Asked by: Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative - Thirsk and Malton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what funding the Government is allocating from the public purse to develop new sepsis diagnostics to determine whether a patient with sepsis has a bacterial or viral infection.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
Developing new diagnostics that enable early detection of bacterial or viral infections and drive optimal antimicrobial usage is a priority for this Government. Since 2014, the Government has invested over £360 million in antimicrobial resistance research and development, including funding to support the development of diagnostics for infection.
Investments in early-stage funding for diagnostic research include the £10 million Longitude Prize for a diagnostic tool that can rule out antibiotic use or help identify an effective antibiotic to treat a patient. The National Institute for Health Research Medtech and In Vitro Diagnostic Co-operatives support the development of medical technology and the uptake of commercially supplied in vitro diagnostic devices, including for infection-related tests. The £14.25 million award is for five years until 2022.
Asked by: Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative - Thirsk and Malton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to tackle the rise of carbapenem-resistant bacteria in secondary care.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae (CPE) are carbapenem-resistant infections with the ability to transfer resistance to different bacterial species. Public Health England conducts monitoring and surveillance of these infections and publishes toolkits to support acute and non-acute organisations to prevent and control the spread of CPE.
The Government recognises that identifying where carbapenemase-producing Gram-negative infections occur, and acting to prevent them, is essential to maintain the effectiveness of our most important antibiotics. Work is underway to add these infections to the list of notifiable diseases as part of our national action plan for antimicrobial resistance.
NHS England and NHS Improvement continues to work to reduce the burden of all healthcare-associated infections and is tasked with delivering the Government’s ambition to halve all healthcare associated Gram-negative blood stream infections by 2023-24.