Asked by: John Howell (Conservative - Henley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress he has made in the introduction of mutually-recognised vaccine certificates within Europe.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The United Kingdom and European Union are aligned in the technical approach to COVID-19 status certification. We are actively engaging other states on a bilateral basis and multilaterally through organisations including the International Civil Aviation Organization and the World Health Organization to support this work. The certification app in France now allows scans the code from the NHS COVID Pass and work continues to set up similar arrangements elsewhere.
Asked by: John Howell (Conservative - Henley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has issued guidance to GP practices encouraging a return to face to face working from 19 July 2021.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Face-to-face appointments have been available throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and approximately half of all appointments in June 2021 were delivered in person. NHS England and NHS Improvement wrote to general practitioner practices on 19 July to set out that practices should offer a blend of face-to-face and remote appointments, with remote triage where possible. The letter is available at the following link:
Patients’ input into the choice of consultation mode should be sought and practices should respect preferences for face-to-face care unless there are good clinical reasons to the contrary, for example the presence of COVID-19 symptoms.
Asked by: John Howell (Conservative - Henley)
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 merits of collecting data on the (a) number of people who have contracted covid-19 after receiving two doses of a vaccine and (b) average length of stay for those double-vaccinated people who have been admitted to hospital.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
Public Health England monitors the number of people who have tested positive for COVID-19 and whether they have received one or two doses of the vaccination. This data is used to calculate vaccine effectiveness estimates which are available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-vaccine-surveillance-report
NHS Digital collects data on the number of people who have contracted COVID-19, patients who have received one or two doses of a vaccine and hospital data that can be used to calculate average length of stay. These three datasets can be linked where possible to track patient outcomes for vaccinated people.
Asked by: John Howell (Conservative - Henley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department have taken steps to enable people who participated in the Novavax covid-19 vaccine trials to travel internationally; and what support his Department has provided to the European Medicines Agency for the registration of that vaccine.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The Government continues to make the case that anyone on a COVID-19 vaccine trial should be treated the same in terms of certification as someone who has received a deployed vaccine. Our Chief Medical Officer has written to all of his counterparts in the European Union and European Economic Community on this matter. Discussions are ongoing with other countries, including through groups such as the Group of Seven, the European Commission and the World Health Organisation to shape the approach taken around the world to sharing health status for travel.
The Vaccines Taskforce and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) are working with Novavax to help ensure their COVID-19 vaccine is authorised as quickly as possible. The decision to license a vaccine is made by the MHRA.
Asked by: John Howell (Conservative - Henley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recommendations his Department is making as to the use of Hyperbaric Oxygen therapy treatment in dealing with Long covid.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department is not currently making any recommendations regarding hyperbaric oxygen therapy treatment (HBOT) for long COVID due to a lack of scientific evidence to support its use.
There have been two long COVID research calls launched by the National Institute for Health Research and UK Research and Innovation, resulting in 19 funded projects. The calls specifically asked for projects investigating possible therapies for long COVID and a number of studies of this type have been funded. HBOT has not formed part of any application to either of these calls. Other ongoing calls are open and available for long COVID research applications and if a project on HBOT for long COVID was received, it would be considered.
The Department is aware of clinical trials currently taking place internationally, which are researching the use of HBOT for long COVID.
Asked by: John Howell (Conservative - Henley)
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 implications for his policies on covid-19 passes and certificates of the debate that took place at the Council of Europe on 22 June 2021.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The debate at the Council of Europe highlighted key issues which the Government has considered in its policies regarding COVID-19 certificates. We are working to support United Kingdom residents to demonstrate their vaccination status using the fully secure NHS app. In addition to the digital service, the National Health Service is working on providing individuals with the means to demonstrate their COVID-19 status through non-digital routes to ensure the service is accessible to all.
Asked by: John Howell (Conservative - Henley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 20 May 2021 to Question 181, when that assessment is planned to be made.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We have no plans to make a specific assessment. Public bodies must comply with the Public Sector Equality Duty. This already requires them to consider how their policies affect people who are protected under the Equality Act 2010, including those with a disability.
Asked by: John Howell (Conservative - Henley)
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 implications for his policies of resolution 2373 on discrimination against persons dealing with chronic and long term illness passed at the Council of Europe on 21 April 2021; and whether the Government plans to take steps following the passing of that resolution.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We have not made a specific assessment.
We are committed to tackling discrimination. Public authorities, including the Department and all National Health Service providers, must comply with the Public Sector Equality Duty. This requires them to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination when carrying out their activities.
Asked by: John Howell (Conservative - Henley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what measures are in place to support the import of insulin from Denmark (Nova Nordisk) and Germany (Sanofi) in the event of the UK leaving the EU (a) with and (b) without a deal.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
In the event that the UK leaves the EU with a negotiated deal, the Department’s assessment is that during the Implementation Period agreed with the EU, market access to medicines and medical devices won’t change for industry or the NHS.
We are working closely with partners across the health and care system and industry, to take all appropriate steps to prepare for leaving the European Union. Our robust plans and multi layered approach should help ensure the supply of medicines and medical products, including insulin, remains uninterrupted if we leave without a deal.
On 26 June, we wrote to suppliers of medicines to the United Kingdom from or via the EU or European Economic Area setting out our continuing multi-layered approach to support continuity of supply of medicines and medical products.
For commercial reasons, the Government will not be releasing details of contingency plans for individual medicines. We continue to work with individual suppliers directly to assure ourselves of their contingency plans. However, as an example of the preparations being taken by industry, insulin manufacturer Novo Nordisk recently publicly stated that they have 18 weeks' worth of supplies in the UK and had secured alternative ferry capacity to renew supplies.
Further details can be found at the following link:
Asked by: John Howell (Conservative - Henley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the absence of a remission timeframe in the recommendation of NICE on the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukaemia, for what reason NHS England does not prescribe ibrutinib to patients who have been in remission for more than three years.
Answered by Steve Brine
We have been informed by NHS England that, since 25 April 2017, it has routinely commissioned ibrutinib for relapsed / refractory chronic lymphocytic leukaemia and chronic lymphocytic leukaemia with 17p deletion or TP53 mutation. Prior to this, ibrutinib was funded via the Cancer Drugs Fund.
NHS England has advised that the basis of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s (NICE) assessment of the clinical effectiveness of ibrutinib was a clinical trial (PCYC-1112). The trial’s patient inclusion criteria included a caveat that patients should have failed to respond or had a progression free survival of less than three years (from first dose of treatment with a purine analogue-based therapy and anti-CD20 containing chemo-immunotherapy after at least two cycles).
The treatment criteria set by NHS England are derived directly from the full NICE Guidance document, including the evidence and studies upon which the NICE Committee relied in order to make a positive recommendation as to the drug’s clinical and cost effectiveness.