maria Caulfield]

The Government are not recommending that people pay for their GPs. In fact, we are investing more in primary care than ever before, unlike the shadow Secretary of State who wants to dismantle the GP system and privatise the healthcare system as well. I think the hon. Lady needs to have a conversation with those on her own Front Bench. Not only did the shadow Secretary of State insult primary care teams for running up their vaccination programme, calling it “money for old rope”, but we are the ones who are investing in primary care services and making them more accessible to people.