Asked by: Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative - Huntingdon)
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 potential merits of exempting (a) cigar-based products and (b) pipe tobacco from the Government's proposed ban on the sale of tobacco products.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom
Smoking is the number one entirely preventable cause of ill-health, disability and death in this country. It is responsible for 80,000 yearly in the United Kingdom and one in four of all UK cancer deaths. It costs our country £17 billion a year, £14 billion of which is through lost productivity alone. It puts huge pressure on the National Health Service and social care, costing over £3 billion a year.
The evidence is clear that there is no safe level of tobacco consumption, and all tobacco products are harmful. When smoked, tobacco kills up to two-thirds of its long-term users. Tobacco smoke has been classified as a group one carcinogen, and tobacco smoke from cigars leads to the same types of diseases as cigarette smoke.
The upcoming smokefree generation legislation proposes to align to existing age of sale legislation by applying it to any product containing tobacco, including cigars and pipe tobacco. In the Government’s response to the consultation, Creating a smokefree generation and tackling youth vaping published on 29 January 2024, 63.8% of respondents to the question on product scope agreed that all tobacco products should be included in the new age of sale restrictions.
Asked by: Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative - Huntingdon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she has had discussions with the Government of New Zealand on the proposed generational ban on smoking.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom
Smoking is responsible for around 80,000 deaths a year in the United Kingdom and causes around one in four cancer deaths in the UK. It also costs our country £17 billion a year and puts a huge burden on the National Health Service.
This is why the Government is planning to create a smokefree generation by bringing forward legislation so that children turning 14 years old this year or younger will never be legally sold tobacco products. On 12 October 2023, we launched a UK-wide consultation to gather views on these proposals and their implementation.
In development of this policy, we have, and will continue to, speak to a range of stakeholders including in the public health community both in the UK and globally, and government officials in countries such as New Zealand.
Asked by: Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative - Huntingdon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department has taken to streamline the process for the registration of qualified overseas dentists.
Answered by Neil O'Brien - Shadow Minister (Education)
We have worked with the General Dental Council to develop and consult on legislative proposals which provide greater flexibility to amend its existing international registration processes and explore alternative registration pathways, as appropriate. The resulting draft order was laid in Parliament on 11 October 2022 and subject to Parliamentary approval, we expect it to come into force by early 2023.
Asked by: Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative - Huntingdon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what plans he has to undertake consumer information campaigns in preparation for the introduction of the EU Tobacco Products Directive.
Answered by Jane Ellison
The Department has no plans to undertake consumer facing information campaigns in preparation for the introduction of the revised Tobacco Products Directive’s (TPD) requirements.
The TPD introduces a number of new product, labelling and reporting requirements for businesses supplying tobacco products, herbal products and e-cigarettes. The Department has and will continue to engage with businesses to make them aware of the new requirement and has recently held training sessions on the new legislation for enforcement officers. The Department will work alongside enforcement officers to build compliance over the transition period set out in the Regulations.
Asked by: Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative - Huntingdon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the reasons for the reductions in the number of people who use Stop Smoking Services in the last five years.
Answered by Jane Ellison
Although no formal assessment has been made of the reduction in the number of people accessing Local Stop Smoking Services in the last five years, Public Health England has been working with local areas, practitioners and experts in the field to better understand the reasons for the reduction in the number of people accessing services and consider how best to continue to help people stop smoking.
Asked by: Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative - Huntingdon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to pages five and six of the summary of findings of the Hinchingbrooke Health Care NHS Trust Quality Report of 9 January 2015, if he will publish the full list of organisations which were asked to share what they know about that hospital.
Answered by Norman Lamb
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of health and adult social care in England. The CQC is responsible for developing and implementing its methodology for assessing whether providers are meeting the registration requirements through its inspection and monitoring of providers.
The CQC has provided the following information:
Pages five and six of CQC’s inspection report for Hinchingbrooke Health Care NHS Trust outline the background of the Trust, including additional statistical data. These pages also include detail of the composition of the CQC inspection team and the specifics of how it carried out this inspection. This includes a list of organisations that hold data about the trust that CQC share information with.
Although listed in the report, The Royal College of Radiologists was not contacted prior to this inspection. The CQC is always happy to be contacted by the Royal Colleges at any time if they do have concerns about an inspection report. Monitor was erroneously listed in the report as being contacted, in place of the NHS Trust Development Authority. This error will be corrected in an addendum to the report.
Before inspecting the Trust, CQC reviewed a range of information it held, and asked other organisations to share what they knew about the hospital. The organisations CQC contacted were: the General Medical Council, the Health and Care Professionals Council, Health Education England, National Peer Review Programme, NHS England (relevant national and local teams), NHS Litigation Authority, the Nursing and Midwifery Council, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, the College of Emergency Medicine, the Royal College of Anaesthetists, the Royal College of Nursing, the Royal College of Surgeons, local authorities, the NHS Trust Development Authority, local clinical commissioning groups and the local Healthwatch.
CQC contacts a range of organisations before each inspection and will tailor which organisations are contacted depending on the sector of the inspection and the data sources that are already available.
Asked by: Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative - Huntingdon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether the local hon. Member would ordinarily be one of the stakeholder consultees to a Care Quality Commission Quality Report.
Answered by Norman Lamb
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of health and adult social care in England. The CQC is responsible for developing and implementing its methodology for assessing whether providers are meeting the registration requirements through its inspection and monitoring of providers.
The CQC has provided the following information about Members of Parliament (MPs) involvement in its inspection process for National Health Service acute providers.
CQC informs MPs of its plans for scheduled inspections around three months in advance of those inspections taking place. The views of members of the public are sought through local listening events, which local MPs are also invited to attend. Listening events are organised to coincide with the start of an inspection.
MPs and members of the public are informed of the dates as soon as the arrangements are in place. MPs are usually informed via email and are also able to send information to CQC for consideration as part of future inspections even if an inspection of a specific trust is not currently planned.
Once an inspection report has been finalised it is taken to a quality summit where the report’s findings are presented to the trust, NHS England and local stakeholders who will be directly involved in providing ongoing practical support to the trust.
Attendees receive copies of CQC reports in advance of the quality summit. MPs are not invited to quality summits though they usually receive an embargoed copy of the report via email the day before publication. An offer of more detailed information or a briefing is made at the same time.
Asked by: Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative - Huntingdon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will take steps to require the Care Quality Commission to consult committees of (a) local district and (b) county councils when preparing Quality reports.
Answered by Norman Lamb
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of health and adult social care in England. The CQC is responsible for developing and implementing its methodology for assessing whether providers are meeting the registration requirements through its inspection and monitoring of providers.
The CQC has provided the following information:
CQC does not formally consult committees of local district and county councils during the inspection and reporting process of NHS acute providers. Representatives of local authorities may be invited to attend to provide input in accordance with their statutory roles and support the provider in developing and taking forward their action plan. In the case of large or complex NHS providers, this may include representatives from a number of different local authorities.