Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
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 28 October 2024 to Question 10592, whether he has received any further advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation on the potential merits of extending eligibility for the Respiratory Syncytial Virus vaccination to people who turned 80 before 1 September 2024.
Answered by Andrew Gwynne
The Department has not received any further advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) on the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccination programme for older adults since the Committee’s advice of 3 June 2023.
The latest discussion of RSV by the JCVI was during their October 2024 main committee meeting. The Committee agreed that it would need to formally review, in detail, the evidence for a potential extension to the programme for the very elderly and for those in risk groups which would be undertaken by the RSV sub-committee.
The JCVI will review the necessary scientific evidence once it is available and will continue to keep evidence under review, including data from clinical trials and real-world evidence emerging from immunisation programmes in different countries. The next JCVI committee meeting is scheduled to take place in February 2025. The minutes from this meeting will be made publicly available in spring 2025 at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/joint-committee-on-vaccination-and-immunisation
The Department will consider any further JCVI advice on who should be offered an RSV immunisation in due course.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
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 potential merits of a redress scheme for victims of the Sodium Valproate scandal in line with recommendations in the Hughes Report.
Answered by Andrew Gwynne
The Government is carefully considering the valuable work done by the Patient Safety Commissioner and the resulting Hughes Report, which set out options for redress for those harmed by valproate and pelvic mesh. We will be providing an update to the Patient Safety Commissioner’s report at the earliest opportunity.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress his Department has made on delivering specialist mental health professionals in every school.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department of Health and Social Care is working with the Department for Education and NHS England to consider how to deliver our manifesto commitment of providing access to a specialist mental health professional in every school. We need to ensure any support meets the needs of young people, teachers, parents and carers. This includes considering the role of existing programmes of support with evidence of a positive impact, such as Mental Health Support Teams in schools and colleges.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
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 help ensure adequate levels of supply of medication prescribed for (a) epilepsy, (b) hormone replacement therapy and (c) ADHD.
Answered by Will Quince
The Department has well-established procedures to deal with medicine shortages and works closely with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the pharmaceutical industry, NHS England and others operating in the supply chain to help prevent shortages and to ensure that the risks to patients are minimised when shortages do arise.
We are aware of a current supply issue with generic lamotrigine 5mg dispersible tablets for epilepsy. We have issued comprehensive management guidance to the National Health Service highlighting the availability of alternative products.
There have been issues with the supply of a limited number of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) products, primarily due to very sharp increases in demand, but the supply position for many of those products has improved considerably over the last year. Only one of the 23 Serious Shortage Protocols issued since April 2022 remains in place. We continue to engage with suppliers individually to address these issues and improve resilience in the short, medium and long term. We are also holding quarterly roundtables with manufacturers, wholesalers and community pharmacists to monitor progress and agree what more needs to be done to ensure supply is sufficient to meet demand. The eighth HRT supply roundtable is expected to be held in January 2024.
We are aware of disruptions to the global supply of medicines used for the management of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Some issues are now resolving. However, we know that there are currently disruptions to the supply of some other medicines, primarily driven by issues which have resulted in capacity constraints at key manufacturing sites. We are working intensively with the respective manufacturers to resolve the issues as soon as possible and to ensure patients have continuous access to ADHD medicines in the United Kingdom, in the short and long term.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Mental Health Bill, whether he plans to include a statutory duty to provide early intervention strategies to detect and address mental health issues for children and young people within primary and secondary schools; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
The draft Mental Health Bill, published in June 2022, is intended to modernise the Mental Health Act and work better for people with serious mental illness. The draft Bill has completed its pre-legislative scrutiny and the Joint Committee published its report on 19 January 2023 on the Draft Mental Health Bill. The Department will consider the Committee’s recommendations carefully and we will introduce the Bill when parliamentary time allows.
Separate to the provisions in the draft Bill, there are currently 287 mental health support teams in place in around 4,700 schools and colleges across the country, offering support to children experiencing anxiety, depression and other common mental health issue. These
teams now cover 26% of pupils, a year earlier than originally planned and this will increase to 399 teams, covering around 35% of pupils by April 2023 with over 500 planned to be deployed by 2024.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the extent of regional variations in the provision of radioligand therapy.
Answered by James Morris
I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris MP) on 6 July 2022 to Question 23788.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the availability of shielded rooms in the NHS in the context of the potential increase in availability of (a) radioligand therapy and (b) other nuclear medicines to treat certain cancers.
Answered by James Morris
No specific assessment has been made. Further work is required on the safe delivery of the service with an appropriate number of providers to balance patient access with available specialist expertise and infrastructure.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
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 reduce inequalities in access to dental services.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
We are aware that some patients find it difficult to access NHS dentistry. Work is underway to better target patients with complex needs. NHS England has provided a flexible commissioning toolkit to commissioners to focus available capacity on reducing oral health inequalities.
In addition, we provided an extra £50 million earlier this year for additional dental access. The appointments were targeted to vulnerable patients and those in most urgent need.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether chronic kidney disease will be included in the update of the NHS Long Term Plan expected in summer 2022.
Answered by Gillian Keegan
The updated NHS Long Term Plan is expected to be published later this year. Discussions on the specific detail of the update are continuing.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will supply a decision on behalf of the Government on each of the 25 recommendations made by the select committee on Health and Social Care in its Eighth Report, Children and Young People's Mental Health, HC 17, published on 9th December 2021; and if he will make a statement on that matter at the first available opportunity.
Answered by Gillian Keegan
We welcome the Committee’s report. In our response to the Health and Social Care Committee’s report, we set out where we agreed with its recommendations or where we are taking forward the recommendations in part or in full. We will be considering the recommendations in full during the development of a new long term cross-Government plan for mental health. We are launching a wide-ranging discussion paper and call for evidence to support development of the plan. The Committee’s inquiry and evidence from witnesses will be considered during this process.