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Written Question
Cancer: Health Education
Wednesday 21st February 2024

Asked by: George Howarth (Labour - Knowsley)

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 potential merits of targeted awareness campaigns for young people on the five main warning signs and symptoms of cancer.

Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Children and Young People Cancer Taskforce has been set up to progress the Government’s mission to deliver world-leading cancer services. This dedicated work focusing on cancers affecting children and young people will explore detection and diagnosis, including improving awareness of the signs and symptoms of cancer in young people, as well as genomic testing and treatment, and research and innovation.

NHS England is focused on accelerating earlier and faster cancer diagnosis to achieve the NHS Long Term Plan ambition of diagnosing 75% of people at an early stage by 2028. NHS England’s comprehensive strategy includes raising awareness of cancer symptoms, tackling barriers to help-seeking, and encouraging people to get checked. Targeted awareness campaigns such as Help Us, Help You are a crucial component of this work. The campaigns address specific symptoms, including those linked to common, rare, and less-common cancers, cancer screening, and the fear-related barriers to seeking help from the National Health Service across all cancer types.


Written Question
Cancer: Young People
Wednesday 21st February 2024

Asked by: George Howarth (Labour - Knowsley)

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 awareness of the (a) signs and (b) symptoms of cancer in young people.

Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Children and Young People Cancer Taskforce has been set up to progress the Government’s mission to deliver world-leading cancer services. This dedicated work focusing on cancers affecting children and young people will explore detection and diagnosis, including improving awareness of the signs and symptoms of cancer in young people, as well as genomic testing and treatment, and research and innovation.

NHS England is focused on accelerating earlier and faster cancer diagnosis to achieve the NHS Long Term Plan ambition of diagnosing 75% of people at an early stage by 2028. NHS England’s comprehensive strategy includes raising awareness of cancer symptoms, tackling barriers to help-seeking, and encouraging people to get checked. Targeted awareness campaigns such as Help Us, Help You are a crucial component of this work. The campaigns address specific symptoms, including those linked to common, rare, and less-common cancers, cancer screening, and the fear-related barriers to seeking help from the National Health Service across all cancer types.


Written Question
Blood Diseases: Medical Treatments
Wednesday 21st February 2024

Asked by: George Howarth (Labour - Knowsley)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions she has had with (a) NICE and (b) NHS England on encouraging the adoption of new treatments for (i) sickle cell disease and (ii) beta-thalassaemia.

Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department regularly discusses a range of issues with colleagues in NHS England and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), related to patient access to new treatments.

The NICE appraises all new licensed medicines, and its recommendations are developed independently in line with its established methods and processes, on the basis of an assessment of the available evidence, and through extensive engagement with stakeholders. NHS England is legally required to fund treatments recommended in NICE technology appraisal guidance.


Written Question
National Institute for Health and Care Excellence: Medical Treatments
Wednesday 21st February 2024

Asked by: George Howarth (Labour - Knowsley)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions she has had with the (a) National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and (b) Chancellor of the Exchequer on the application of NICE's evaluation methods to support value assessment for one-off curative treatments for which health gains are accrued over time.

Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

Department officials regularly discuss a range of issues with colleagues in the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and HM Treasury. The NICE is responsible for the methods and processes it uses to develop its recommendations, and concluded a comprehensive review of the methods and processes it uses for health technology evaluation, in January 2022. The NICE carried out the review through extensive engagement with stakeholders, including officials within the Department. The NICE introduced a number of changes that make its methods fairer, faster, more consistent, and appropriate to the evaluation of emerging new technologies, such as cell and gene therapies.

The NICE is monitoring the impact of the changes following the methods review and has committed to considering modular updates to its methods and processes in the future, including a planned update focussed on health inequalities in 2024. The NICE has been able to recommend several advanced therapeutic medicinal products, including one-off gene therapies, for National Health Service funding that are now available to NHS patients in line with NICE’s recommendations.


Written Question
National Institute for Health and Care Excellence: Medical Treatments
Wednesday 21st February 2024

Asked by: George Howarth (Labour - Knowsley)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions she has had with NICE on developing its methodologies to ensure future access to (a) innovative one-time treatments and (b) cell and genetic therapies.

Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

Department officials regularly discuss a range of issues with colleagues in the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and HM Treasury. The NICE is responsible for the methods and processes it uses to develop its recommendations, and concluded a comprehensive review of the methods and processes it uses for health technology evaluation, in January 2022. The NICE carried out the review through extensive engagement with stakeholders, including officials within the Department. The NICE introduced a number of changes that make its methods fairer, faster, more consistent, and appropriate to the evaluation of emerging new technologies, such as cell and gene therapies.

The NICE is monitoring the impact of the changes following the methods review and has committed to considering modular updates to its methods and processes in the future, including a planned update focussed on health inequalities in 2024. The NICE has been able to recommend several advanced therapeutic medicinal products, including one-off gene therapies, for National Health Service funding that are now available to NHS patients in line with NICE’s recommendations.


Written Question
National Institute for Health and Care Excellence: Medical Treatments
Wednesday 21st February 2024

Asked by: George Howarth (Labour - Knowsley)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions she has had with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence on updates in the way that it assesses medicines that reduce health inequalities.

Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

Department officials regularly discuss a range of issues with colleagues in the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and HM Treasury. The NICE is responsible for the methods and processes it uses to develop its recommendations, and concluded a comprehensive review of the methods and processes it uses for health technology evaluation, in January 2022. The NICE carried out the review through extensive engagement with stakeholders, including officials within the Department. The NICE introduced a number of changes that make its methods fairer, faster, more consistent, and appropriate to the evaluation of emerging new technologies, such as cell and gene therapies.

The NICE is monitoring the impact of the changes following the methods review and has committed to considering modular updates to its methods and processes in the future, including a planned update focussed on health inequalities in 2024. The NICE has been able to recommend several advanced therapeutic medicinal products, including one-off gene therapies, for National Health Service funding that are now available to NHS patients in line with NICE’s recommendations.


Written Question
Diabetes: Medical Equipment
Wednesday 21st February 2024

Asked by: George Howarth (Labour - Knowsley)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many and what proportion of patients with type 1 diabetes use (a) finger-pricking monitoring and (b) continuous monitoring to track their glucose levels.

Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

Standard care for type 1 diabetes involves regularly measuring blood glucose levels by self-monitoring, blood testing, or by using a continuous glucose monitor, real-time or intermittently scanned.

The NHS Long Term Plan committed that 20% of people with type 1 diabetes would benefit from life changing flash glucose monitors. Data to quarter three of 2022/23 shows that 73% of people with type 1 diabetes were prescribed flash glucose monitoring, against the 20% target. As a result of the recent National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidance that also recommended that insulin dependent patients with type 2 diabetes should benefit from flash or continuous glucose monitoring devices, we are now starting to see a growth in prescribing within the type 2 diabetes patient group.


Written Question
Diabetes: Medical Equipment
Wednesday 21st February 2024

Asked by: George Howarth (Labour - Knowsley)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many and what proportion of patients with type 1 diabetes use real time continuous glucose monitoring to manage their diabetes.

Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

Standard care for type 1 diabetes involves regularly measuring blood glucose levels by self-monitoring, blood testing, or by using a continuous glucose monitor, real-time or intermittently scanned.

The NHS Long Term Plan committed that 20% of people with type 1 diabetes would benefit from life changing flash glucose monitors. Data to quarter three of 2022/23 shows that 73% of people with type 1 diabetes were prescribed flash glucose monitoring, against the 20% target. As a result of the recent National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidance that also recommended that insulin dependent patients with type 2 diabetes should benefit from flash or continuous glucose monitoring devices, we are now starting to see a growth in prescribing within the type 2 diabetes patient group.


Written Question
Hospices: Children
Tuesday 30th January 2024

Asked by: George Howarth (Labour - Knowsley)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an assessment of the implications for her policies of the report by Together for Short Lives entitled The deep disparity in NHS funding for children who need hospice care, published on 13 December 2023.

Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government recognises that access to high-quality, palliative and end of life care can make all the difference to individuals and their loved ones. The commissioning of children and young people’s palliative and end of life care services is the statutory duty of integrated care boards (ICBs). ICBs must commission palliative and end of life care services in response to the needs of their population, provided by a range of local organisations with the experience and skills to meet those needs.

Whilst the majority of palliative and end of life care is provided by National Health Service staff and services, we recognise the vital part that voluntary sector organisations, including hospices, also play in providing support to people at end of life and their families. Most hospices are charitable, independent organisations which receive some statutory funding for providing NHS services. The amount of funding hospices receive is dependent on many factors, including what other statutory services are available within the ICB footprint. Charitable hospices are autonomous organisations that provide a range of services which go beyond that which statutory services are legally required to provide. Consequently, the funding arrangements reflect this.

Due to the way the hospice movement organically grew, hospice locations were largely not planned with geographic or demographic purposes as a driving force. Therefore, there are inequalities with access to hospice services, especially for those living in rural or socio-economically deprived areas. It is therefore vital that hospices and statutory services work together to provide ensure their populations have access to palliative and end of life care when they need it.

At a national level, in line with the NHS Long Term Plan commitment, NHS England (NHSE) has provided circa £12 million match-funding to participating ICBs (and formerly clinical commissioning groups) between 2020/21 and 2023/24 which committed to invest in children and young people’s palliative and end of life care, including children and young people’s hospices, giving a total investment of £24 million. In addition, NHSE supports palliative and end of life care for children and young people through the Children and Young People’s Hospice Grant. NHSE has confirmed that it will be renewing the grant for 2024/25, once again allocating £25 million grant funding for children’s hospices using the same prevalence-based allocation approach as in 2022/23 and 2023/24. This prevalence-based approach ensures funding matches local need.

NHSE’s palliative and end of life care team has recently engaged with 24 ICBs to understand how to better support commissioners and has also reviewed all 42 ICB Joint Forward Plans for their inclusion of palliative and end of life care, with 69% of those plans making a specific mention. Further analysis is ongoing, but the intention is to use this information to help shape and focus support to ICBs.

Palliative and end of life care has been added to the agenda for Regional Quality and Performance meetings. Additionally, NHSE has commissioned the development of a palliative and end of life care dashboard, which brings together all relevant local data in one place. The dashboard helps commissioners understand the palliative and end of life care needs of those their local population, including the ability to filter the available information, such as by deprivation or ethnicity, thereby, enabling ICBs to put plans in place to address and track the improvement of health inequalities.


Written Question
Pharmacy: Closures
Monday 29th January 2024

Asked by: George Howarth (Labour - Knowsley)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate her Department has made of the number of closures of community pharmacies in the current Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework period.

Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The NHS Business Services Authority publishes official statistics which includes the number of pharmacies opening and closing in each financial year. The following table shows how many pharmacies opened or closed within the last five years:

Financial Year

Pharmacies opened

Pharmacies closed

2018/2019

220

347

2019/2020

239

405

2020/2021

236

451

2021/2022

308

418

2022/2023

297

388

Community pharmacies are private businesses that receive funding to provide pharmaceutical services for the National Health Service. The decision to close, divest or consolidate is a commercial decision made by the business owner. The Department is monitoring changes to the market closely. Access remains good, with 80% of people in England living within a 20 minutes’ walk from a local pharmacy, and with twice as many pharmacies in deprived areas.