Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)
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 NHS England and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence on access to new treatments for sickle cell disease and 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 effective new treatments. NICE appraises all newly licensed medicines and aims to publish draft guidance around the time of licensing wherever possible. NICE works closely with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and NHS England to ensure that there is a joined-up, timely approach to supporting access to new treatments for National Health Service patients.
NICE is currently appraising exagamglogene autotemcel for treating transfusion-dependent beta-thalassaemia and sickle cell disease, and expects to publish final guidance in March and April 2024 respectively.
Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)
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 trends in the level of demand for medication used to treat ADHD since 2010.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
There are currently no plans to make such an assessment.
It is the responsibility of integrated care boards (ICBs) to make available appropriate provision, including for ADHD assessment and support, to meet the health and care needs of their local population, in line with relevant National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines. NICE guidelines for ADHD diagnosis and management aim to improve the diagnosis of ADHD and the quality of care and support people receive. The Department is looking into options for improving data collection and reporting on ADHD assessment waiting times, to help improve access to ADHD assessments in a timely way and in line with the NICE guidelines.
We are aware of global disruptions to the supply of medicines used for the management of ADHD. Medicine shortages are an ongoing issue that the Department has been managing for many years. Supply problems can arise for various reasons such as manufacturing issues, problems with the raw ingredients, sudden spikes in demand and batch failures. The Department has well established processes to manage and mitigate supply problems.
Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate she has made of the volume of medication prescribed to treat ADHD in each year since 2010.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The information is not held in the requested format. Data relating to the clinical indication for which a prescription is intended is not captured; some items dispensed can be used for a variety of clinical indications.
Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to support people with cystic fibrosis.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
To support the health of people with cystic fibrosis, NHS England is undertaking a review of cystic fibrosis care including a review of service provision, management, and financing over the past two years. The review has already distributed recommendations for optimal monitoring of patients at home.
To support standards of cystic fibrosis care, NHS England is also undertaking a baseline assessment of cystic fibrosis centres to understand current standards, care provision, and any gaps. This data will inform the 2023/24 work programme. To support cystic fibrosis patients to live longer and healthier lives, people with cystic fibrosis in England have also benefited from one of the fastest rollouts of the drug Kaftrio in the world.
Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)
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 make a decision on funding for primary ophthalmic services for children in non-residential special schools.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
NHS England are considering the evaluation of the special school programme, to determine how services to meet the eye care needs of children with learning disabilities in non-residential school settings should be commissioned, and will set out next steps shortly.
Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many times GP surgeries in (a) Lewisham East constituency and (b) the London Borough of Lewisham have failed to meet targets for offering appointments to patients in each year since 2010.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The Department has not set a target. General practices (GPs) are required to provide services to meet the reasonable needs of the patients registered at their practice. The Government has also set an expectation that patients who need an appointment with their GP within two weeks should get one, and that patients with urgent needs should be seen on the same day.
Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what target his Department sets GP surgeries for offering appointments to patients.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The Department has not set a target. General practices (GPs) are required to provide services to meet the reasonable needs of the patients registered at their practice. The Government has also set an expectation that patients who need an appointment with their GP within two weeks should get one, and that patients with urgent needs should be seen on the same day.
Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent estimate he has made of the average number of patients registered with GP surgeries in (a) Lewisham East constituency, (b) the London Borough of Lewisham and (c) England in each year since 2010.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
This information requested is not held centrally. Such data as is available on the number of patients registered at general practices in England is available at the following link:
Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)
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 impact of the rising cost of medicines on community pharmacy contractors’ ability to deliver local pharmaceutical services.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The Government commits £2.592 billion per year to community pharmacy. This is made up of £1.792 billion in fees and allowances and £800 million from medicine margin. Medicine margin is the difference between what a pharmacy contractor pays for a medicine and what they are reimbursed by the National Health Service when they dispense the product.
The Department assesses the overall medicine margin across all products through a quarterly medicine margin survey. This data is used to calculate the average amount of medicine margin retained by pharmacy contractors during the year and to adjust reimbursement prices to ensure that the £800 million medicines margin is delivered to pharmacy contactors. This ensures that higher or lower prices of medicines do not impact on community pharmacy contractors’ overall level of funding and therefore their ability to deliver pharmaceutical services.
Additionally, a one-off investment in the sector of £100 million across 2022/23 and 2023/24 was announced in September last year.
Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)
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 impact of the closure of pharmacy practices on health inequalities in (a) South East London, (b) London and (c) England.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The Department closely monitors the market to ensure people in England have good access to National Health Service pharmaceutical services. Despite the increase in pharmacy closures seen in recent years, there remains a similar number of pharmacies to ten years ago. 80% of the population live within 20 minutes’ walking distance of a pharmacy. There are relatively more pharmacies in areas of higher deprivation than in areas with lower levels of deprivation within South East London, London and England according to the latest (December 2022) data.