Access to Migraine Treatment

Gavin Williamson Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2024 Westminster Hall

[Sir Gavin Williamson (South Staffordshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Dehenna Davison) on securing the debate. It is hard to imagine that this issue has not been discussed in Parliament for such a long time. That is especially true, as she so brilliantly articulated, given its impact on so many people in every one of our constituencies. One in seven people suffer from migraine, and over 1 million suffer from chronic migraine, so the impact on people’s lives and on families is widespread.

I am fortunate that I am not one of those one in seven people, but I have the experience of living with someone who suffers from chronic migraine. When we do not suffer from migraine, we do not understand how debilitating it can be. We cannot comprehend how it can take over someone’s life and stop them doing the things they most want to do—that they get pleasure from, that they live for. When that migraine seizes them, they just cannot do anything. They have to lie in a darkened room and cannot function in the way we expect and hope people can function.

Some of the statistics are concerning and saddening. My hon. Friend touched on the fact that 29% of respondents surveyed by the Migraine Trust had had to move from full-time to part-time work. That impacts not just what they do, but their whole family, what they can expect from life and their ambitions for the future. It can change the course of their lives. It is also concerning that 43% of those surveyed felt that their workplace did not believe them when they came in and said they had had a migraine. My hon. Friend touched on the sense of a migraine being just a bad headache. That is not what people have to live with and what they experience; this is something that seizes them totally and utterly.

We need to be more open about the wider impact that this is having on so many people. The fact that 34% feel discriminated against at work is just so wrong. I hope that by talking about this issue and highlighting its impact on so many people, we can improve understanding, not just among the Minister and those in his Department, but in workplaces right across the country, so that they can adapt and work with people who suffer. In that way, they can ensure that those people can give their best all the time while dealing with something we would not wish anyone to have to deal with.

The loss of days worked has a wider impact on businesses and individuals, so we have to start thinking differently, not just in our hospitals but, as has been touched on, in general practice and pharmacy as well. If people were suffering from a more visible disease or condition, the Government would be not just spending £150 million a year but looking at investing so much more in treatment and research so that they could deal with it. Sadly, migraine is one of those conditions where there is not one single answer that can be rolled out to deal with what every single person is suffering.

More and more people in this country are turning to A&E to be treated for migraine, but it is not the best place for them to be treated; it is not good for the hospitals or the individual. All of us in the room will know how important it is to get the right primary care and the right level of support for people, so that they can prevent migraine as much as possible, because when it has set in, it is so much more difficult to treat.

We also see understaffing. We have 1.1 neurologists per 100,000 people in the United Kingdom, compared with four per 100,000 in France and Germany. In addition, so few GPs have the true specialist knowledge they need to be able to sit down with their patients, talk through this issue and have a proper understanding of the type and range of treatments best suited to that individual. The Minister will talk about how all GPs cover neurological conditions, including migraine, in their basic training. However, with the prevalence of migraine in society, we need general practitioners to have not just a bit of general knowledge on it, but more specialist knowledge, certainly in the larger practices. We can then get those individuals who are unfortunate enough to suffer from migraine the specialist advice, treatment and knowledge they need. As we are so short of neurologists across the NHS, we must ensure that the burden is lifted away from our hospitals.

I would put in a particular plea in relation to pharmacies. It is not always that easy to see a doctor when a migraine is starting to emerge—when the indicators that it is about to hit start to show themselves. That is why it is important to ensure that support and help are widely available. I urge the Minister to go back to his Department and use his characteristic imaginative, thoughtful and revolutionary style to encourage it to be a little more bold and radical in its thinking—to be a little more “action this day”, as opposed to having another report. There are many things that can make a difference to people’s lives very quickly. One is ensuring that we make better use of our pharmacies, thereby lifting the pressure off the wider NHS. Another is ensuring that there is better training for GPs so that larger practices have that specialist knowledge.

I will finish with a final plea. My hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland mentioned CGRP blockers. We are all aware that there is not a silver bullet to this problem, but they are one of those things that give so many sufferers a little hope that there is something that can actually help. It is awful that people in many parts of the country cannot access them; they are not in a position to get the help they desperately need. I urge the Minister to go back to his Department and to look at CGRP blockers closely, along with the other actions that have been suggested. He could do something transformative for the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, and lift the misery they have to live with far too often.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Health and Secondary Care (Andrew Stephenson)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell.

I start by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Dehenna Davison) for securing this very important debate. I know that she has long been a champion for those living with migraine, and that her own ongoing struggle with chronic migraine, which she talked about, made it difficult, if not impossible, on some days to keep up with the demands of her ministerial role. Since leaving that role she has continued to shine a light on the impact of migraine at work and on what it means to live with migraine.

I also pay tribute to the outstanding charities that support the estimated 10 million people in the UK who live with migraine. For example, the Migraine Trust does fantastic work in empowering, informing and supporting patients, and in driving improvements in treatment and care.

I thank my right hon. Friends the Members for South Staffordshire (Sir Gavin Williamson) and for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone), and the hon. Members for South Antrim (Paul Girvan), for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell), for Midlothian (Owen Thompson), for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook) and for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) for their contributions to the debate. In those contributions, almost all right hon. and hon. Members talked about the stigma around migraine, with many setting out their own personal experiences of it. We all know that awareness is key to addressing discrimination, so I very much welcome each and every contribution to this morning’s debate.

Migraine is one of the most common neurological conditions, affecting about 10 million people in the UK, yet in this House we very rarely speak about it and its impact. Many of us have first-hand experience of migraine, or at least some insight into the enormously debilitating effect that it can have on people living with it. Indeed, my own sister, Andrea Stephenson, who I know you know, Mr Mundell, and who many other Members may know, suffers from migraine and I have seen the impact that it has had on her over the years.

As we have heard this morning, migraine is a severe and painful long-term health condition and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland so eloquently said, it is so much more than just a really bad headache. Anyone who lives with migraine knows that it can have a very significant and negative impact on quality of life. Perhaps the cruellest aspect of the condition is its ability to strike with little or no warning, disrupting people’s ability to perform even the most basic daily tasks. Migraine symptoms can last for days, affecting all aspects of life, including family and work life and the ability to engage in social activities. Even between attacks, migraine can impact on quality of life, especially when people try to limit daily activities to prevent another migraine.

Although the human cost is important—it is the most important factor—it is worth reflecting on the economic cost, which my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland and my right hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire set out so well in their speeches. That is why timely access to appropriate and effective care and treatment is so important. Accurate, timely diagnosis can ensure that people can access migraine treatments as early as possible, helping them to get the care that they need to treat attacks when they strike and prevent future ones. There is no specific test to diagnose migraines; for an accurate diagnosis, GPs must identify a pattern of recurring headaches along with the other associated symptoms. Migraines can be unpredictable, sometimes occurring without the other symptoms normally associated with the condition, so obtaining an accurate diagnosis can take some time.

The NICE guidelines on headaches and the diagnosis and management of headaches in young people and adults, last updated in December 2021, set out best practice for healthcare professionals in the care, treatment and support of people who suffer from headaches, including migraine. They aim to improve the recognition and management of headaches and migraine with more targeted treatments to improve the quality of life for people with headaches and reduce unnecessary investigations. NICE has also produced a clinical knowledge summary on migraine. Clinical knowledge summaries are concise, accessible summaries of the current evidence for primary care professionals, focusing on the most common and significant presentations in primary care. They give trusted information to support safe decision making and improve standards of patient care.

The usual treatment approaches to migraine are designed to either stop or prevent attacks. Treatment for acute migraine includes medications such as analgesics, triptans and antiemetics. Treatments to stop or reduce the frequency of migraine attacks include medications such as beta blockers, tricyclic antidepressants and anti-epileptics. We are committed to supporting timely and consistent access to new, effective medicines for NHS patients, so I am pleased that in October 2023, NICE published technology appraisal guidance recommending Rimegepant for the acute treatment of migraine. Rimegepant is recommended where patients have tried at least two triptans but they did not work well enough; where patients cannot take triptans or where they were not tolerated; or where other medication has been tried but did not work well enough. In separate guidance, last year NICE also recommended Rimegepant as an option for preventing episodic migraine in adults where at least three previous preventive treatments have failed, opening a way for 145,000 people in England to choose that option.

[Sir Gavin Williamson]

I appreciate the Minister’s setting out all that has been done. A few hon. Members mentioned CGRP blockers. I am sure that an exciting announcement may be coming, but if not, can the Minister reassure us that they can be looked at, to ensure that something emerges and is done about them?

[Andrew Stephenson]

My right hon. Friend anticipated my next point. Several hon. Members mentioned the difficulties experienced by some patients in accessing CGRP blockers. That issue was raised by the hon. Member for East Londonderry in his intervention. I note my right hon. Friend’s concern, and the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland about the NICE guidelines being reviewed to allow specialist treatment such as CGRP blockers to be made available as a first-line therapy.

NICE develops its recommendations independently, based on an assessment of the available evidence of clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness and through extensive engagement with interested parties. It is right that those decisions are taken independently on the basis of the available evidence, so it would not be appropriate for me to intervene directly. However, NICE keeps its recommendations under active surveillance, and if significant new evidence emerged it would review its guidance. I very much hope that NICE has been listening to what has been said by hon. and right hon. Members in this debate and looks at the emerging evidence from charities, such as the Migraine Trust, which might prompt it to review the guidance.

The NHS in England is legally required to make funding available for treatments that have been recommended by NICE. If there are any concerns about the availability of a NICE-recommended treatment in a particular area, it is important that hon. and right hon. Members raise those with their local integrated care boards in the first instance. However, I would be more than happy to look into situations where Members still have concerns.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland raised the issue of CGRPs and prescribing rights in primary care. That is an interesting point. I have asked the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency to look into this matter and I will write to my hon. Friend in the coming days.

Similarly, I will take away the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire about what more we can do to better utilise our local pharmacies. The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom), is responsible for pharmacy policy. She has already overseen the roll-out of Pharmacy First, ensuring that more conditions than ever before can be addressed by pharmacists, rather than people having to wait to see a GP.

At the moment, we expect that patients suffering from migraine would normally be treated first by their GP. If this failed to resolve the problem, patients would be referred to a consultant neurologist for further investigations and tests. We recognise the challenges within secondary care, in terms of waiting list size and the length of wait, with patients waiting far too long to access the specialist care they need. Neurology is particularly challenging at the moment, with a need for more neurologists, specialist nurses and allied health professionals.

We are committed to reducing waiting lists. To this end, we commissioned NHS England to develop a long-term plan for the NHS workforce for the next 15 years, which was published in June 2023. This sets out how we would deliver the doctors, nurses and other professionals that will be needed, also taking into account improvements in retention and productivity. The plan looks at the mix and number of staff required and has set out the actions and reform across the NHS that are needed to reduce the supply gap and improve retention. The plan will help ensure that we have the right number of staff with the right skills to transform and deliver high-quality services for the future.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland, the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich and my right hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire all raised the issue of awareness amongst GPs. UK medical schools determine the content of their own curricula. The delivery of these undergraduate curricula must meet standards set by the General Medical Council. The standards require the curriculum to be formed in a way that allows all medical students, by the time they complete their medical degree, to meet the GMC’s outcomes for graduates, which describe the knowledge, skills and behaviours they must show as newly registered doctors. Therefore, whilst not all curricula will necessarily highlight specific conditions, they all nevertheless emphasise the skills and approaches that a healthcare practitioner must develop to ensure accurate and timely diagnoses and treatment plans for patients, including for migraine.

All healthcare professionals, including GPs, are responsible for ensuring that their clinical knowledge remains up to date and for identifying learning needs as part of their continuing professional development. The Royal College of General Practitioners has developed e-learning resources to update primary care clinicians on the nature of migraine, the different diagnoses and how to approach a patient with headache.

Through NHS England’s getting it right first time—or GIRFT—programme, we are also offering practical solutions for managing the demand for services within secondary care. There have been major advances in treating neurological conditions, including migraine, but services often struggle to keep pace with innovation, which has a significant impact on outcomes for people living with those conditions. GIRFT is a national programme which is designed to improve the treatment and care of patients through in-depth, clinically led review of specialties to examine how they are currently being done and how they could be improved. The GIRFT national specialty report for neurology, published in September 2021, makes a number of recommendations applicable to migraine. For example, the report highlights that providing support and advice to GPs in diagnosing and managing patients with headache can improve management of patients without a patient necessarily having to be seen as an out-patient. GP access to CT and MRI imaging would also enhance GPs’ ability to manage headaches in the community using appropriate guidelines.

As several right hon. and hon. Members said, research is key. Investing in research is a key component of supporting people living with migraine. It plays a vital role in providing those working in the NHS with the evidence they need to better support patients and provide access to pioneering treatments, diagnostics and services. The Department of Health and Social Care funds research through the National Institute for Health Research, which has funded and supported a range of research projects on migraine over the past five years, including studies to assess the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of drugs to prevent and treat migraines, and resources and training on self-management. For example, a study that is close to completion is looking at the comparative clinical cost-effectiveness of pharmacological treatments for adults with chronic migraine.

I once again thank right hon. and hon. Members for their insightful points. I hope they and my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland are reassured by some of the measures I have outlined today. I recognise that we must go further, and I assure them that I will continue to support people living with migraine through system transformation, NIHR research and exploring and investing in new treatments to ensure we are delivering real results for patients on the ground.