Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what subscriptions to (a) newspapers, (b) magazines and (c) online journals her Department has paid for in each of the last three financial years.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department has paid for subscriptions to the following publications in the last three financial years:
- print editions of all national daily newspapers together with online editions of the Telegraph, Times and Financial Times;
- The New Statesman;
- The Spectator;
- Economist Nursing Times;
- Private Eye;
- The Voice;
- Health Service Journal;
- GP Online;
- Pulse;
- Health Policy Insight;
- New England Journal of Medicine;
- Journal of American Medicine;
- Nature;
- Bloomberg;
- PR Week; and
- I News.
The cost of the subscriptions totalled approximately £7,700 per year in financial years 2020/21 and 2021/22 and precisely £7718.08 in 2022/23.
Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much funding has been allocated to the Isolation Assurance Service from 1 June 2020 to 31 December 2020.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
The Isolation Assurance Service (IAS) is undertaken through an existing Public Health England contract which has been formally updated and is on a rolling agreement with two-weeks’ notice. Sitel is the only company working on the IAS.
The IAS activity includes up to three calls and a text per eligible United Kingdom arrivals sampled. Between 9 June and 7 September 2020, 149,579 total calls and texts and 66,773 successful contacts were made to eligible arrivals via phone or SMS.
The spend on setting up and running the IAS to end of September 2020 was £664,000.
Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the cost to the public purse is of the contract between the Isolation Assurance Service and Sitel to monitor people entering the UK who are required to quarantine during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
The Isolation Assurance Service (IAS) is undertaken through an existing Public Health England contract which has been formally updated and is on a rolling agreement with two-weeks’ notice. Sitel is the only company working on the IAS.
The IAS activity includes up to three calls and a text per eligible United Kingdom arrivals sampled. Between 9 June and 7 September 2020, 149,579 total calls and texts and 66,773 successful contacts were made to eligible arrivals via phone or SMS.
The spend on setting up and running the IAS to end of September 2020 was £664,000.
Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the duration is of the contract between the Isolation Assurance Service and Sitel in place to monitor quarantine compliance during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
The Isolation Assurance Service (IAS) is undertaken through an existing Public Health England contract which has been formally updated and is on a rolling agreement with two-weeks’ notice. Sitel is the only company working on the IAS.
The IAS activity includes up to three calls and a text per eligible United Kingdom arrivals sampled. Between 9 June and 7 September 2020, 149,579 total calls and texts and 66,773 successful contacts were made to eligible arrivals via phone or SMS.
The spend on setting up and running the IAS to end of September 2020 was £664,000.
Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people have been successfully contacted by Sitel by (a) telephone and (b) SMS since that company acquired the contract to monitor compliance with quarantine rules.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
The Isolation Assurance Service (IAS) is undertaken through an existing Public Health England contract which has been formally updated and is on a rolling agreement with two-weeks’ notice. Sitel is the only company working on the IAS.
The IAS activity includes up to three calls and a text per eligible United Kingdom arrivals sampled. Between 9 June and 7 September 2020, 149,579 total calls and texts and 66,773 successful contacts were made to eligible arrivals via phone or SMS.
The spend on setting up and running the IAS to end of September 2020 was £664,000.
Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)
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 implications for his policies of the dangers that perfluorooctanoic acid poses to the body.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Public Health England (PHE) has made no specific assessment of the implications on policies of the dangers that perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) poses to the body.
Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the evidential basis is for Government advice on the longevity of the coronavirus on (a) parcels and (b) other objects.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) is a newly identified virus and as such no specific data on environmental survival is available. Public Health England (PHE) advice on the longevity of 2019-nCoV on parcels and other objects has been based on informed knowledge of other related viruses, such as Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus.
PHE’s current advice is that the virus does not survive well for long periods outside the body and so it is highly unlikely that 2019-nCoV can be spread through post or packages.
This advice and a range of further information can be found online at the following link:
Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether it is an objective of the new NHS Long Term Plan to ensure that the most innovative drugs will be accessible to patients more quickly than they currently are.
Answered by Steve Brine
The NHS Long Term Plan, together with other recent initiatives including the Life Sciences Sector Deal and the 2019 Voluntary Scheme for Branded Medicines Pricing, describe the Government’s objectives for a health and care system that delivers world leading patient care and health outcomes.
The Government wants patients to benefit from effective new drugs and the Voluntary Scheme for Branded Medicines Pricing and Access agreed between the Department and the branded pharmaceutical industry commits to align the speed of National Institute for Health and Care Excellence technology appraisals for non-cancer medicines to the faster timeline for cancer medicines.
In addition, the Life Sciences Industrial Strategy set out a vision of being a world-leader in developing and bringing to market innovative medicines to improve life-chances of United Kingdom patients. It highlighted the importance of evolving and simplifying the access system for new medicines by implementing, and building on, the findings of the Accelerated Access Review.
Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when he plans to respond to the report of the Drug Repurposing Group that was submitted to his Department in December 2017.
Answered by Matt Hancock
The Government will respond to the recommendations made in the Association of Medical Research Charities’ report - Facilitating adoption of off-patent, repurposed medicines into NHS clinical practice - in due course.
Asked by: Nick Thomas-Symonds (Labour - Torfaen)
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 ensure the adequacy of optimal care pathways for each of the less survivable cancers.
Answered by Steve Brine
We are committed to improving the treatment and care of all cancers, including those that have historically poor outcomes. We recognise that progress in improving survival rates for these cancers has been slow and survival rates remain low. For many of these cancers we do not currently have the answer, and the focus needs to be on research and innovation, and ensuring that proven innovations, once they are discovered, are adopted swiftly across the health service. The National Health Service bases such advice on that provided from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). Clinical commissioning groups and providers are encouraged to commission services in line with the latest NICE guidance.
In October 2018, the Government announced a package of measures that will be rolled out across the country with the aim of seeing three quarters of all cancers detected at an early stage by 2028. The plan will radically overhaul screening programmes, provide new investment in state of the art technology to transform the process of diagnosis, and boost research and innovation. For example, new targeted lung health check programmes will see people at risk of lung cancer offered smoking cessation interventions and enable more people to have curative treatment. This is part of the long-term plan for the NHS and forms part of how the Government will achieve its ambition of 55,000 more people surviving cancer for five years in England each year from 2028.