Asked by: Mike Kane (Labour - Wythenshawe and Sale East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to section 6.26 of the guidance entitled 2024 Voluntary Scheme for Branded Medicines Pricing, Access and Growth, published on 20 November 2023, whether her Department has been allocated additional resources to consider exceptional circumstances.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
In the vast majority of instances, payments required under the 2024 Voluntary Scheme for Branded Medicines Pricing, Access and Growth will be affordable for companies, or can be mitigated by standard price increase processes. In exceptional circumstances only, the scheme allows companies to apply to increase their National Health Service list price, and for older medicines to reduce their top-up payment percentage, even when their wider portfolio is otherwise profitable. To qualify, a product must be demonstrably uneconomic to supply, there must be clear evidence that supply disruption would otherwise occur, and this disruption must have a negative impact on patients or the NHS. The Department already has processes and committees to consider applications for exceptional circumstances, established under previous pricing schemes.
Asked by: Mike Kane (Labour - Wythenshawe and Sale East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the guidance entitled 2024 Voluntary Scheme for Branded Medicines Pricing, Access and Growth, published on 20 November 2023, what steps her Department is taking to apply the provisions of section 6.26 on exceptional circumstances.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
In the vast majority of instances, payments required under the 2024 Voluntary Scheme for Branded Medicines Pricing, Access and Growth will be affordable for companies, or can be mitigated by standard price increase processes. In exceptional circumstances only, the scheme allows companies to apply to increase their National Health Service list price, and for older medicines to reduce their top-up payment percentage, even when their wider portfolio is otherwise profitable. To qualify, a product must be demonstrably uneconomic to supply, there must be clear evidence that supply disruption would otherwise occur, and this disruption must have a negative impact on patients or the NHS. The Department already has processes and committees to consider applications for exceptional circumstances, established under previous pricing schemes.
Asked by: Mike Kane (Labour - Wythenshawe and Sale East)
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 improve access to mental health services.
Answered by Steve Barclay - Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
We have invested record amounts into NHS mental health services committing £2.3 billion a year compared to four years ago for the expansion and transformation of mental health services in England by 2024.
This has enabled 2 million more people to access NHS mental health support.
Specifically, we invested £15.5 billion in mental health across 2022/23, representing 24% more than in 2018/19 and helping to:
Asked by: Mike Kane (Labour - Wythenshawe and Sale East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to support research into developing low carbon propellant inhalers for asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department funds research for the health and care system through the National Institute for Health and Social Care (NIHR). The NIHR has no immediate plans to encourage researchers to move into that specific area - though our research funding programmes are open and we would welcome applications in any area, including low carbon inhalers. The NIHR has also previously issued a cross-programme call for research into the evaluation of a range of interventions and services to support the delivery of a more sustainable United Kingdom health and care system and is considering how to support further research in this area in future.
Asked by: Mike Kane (Labour - Wythenshawe and Sale East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the NHS plans to use low carbon propellants treatments for asthma and Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients promptly once these therapies have been approved for use by patients.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Health Service remains committed to reducing the carbon impact of inhalers. As part of all inhaler prescriptions, structured medication reviews and asthma reviews, consideration should be given to moving patients to lower carbon options, where it is clinically appropriate to do so.
NHS England has worked with key partners, industry representatives, patient groups, and clinicians to develop a package of guidance and resources to support improved respiratory disease management and shared decision-making on inhaler choice.
Asked by: Mike Kane (Labour - Wythenshawe and Sale East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he is taking steps to verify the environmental claims of companies that the NHS procures products from.
Answered by Will Quince
The National Health Service has set out the NHS Net Zero Supplier Roadmap, a series of milestones to help suppliers align with the NHS’ net zero ambitions. The first milestone, implemented in April 2022, requires that all NHS procurements include a minimum 10% net zero and social value weighting.
The second milestone, implemented on 1 April 2023, requires that suppliers bidding for any new contract above £5 million per annum publish a Carbon Reduction Plan (CRP) for emissions. This requirement will be extended to all procurements from April 2024.
NHS England has also recently launched the Evergreen Sustainable Supplier Assessment. This online voluntary self-assessment and reporting tool allows suppliers to understand how to align with the NHS net zero and sustainability ambitions.
Asked by: Mike Kane (Labour - Wythenshawe and Sale East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many treatments were scheduled for review by the Clinical Priorities Advisory Group in the last review round in May 2022; how many of those scheduled were approved; and how many could not be approved as the budget had been used by higher priority treatments.
Answered by Will Quince
NHS England makes annual decisions on which new specialised treatments should be routinely commissioned. The decisions are based on advice from the Clinical Priorities Advisory Group, which includes of doctors, health experts and patient representatives and taken by the NHS England Board.
Treatments are grouped into five levels of priority, with those of the highest relative clinical benefit for patients and the lowest relative cost classified as level one and treatments with the lowest relative clinical benefit and highest relative cost classified as level five. The outcome of the latest prioritisation round is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/commissioning/spec-services/october-2022-prioritisation-decisions/
Asked by: Mike Kane (Labour - Wythenshawe and Sale East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the funding allocation from NHS England for the Clinical Priorities Advisory Group was in (a) 2020-21 and (b) 2021-22.
Answered by Will Quince
The Clinical Priorities Advisory Group (CPAG) makes recommendations to NHS England on the relative priority for investment in new specialised treatments which have not received a technology appraisal from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. Funding to determine the number of new treatments which can be routinely commissioned is set annually as part of the overall specialised commissioning allocation process. In 2021/22 and 2022/23, £31 million was made available recurrently to support the CPAG’s recommendations. In 2020/21 different funding arrangements were put in place due to the temporary financial regime introduced during the pandemic.
Asked by: Mike Kane (Labour - Wythenshawe and Sale East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, which of the recommendations made by the Competition and Markets Authority to improve the PCR testing market for consumers have been implemented.
Answered by Maggie Throup
We are considering and already implementing many of the Competitions and Market Authority’s recommendations. We have established a test validation and the United Kingdom Accreditation Service accreditation process, which ensures that providers meet minimum standards before they are able to enter the market. We also continually monitor pricing for travel testing, carrying out daily price checks on listings in addition to regular audits and reviews.
Asked by: Mike Kane (Labour - Wythenshawe and Sale East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what research his Department has (a) completed and (b) planned on the use of new technologies as part of the cervical cancer screening programme.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Since 2015/16, the Department, through the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) has completed three research projects on the use of new technologies as part of the cervical cancer screening programme; two NIHR research projects are still active; and one project is planned.
In the same period, there are 19 completed NIHR studies on the use of new technologies as part of the cervical cancer screening programme; three active NIHR studies and one planned NIHR study.