Asked by: Jo Churchill (Conservative - Bury St Edmunds)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment the Government has made of the role of independent sector providers of diagnostic services in meeting NHS cancer diagnosis targets.
Answered by David Mowat
The independent sector provides diagnostic services to the National Health Service which supports the NHS to meet waiting time standards for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer.
Asked by: Jo Churchill (Conservative - Bury St Edmunds)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to NHS England's consultation on developing a method to assist investment decisions in specialised services, published in April 2016, what budget has been allocated to support new investments in specialised services in 2016-17.
Answered by David Mowat
NHS England funds a range of new treatments and interventions for specialised services each year.
NHS England’s specialised commissioning budget received an additional £1 billion in 2016-17 compared to 2015-16 to cover a range of new investments including the impact of demographic changes and new treatments and interventions.
Most of this additional £1 billion is covering the costs of demographic changes.
With regard to new treatments and interventions, many of these were considered as ‘In Year Service Developments’ – policies which are cost-saving or cost neutral. This includes 12 new treatments and services that were confirmed in July 2016. Further information on these decisions is available at the following address:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/2016/07/spec-services-investment/
In addition NHS England funds the cost of drug indications approved through the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) technology appraisal and highly specialised technology appraisals process. For new drug indications that have commenced since April 2016, NHS England has released approximately £45 million to date.
Finally, policies which require new investment and that are not being considered by NICE are considered as part of the Annual Prioritisation process. NHS England has set aside £25 million to fund new treatments approved as part of this process for 2016-17.
This is in addition to £340 million budgeted for the new Cancer Drugs Fund.
Asked by: Jo Churchill (Conservative - Bury St Edmunds)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what proportion of cancer patients in (a) England and (b) Bury St Edmunds constituency received their first cancer treatment within 62 days of an urgent GP referral in (i) 2014-15 and (ii) 2015-16.
Answered by David Mowat
The Handbook to the NHS Constitution contains a pledge that 85% of patients have a maximum two month (62-day) wait from urgent referral for suspected cancer to first treatment for all cancers.
The information requested is in the table below:
Percentage of patients in England and Bury St Edmunds constituency1 that waited 62 days from a general practitioner urgent referral to a first treatment for cancer, 2014-15 and 2015-16
| England | NHS Ipswich and East Suffolk CCG | NHS West Suffolk CCG |
2014-15 | 83.4% | 85.8% | 84.9% |
2015-16 | 82.4% | 85.2% | 83.3% |
Source: Cancer waiting times, NHS England
Notes:
1 Bury St Edmunds constituency has two clinical commissioning groups (CCG):
NHS Ipswich and East Suffolk CCG
NHS West Suffolk CCG
Asked by: Jo Churchill (Conservative - Bury St Edmunds)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many people from within Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust region have been required to travel outside their trust areas to receive emergency mental health treatment in each year since 2010.
Answered by Alistair Burt
The information is not available in the format requested.