Asked by: Margaret Hodge (Labour - Barking)
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 help encourage prescriptions of Sativex on the NHS in England, following the recommendation of NICE on the use of that drug for patients with MS.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The latest guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s (NICE) recommend Sativex to treat moderate to severe spasticity in adults with multiple sclerosis, if other pharmacological treatments for spasticity are not effective. The decision on whether to prescribe must be taken by a specialist clinician on a case by case basis and funding of this medicine is subject to local National Health Service decisions. On 6 September, NHS England issued a reminder to clinical commissioning groups of the NICE guidance relating to Sativex and their responsibilities and will be monitoring uptake.
Asked by: Margaret Hodge (Labour - Barking)
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 geographical differences that exist across England in the prescription of Sativex, which is used to treat moderate to severe spasticity in MS.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The latest guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s (NICE) recommend Sativex to treat moderate to severe spasticity in adults with multiple sclerosis, if other pharmacological treatments for spasticity are not effective. The decision on whether to prescribe must be taken by a specialist clinician on a case by case basis and funding of this medicine is subject to local National Health Service decisions. On 6 September, NHS England issued a reminder to clinical commissioning groups of the NICE guidance relating to Sativex and their responsibilities and will be monitoring uptake.
Asked by: Margaret Hodge (Labour - Barking)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many prescriptions of Sativex have been made on the NHS in England since November 2019.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
There have been 5,818 items for Sativex prescribed on a National Health Service prescription and dispensed in the community in England and submitted to the NHS Business Services Authority for reimbursement for the period November 2019 to July 2021, the latest data available. There have been 11,897 items of Sativex issued to patients in secondary care in England between November 2019 and June 2021, the latest data available.
Asked by: Margaret Hodge (Labour - Barking)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many patients have been admitted to each of the temporary Nightingale hospitals during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The number of patients admitted to each of the Nightingale Hospitals is not available in the format requested. Admission date is published at trust level but not for individual hospitals.
NHS England and NHS Improvement collect and publish accident and emergency attendances and emergency admissions data by trust at the following link:
Asked by: Margaret Hodge (Labour - Barking)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many outpatient (a) ophthalmology, (b) medical ophthalmology, (c) optometry and (d) orthoptic first appointments for adults over 19-years of age were (i) cancelled or (ii) not attended by the patient in 2015-16.
Answered by David Mowat
The information requested is shown in the following tables.
Counts of first outpatient appointments for treatment specialties ophthalmology, medical ophthalmology, optometry, and orthoptics, that were cancelled by the patient by the hospital or where the patient did not attend for patients aged 19 years and over in England for 2015-16.
| First Outpatient Appointment | |||
19 years and over | ||||
Treatment Specialty | Total Appointments | Patient Cancellations | Hospital Cancellations | Did Not Attend |
Ophthalmology | 2,077,481 | 162,054 | 134,566 | 131,298 |
Medical Ophthalmology | 28,424 | 1,950 | 471 | 3,231 |
Optometry | 14,905 | 1,731 | 617 | 730 |
Orthoptics | 48,496 | 5,280 | 2,631 | 3,703 |
Counts of follow-up outpatient appointments for treatment specialties ophthalmology, medical ophthalmology, optometry, and orthoptics that were cancelled by the patient by the hospital or where the patient did not attend for patients aged 19 years and over in England for 2015-16.
| Follow-up Outpatient Appointment | |||
19 years and over | ||||
Treatment Specialty | Total Appointments | Patient Cancellations | Hospital Cancellations | Did Not Attend |
Ophthalmology | 6,535,285 | 465,080 | 458,758 | 407,324 |
Medical Ophthalmology | 93,530 | 9,324 | 3,625 | 6,743 |
Optometry | 30,821 | 4,102 | 2,950 | 2,664 |
Orthoptics | 180,124 | 20,566 | 13,710 | 10,823 |
Source: Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), NHS Digital
Notes:
Treatment specialty codes
The following codes were used to identify treatment specialties:
130 - Ophthalmology
460 - Medical ophthalmology
655 - Orthoptics
662 - Optometry
Asked by: Margaret Hodge (Labour - Barking)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many outpatient (a) ophthalmology, (b) medical ophthalmology, (c) optometry and (d) orthoptic follow-up appointments for adults over 19-years of age were (i) cancelled or (ii) not attended by the patient in 2015-16.
Answered by David Mowat
The information requested is shown in the following tables.
Counts of first outpatient appointments for treatment specialties ophthalmology, medical ophthalmology, optometry, and orthoptics, that were cancelled by the patient by the hospital or where the patient did not attend for patients aged 19 years and over in England for 2015-16.
| First Outpatient Appointment | |||
19 years and over | ||||
Treatment Specialty | Total Appointments | Patient Cancellations | Hospital Cancellations | Did Not Attend |
Ophthalmology | 2,077,481 | 162,054 | 134,566 | 131,298 |
Medical Ophthalmology | 28,424 | 1,950 | 471 | 3,231 |
Optometry | 14,905 | 1,731 | 617 | 730 |
Orthoptics | 48,496 | 5,280 | 2,631 | 3,703 |
Counts of follow-up outpatient appointments for treatment specialties ophthalmology, medical ophthalmology, optometry, and orthoptics that were cancelled by the patient by the hospital or where the patient did not attend for patients aged 19 years and over in England for 2015-16.
| Follow-up Outpatient Appointment | |||
19 years and over | ||||
Treatment Specialty | Total Appointments | Patient Cancellations | Hospital Cancellations | Did Not Attend |
Ophthalmology | 6,535,285 | 465,080 | 458,758 | 407,324 |
Medical Ophthalmology | 93,530 | 9,324 | 3,625 | 6,743 |
Optometry | 30,821 | 4,102 | 2,950 | 2,664 |
Orthoptics | 180,124 | 20,566 | 13,710 | 10,823 |
Source: Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), NHS Digital
Notes:
Treatment specialty codes
The following codes were used to identify treatment specialties:
130 - Ophthalmology
460 - Medical ophthalmology
655 - Orthoptics
662 - Optometry
Asked by: Margaret Hodge (Labour - Barking)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the median waiting time for a first (a) outpatient ophthalmology, (b) paediatric ophthalmology, (c) medical ophthalmology, (d) outpatient optometry and (e) outpatient orthoptic appointment was in 2015-16.
Answered by David Mowat
The information requested is in the following table.
Median waiting times (days) of first outpatient appointments for treatment specialties ophthalmology, paediatric ophthalmology, medical ophthalmology optometry, and orthoptics in England for 2015-16
Treatment Specialty | Median Time Waited (days) | |
Ophthalmology |
| 41 |
Paediatric Ophthalmology |
| 56 |
Medical Ophthalmology |
| 42 |
Optometry |
| 49 |
Orthoptics |
| 40 |
Source: Hospital Episode Statistics, NHS Digital
Notes:
The following codes were used to identify treatment specialties:
130 - Ophthalmology
216 - Paediatric Ophthalmology
460 - Medical ophthalmology
662 - Optometry
655 - Orthoptics
Asked by: Margaret Hodge (Labour - Barking)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 2 September 2016 to Question 44352, for what contracts the largest three total payments were made to (a) PwC, (b) Deloitte, (c) Ernst and Young and (d) KPMG in the last three years.
Answered by David Mowat
Information on all contracts as identified from the largest three total payments made to the top four consulting firms across financial years 2013-14 to 2015-16 are contained in the attached table.
Values for all four suppliers relate to cash payments made against purchase orders as per Crown Commercial Services requirements and is not comparable with any consultancy expenditure data that may be published annually by the Department, which are resource (accruals) based.
Asked by: Margaret Hodge (Labour - Barking)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will publish a list of all secondees to his Department from (a) PwC, (b) Deloitte, (c) Ernst and Young, (d) KPMG and (e) other consulting firms in the last three financial years; and what the role was of each of those secondees.
Answered by David Mowat
In line with privacy and data protection legislation as well as standing Cabinet Office instructions, the exact numbers and details of individual roles cannot be published. This is to prevent the personal identification of individuals either directly or in combination with other published information.
There have been two appointments in total into Senior Civil Servant roles as follows, during the years in question as follows:
Name | Start date | Grade | End date | Seconding Organisation | Role |
Robin Furnell | 24/08/2015 | SCS1 | 31/12/2016 | Accenture | Contract Management Function Implementation Lead |
Nicole Mather | 22/04/2014 | SCS2 | 22/10/2016 | Deloitte (formally seconded to BEIS and part-time to DH) | Director - Office for Life Sciences |
During the same period of time, at lower grades the following table summarises the disclosable information
Company | Numbers | Grades of role |
PwC | 5 or fewer | HEO and SEO |
Deloitte | 5 or fewer | Analyst and G7 |
Ernst and Young | 5 or fewer | G7 |
KPMG | 0 | - |
Accenture | 0 | - |
The above information does not include secondees to the Department’s agencies or arms’ length bodies.
Asked by: Margaret Hodge (Labour - Barking)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many times his Department has used the services of (a) PwC, (b) Deloitte, (c) Ernst and Young, (d) KPMG and (e) other consulting firms in the last three financial years; and what (i) work was undertaken and (ii) the cost to the public purse was on each such occasion.
Answered by David Mowat
The breakdown for the last three financial years 2013-14 to 2015-16 for both the Department’s cost and how many times it has used the services of Deloitte, KPMG, Ernst & Young and PricewaterhouseCoopers are all contained in the attached table.
Spend for all four firms is taken from cash receipted amounts against purchase orders in line with Crown Commercial Services definitions and is not comparable with consultancy costs data published annually by the Department, where all now reported as resource (accruals) based.
Any further information would incur disproportionate cost to provide.