Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
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 help encourage research into cardiovascular disease (a) treatment and (b) prevention.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department funds research into the treatment and prevention of cardiovascular disease through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). In January 2023, the Department updated its areas of research interest (ARIs), which highlight to the patient, academic, clinical and life sciences community the areas where we want to expand our efforts and work together to systematically understand, intervene and improve public, patient, and service outcomes. ARI1 focuses on prevention, early diagnosis and appropriate intervention for people at increased risk of poor health, including cardiovascular disease. Supporting ARI1, the three NIHR Research Schools were awarded £10 million to deliver a collaborative programme of prevention research between 2023 and 2027. The programme will have a strong emphasis on capacity building. It will also encourage practitioners to participate in prevention research as a step towards establishing their own longer-term research careers and help address gaps between research and practice.
Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
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 ensure that vegans and vegetarians are provided with appropriate food in the (a) NHS, (b) social care and (c) other health services.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
For the National Health Service, social care and other health services, the Care Quality Commission regulates providers on compliance with Regulation 14 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. This states that health and social care providers must consider people’s preferences, religious and cultural backgrounds when providing food and drink, and that people must have their nutritional needs assessed as quickly as possible and food be provided to meet the needs identified.
NHS England published updated NHS Food Standards in November 2022. The standards set out that menus should be tailored to meet patient’s dietary requirements and personal preferences. To that end, all hospital sites are expected to prepare and provide menus that meet all necessary types of dietary, religious and cultural needs. Vegetarian and vegan meals and snacks have long been part of this choice, and particularly with the focus on providing lower carbon choices, plant based meals are being provided as an extensive range.
Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she is taking steps to protect (a) Bupa, (b) HCA Healthcare and (c) other major private healthcare providers from (i) BGI Group and (ii) MGI Tech.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Organisations which hold sensitive biological data are subject to the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). In addition, organisations such as Genomics England, UK Biobank and NIHR BioResource actively consider national security in decision making about partnerships with companies overseas.
As part of the new UK Biological Security Strategy, the Government is undertaking a programme of work to assess how we can minimise the risks from biological data to protect our burgeoning bioeconomy, without stifling innovation, and build confidence in sharing personal data to improve health outcomes in the United Kingdom and across the world. The Office for Life Sciences has begun this work, in consultation with relevant Departments and Agencies across Government, and key partners such as Genomics England and UK Biobank.
Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to ensure the security of DNA data held by (a) the NHS Genomic Medicine Service and (b) private providers of NHS healthcare; and whether she has had discussions with Cabinet colleagues on the potential for cyber attacks by foreign state-linked companies.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Organisations which hold sensitive biological data are subject to the UK General Data Protection Regulation. In addition, organisations such as Genomics England, UK Biobank and NIHR BioResource actively consider national security in decision making about partnerships with companies overseas.
As part of the new UK Biological Security Strategy, the Government is undertaking a programme of work to assess how we can minimise the risks from biological data to protect our burgeoning bioeconomy, without stifling innovation, and build confidence in sharing personal data to improve health outcomes in the United Kingdom and across the world. The Office for Life Sciences has begun this work, in consultation with relevant Departments and Agencies across Government, and key partners such as Genomics England and UK Biobank.
Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Department has made an assessment of the levels of compliance by health and social care providers with the Accessible Information Standard.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
National Health Service organisations and publicly funded social care providers must comply with the Accessible Information Standard (AIS) to meet the communication needs of patients and carers with a disability, impairment, or sensory loss. NHS England has completed a review of the AIS to help ensure that everyone’s communication needs are met in health and care provision. The review considered the effectiveness of the current AIS, how the standard is implemented and enforced in practice, and identified recommendations for improvement.
One of the aims of the review was to strengthen assurance of implementation of the AIS, and a self-assessment framework has been developed to support providers of NHS and social care services to measure their performance against the AIS and develop improvement action plans to address gaps in implementation. The self-assessment framework has also been designed to help the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to gain insight into people's experiences and whether their accessible communication needs are being met, and help CQC better understand organisational performance and to include that in the CQC assessment framework for provider organisations.
Following publication of the revised standard, NHS England will continue work to support its implementation with awareness raising, communication and engagement and updated e-learning modules on the AIS to ensure NHS staff are better aware of the standard and their roles and responsibilities in implementing it.
Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to help increase access to bowel cancer screenings.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Based on advice from the UK National Screening Committee, the National Health Service is currently extending the age criteria for bowel cancer screening from between 60 and 74 years old so that screening will be available from the age of 50 years old; this is due to be completed by 2024/25. This will increase access for people who would have otherwise not been able to access the service.
Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential implications for his policies of (a) updates to the programme manual used by the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence including Rapid Access to Managed Access and (b) the introduction of the Innovative Medicines Fund.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to supporting rapid patient access to effective new medicines in a way that is fair to all parties and represents value to the National Health Service. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) plays an important role in supporting patient access to effective new medicines and is able to recommend most new medicines for use in the NHS. Where there is too much clinical uncertainty for NICE to be able to recommend routine funding, it is able to recommend medicines for use through the Cancer Drugs Fund or Innovative Medicines Fund which make promising medicines available to patients while further real-world evidence is collected to inform a final NICE recommendation.
NICE is responsible for the methods and processes it uses in the evaluation of new medicines and the changes that it has recently made to its evaluation processes will enable it to produce faster guidance on simpler, low-risk treatments. NICE and NHS England are exploring options for rapid entry to managed access (REMA) that build on the experience of the Cancer Drugs Fund and Innovative Medicines Fund to support managed access to medicines. NICE has not yet made any changes to its health technology evaluation manual related to REMA.
Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the Innovative Medicines Fund in increasing access to gene therapies.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) makes recommendations for the National Health Service in England on whether all new licensed medicines represent a clinically effective and cost-effective use of NHS resources. NICE has been able to recommend several gene therapies for routine funding and they are now routinely available to NHS patients in line with NICE’s recommendations. No gene therapies have been recommended for use through the Innovative Medicines Fund and NICE continues to consider the suitability of medicines for the Fund with individual companies.
Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the recommendations of the British Society for Echocardiography made in its report entitled The UK Echocardiography Workforce published in June 2023, whether his Department is taking steps to help ensure that the NHS retains a sufficient number of experienced echocardiographers to train new recruits.
Answered by Will Quince
NHS England has developed a new fast-track echocardiography training scheme, which has led to 150 additional echocardiographers with further support being available in 2023/24.
More generally, the NHS People Plan and the People Promise set out a comprehensive range of actions to improve staff retention. They provide a strong focus on creating a more modern, compassionate and inclusive culture in the National Health Service by strengthening health and wellbeing, equality and diversity, culture and leadership and flexible working.
NHS priorities and operational planning guidance 23/24 has asked systems to refresh their 2022/23 whole system workforce plans to improve staff retention through a systematic focus on all elements of the NHS People Promise. Staff wellbeing should be strategically aligned with elective recovery plans, including workforce demand and capacity planning. In addition, the NHS Retention Programme is continuously seeking to understand why staff leave, resulting in targeted interventions to support staff to stay whilst keeping them well.
The Long Term Workforce Plan builds on the People Plan and sets out how to improve culture and leadership to ensure that up to 130,000 fewer staff leave the NHS over the next 15 years. This includes: implementing actions from the NHS People Plan that have been shown to be successful; and implementing plans to improve flexible opportunities for prospective retirees and delivering the actions needed to modernise the NHS pension scheme.
These interventions apply across staff groups, including echocardiographers.
Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to devolve any aspect of radiotherapy commissioning to integrated care boards in (a) Crawley constituency and (b) England; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England’s National Moderation Panel will determine how many integrated care boards (ICBs) will take on responsibility for specialised commissioning in October 2023. Following this moderation process, recommendations will be taken to the NHS England Board for final decisions in December 2023, before new arrangements go live from April 2024.
This process will consider the delegation of radiotherapy commissioning for ICBs across England including across the Crawley constituency.