Asked by: Kevin Barron (Labour - Rother Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the timetable is for the publication of an updated five year antimicrobial resistance strategy.
Answered by Steve Brine
Work is underway across Government, the devolved administrations and a wide range of stakeholders to develop a refreshed United Kingdom antimicrobial resistance strategy. Publication is planned by the end of the year.
Asked by: Kevin Barron (Labour - Rother Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to SMI B 37: Investigation of blood cultures (for organisms other than Mycobacterium species), if he will make it his policy that each microbiology laboratory in the NHS undertakes an audit of their blood culture pathway to ensure effective antibiotic stewardship.
Answered by Steve Brine
United Kingdom Standards for Microbiology Investigations (UK SMIs) B 37: Investigation of blood cultures (for organisms other than Mycobacterium species) are developed by the UK SMI Working Groups under the auspices of Public Health England. SMI B 37 describes the processing and microbiological investigation of blood cultures and aims to set standards for each stage of the investigative process. These can then be used as a benchmark to audit against by certification and accreditation bodies if they wish.
The UK SMIs are not mandatory and there is no legal obligation to follow the recommendations in UK SMIs. In using UK SMIs, laboratories should take account of local requirements and undertake additional investigations where appropriate.
UK SMIs are National Institute for Health and Care Excellence accredited and represent a good standard of practice. NHS England has included compliance with UK SMIs in the National Health Service Standard Contract 2017-18.
Asked by: Kevin Barron (Labour - Rother Valley)
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 23 January 2018 to Question 123567, if he will encourage the owners of pharmacies not meeting the standards set by the General Pharmaceutical Council to adopt technology for reducing inadvertent dispensing errors as part of their action plans to improve the services they provide and safeguard the health, safety and well-being of patients and the public.
Answered by Steve Brine
The Department has not made any recent assessment of the level of uptake or adoption of technology for reducing inadvertent dispensing errors in pharmacies or acute settings.
There are many ways to reduce the incidence of near misses and errors, and the solution to responding to these will vary depending on the nature of the error. The professionalism of the pharmacy workforce and robust systems of governance are the first line of defence in preventing dispensing errors. New technologies, such as the as electronic prescribing, the electronic prescription service, auto-mated dispensing and barcode scanning are being adopted by pharmacy teams, which will further help reduce risks of some types of dispensing errors.
All registered pharmacy professionals and registered pharmacies are required to meet the relevant standards set by the General Pharmaceutical Council. Documenting, reflecting and learning from near misses, dispensing errors or incidents is critical to compliance with the standards and ensuring that patients and the public receive safe and effective care from pharmacy.
Asked by: Kevin Barron (Labour - Rother Valley)
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 23 April 2018 to Question 136485, what recent assessment he has made of the level of uptake and adoption of technology for reducing inadvertent dispensing errors in (a) pharmacies and (b) acute settings.
Answered by Steve Brine
The Department has not made any recent assessment of the level of uptake or adoption of technology for reducing inadvertent dispensing errors in pharmacies or acute settings.
There are many ways to reduce the incidence of near misses and errors, and the solution to responding to these will vary depending on the nature of the error. The professionalism of the pharmacy workforce and robust systems of governance are the first line of defence in preventing dispensing errors. New technologies, such as the as electronic prescribing, the electronic prescription service, auto-mated dispensing and barcode scanning are being adopted by pharmacy teams, which will further help reduce risks of some types of dispensing errors.
All registered pharmacy professionals and registered pharmacies are required to meet the relevant standards set by the General Pharmaceutical Council. Documenting, reflecting and learning from near misses, dispensing errors or incidents is critical to compliance with the standards and ensuring that patients and the public receive safe and effective care from pharmacy.
Asked by: Kevin Barron (Labour - Rother Valley)
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 ensure the availability of (a) effective and (b) up to day diagnostic equipment with 24-hour remote communication facilities in the reorganisation of microbiology laboratory services in the NHS.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
NHS Improvement is leading the transformational changes in pathology services across England, with the formation of 29 Pathology Networks serving England well underway. These networks will realise an improved quality of service, timely access to diagnostic results and access to expert clinical advice in this very diverse clinical specialty.
One of the most significant benefits of this reconfiguration will be to increase the availability of microbiology services, so vital in the diagnosis of life threatening conditions such as sepsis. Currently not all microbiology services are available 24/7 and access to state of the art equipment is variable.
The establishment of networked pathology services will allow for best practice to be deployed across trusts, not only allowing for 24/7 services and faster access to targeted treatment, but also ensuring the latest technology such as molecular genetic testing is available to more patients. To support this development, this year the Government announced £61.5 million to develop the laboratory and IT infrastructure needed to monitor and review results and systems from any point in the network.
NHS Improvement are also working closely with the Office of Life Sciences to ensure digitisation and deployment of artificial intelligence is built in to ensure maximum benefit to the National Health Service and patient outcomes as these technologies develop.
These transformational changes are being performed with the full engagement of the pathology professional bodies and working with the Department’s procurement category tower 8 to improve the purchasing power and choice of equipment to the NHS.
Asked by: Kevin Barron (Labour - Rother Valley)
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 coming into force of the Preparation and Dispensing Errors (Registered Pharmacies) Order 2018 of the risk of pharmacists being prosecuted as a result of an inadvertent dispensing error.
Answered by Steve Brine
There have been very few prosecutions in regard to preparation and dispensing errors made by pharmacists to date, and we expect the number to reduce even further. The fundamental premise on which this Order is based is that new defences for offences concerning dispensing errors will reduce the risk of prosecution, leading to an increase in the number of reported errors. Over time, learning from increased numbers of error reports is expected to lead to improvements in training and practices, which should reduce the number of errors made.
An Impact Assessment, published alongside the Order, records that there have only been three prosecutions by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency since 2003 and a similarly very low number by the Crown Prosecution Service and the Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland. No specific figure was given for the likely number of prosecutions in future, either for prosecution for the offences to which the defences relate or under the general criminal law. However, the Impact Assessment did seek to put a monetary value on the benefit from a reduced risk of prosecution and estimated a benefit to business of £565,770. The consultation responses supported this part of the analysis.
Whilst it is estimated this policy will result in a reduced risk of prosecution, in the most serious cases, for example where a dispensing error leads to the death of a patient, prosecution will continue to be possible under the general criminal law – for example for gross negligence manslaughter.
Asked by: Kevin Barron (Labour - Rother Valley)
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 whether the failure to apply sanctions for standards for pharmacy premises has resulted in a disproportionate number of individual pharmacist registrants who have been held to account for professional standards which may have been impacted by the working environment created by pharmacy owners; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Steve Brine
The Department has not made any assessment of the effectiveness of the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) as a regulator of pharmacy professionals and pharmacy premises. The Professional Standards Authority, which in its review of the GPhC’s performance in 2016-2017, found that the GPhC had met all of the standards for good regulation, including all of the standards for fitness to practise.
Standards to safeguard the health, safety and wellbeing of patients and the public are set by the GPhC. It is important to note that there are very different legal frameworks for upholding these standards and how the regulator deals with these for pharmacy premises as compared to pharmacy professionals. 87% of the pharmacies inspected by the GPhC in 2016-17 were meeting all of the standards it sets. Any pharmacy not achieving all of the standards is required by the GPhC to implement an action plan to improve the services they provide. In this period the GPhC agreed 469 action plans with pharmacies to ensure they improved the services they provide, and 99% of them made the necessary improvements so that they were meeting all of the standards. In the same period 140 cases were made affecting an individual pharmacy professional’s registration.
Asked by: Kevin Barron (Labour - Rother Valley)
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 effectiveness of the General Pharmaceutical Council's enforcement of standards for registered pharmacy premises; whether he has made an assessment of the effect of failure to apply such standards to pharmacy owners rather than only pharmacy professionals on the safety of patients; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Steve Brine
The Department has not made any assessment of the effectiveness of the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) as a regulator of pharmacy professionals and pharmacy premises. The Professional Standards Authority, which in its review of the GPhC’s performance in 2016-2017, found that the GPhC had met all of the standards for good regulation, including all of the standards for fitness to practise.
Standards to safeguard the health, safety and wellbeing of patients and the public are set by the GPhC. It is important to note that there are very different legal frameworks for upholding these standards and how the regulator deals with these for pharmacy premises as compared to pharmacy professionals. 87% of the pharmacies inspected by the GPhC in 2016-17 were meeting all of the standards it sets. Any pharmacy not achieving all of the standards is required by the GPhC to implement an action plan to improve the services they provide. In this period the GPhC agreed 469 action plans with pharmacies to ensure they improved the services they provide, and 99% of them made the necessary improvements so that they were meeting all of the standards. In the same period 140 cases were made affecting an individual pharmacy professional’s registration.
Asked by: Kevin Barron (Labour - Rother Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many Freedom to Speak up Guardians have been nominated in community pharmacies; and whether his Department holds information on names of those Guardians.
Answered by Steve Brine
The Department does not hold information on the number or names of Freedom to Speak up Guardians in community pharmacies.
NHS England is responsible for issuing the guidance on Freedom to Speak Up in primary care and has provided the following response:
The number and names of Freedom to Speak Up Guardians in community pharmacies is not held centrally. Guidance for primary care providers was published in November 2016 on the NHS England website and a number of models for Freedom to Speak Up are detailed within that guidance, including having a named Guardian who is independent of the line management chain and not a direct employee. NHS England is working with the National Guardian's Office to assess the support that primary care providers, including community pharmacies, may need to comply with this guidance.
Asked by: Kevin Barron (Labour - Rother Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions he has had with representatives from (a) GPs, (b) patient organisations and (c) manufacturers on the availability of the new enhanced influenza vaccine for the over-65s for the 2017-18 and the 2018-19 season.
Answered by Steve Brine
Officials at the Department and Public Health England have regular discussions with manufacturers on a range of issues. This has included discussion with Seqirus, the company that has produced the new adjuvanted trivalent flu vaccine (aTIV).
Officials have had no discussions with general practitioner representatives or patient groups on the aTIV.
Officials also attend meetings of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, which includes a lay member.