Asked by: James Davies (Conservative - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of whether the Innova Lateral Flow Device Test is fit-for-purpose.
Answered by Jo Churchill
Evaluation from Public Health England and the University of Oxford have shown that Innova lateral flow tests were shown to detect over 95% of individuals with high viral load or the most infectious cases. Results of the Innova evaluation in 2020 showed that the tests were effective in picking up viral antigens in both symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals. The Department continues to monitor the performance of the Innova lateral flow test.
Asked by: James Davies (Conservative - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when his Department plans to set out a timeline for the implementation of the dementia moonshot.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
The Government is committed to supporting research into dementia and to delivering a moonshot. Later in 2021, we will bring forward a new dementia strategy to set out our plans for dementia research, care, support and awareness in England for future years.
Asked by: James Davies (Conservative - Vale of Clwyd)
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 support research into long covid.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
The Department, through the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), launched a £20 million joint research call which closed on 9 December 2020. This call will fund comprehensive research to understand and address the longer term physical and mental health effects of COVID-19 in individuals who contracted the virus but were not hospitalised. Results of the call will be published in due course.
The NIHR and UKRI have already invested £8.5 million in the PHOSP-COVID study led by the University of Leicester. The study is one of the world’s largest comprehensive research studies into the long-term physical and mental health impacts of COVID-19 on hospitalised patients and will draw on expertise from a consortium of leading researchers and doctors from across the United Kingdom.
Asked by: James Davies (Conservative - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he has for the involvement of (a) medical research charities and (b) the NHS in researching long-covid.
Answered by Edward Argar
The Department, through the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), recently launched a joint research call which closed on 9 December 2020. Through this call, £18.5 million has been committed to funding four research studies to understand and address the longer term physical and mental health effects of ‘long’ COVID-19, in individuals who contracted the virus but were not hospitalised.
The NIHR and UKRI have also invested £8.5 million in the PHOSP-COVID study which is one of the world’s largest comprehensive research studies into the long-term health impacts of COVID-19 on hospitalised patients. Researchers and clinicians as part of the study are actively working with medical charities to help define key questions for research.
Asked by: James Davies (Conservative - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans his Department has to mark World Obesity Day on 4 March 2021; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Jo Churchill
The Department supports the aims of World Obesity Day. As part of delivering the commitments in ‘Tackling obesity: empowering adults and children to live healthier lives’, the Government has announced £100 million extra funding for healthy weight programmes.