Asked by: Oliver Colvile (Conservative - Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of expanding the accessibility and availability of intravenous iron services to treat patients with iron deficiency before that condition develops into anaemia.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
It is for local National Health Service organisations to develop their own policy to treat patients with iron deficiency or iron deficiency anaemia, based on their clinical needs.
Asked by: Oliver Colvile (Conservative - Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what plans his Department has to address regional variation in iron deficiency.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
Public Health England (PHE) has assessed the prevalence of iron deficiency in the United Kingdom as a whole and in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as part of the National Diet and Nutrition Survey. The results indicate little difference between the UK countries. Numbers are too small to permit a more detailed regional analysis and no further assessment has been made.
PHE provides public–facing advice on how to achieve the dietary recommendations for iron as part of its general advice on a healthy balanced diet, as set out in the Eatwell Guide.
Asked by: Oliver Colvile (Conservative - Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the causes of regional variation in rates of iron deficiency and anaemia.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
Public Health England (PHE) has assessed the prevalence of iron deficiency in the United Kingdom as a whole and in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as part of the National Diet and Nutrition Survey. The results indicate little difference between the UK countries. Numbers are too small to permit a more detailed regional analysis and no further assessment has been made.
PHE provides public–facing advice on how to achieve the dietary recommendations for iron as part of its general advice on a healthy balanced diet, as set out in the Eatwell Guide.
Asked by: Oliver Colvile (Conservative - Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the implications for his Department's policies are of the Crisp Commission Report on mental health; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
As a result of the recommendations from the Crisp Commission and the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health, the Government set a national ambition in April 2016 to eliminate inappropriate out of area placements (OAPs) for adult acute inpatient care by 2020/21.
To ensure progress towards this ambition in 2016/17, the Department asked that areas put in place local action plans to achieve reductions in OAPs during 2016/17. NHS England will seek assurance that plans are in place, as well as demonstrable reductions, through the Clinical Commissioning Group Improvement and Assessment Framework. In addition, NHS Improvement will ensure best practice is shared more widely.
On the wider Crisp Commission recommendations, NHS England is working with the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health at the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych) to develop an evidence-based treatment pathway for adult acute mental health care (including older adults), covering both inpatient and community settings from referral through to discharge, so that adult acute inpatient care can be used effectively for patients who need it. A national quality assessment and improvement scheme developed by the RCPsych will be launched during 2017/18, with the aim of improving acute care to meet the pathway standards during 2018/19.
NHS England has committed to publish a formal response to the Commission’s report shortly.
Asked by: Oliver Colvile (Conservative - Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if his Department will bring forward legislative proposals to decriminalise dispensing errors by pharmacists.
Answered by David Mowat
We have consulted on our proposals to put in place a defence to the criminal sanction for inadvertent dispensing errors and received good support from patients, carers, healthcare professionals, pharmacy organisations and other bodies. We are working through the necessary processes to change the law. We are in the final stages of clearance and hope to lay the Order shortly.
Asked by: Oliver Colvile (Conservative - Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many local authorities have published an autism strategy; and what steps the Government is taking to ensure that all local authorities are producing such strategies.
Answered by David Mowat
This information is not held centrally.
The autism strategy Think Autism published in 2014 and statutory guidance published in 2015 for local authorities and National Health Service organisations encourages the effective development of local autism strategies for meeting the needs of adults with autism in their local population, as identified in their local needs assessments. Local authorities and clinical commissioning groups should work together to commission services for children with special educational needs, including autism. This should include publishing a ‘Local Offer’ of services.
Asked by: Oliver Colvile (Conservative - Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to reduce medicine waste.
Answered by David Mowat
Information is not held centrally on the annual cost or amount of dispensed but unused prescription drugs in the National Health Service.
The Department commissioned the York Health Economics Consortium and the School of Pharmacy at the University of London to carry out research to determine the scale, causes and costs of waste medicines in England. The report, Evaluation of the Scale, Causes and Costs of Waste Medicines, was published on 23 November 2010. This found that the gross cost of unused prescription medicines in primary and community care in the NHS in England in 2009 was £300 million a year and that up to £150 million of this was avoidable. The report is available at:
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/111804.pdf?repositoryId=90
NHS England is working with the Department and the NHS Business Services Authority to consider how value can best be obtained from the use of medicines, both in terms of patient outcomes and financial implications. This work, along with the medicines optimisation programme, will help ensure best value for both taxpayers and patients.
Asked by: Oliver Colvile (Conservative - Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what his Department is doing to narrow the 12 year difference in life expectancy between council wards in Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport constituency.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
Addressing health inequalities is a Government priority. This was clearly set out in the Prime Minister’s inaugural speech in July. Key to this message was the importance of addressing the gap in life expectancy.
Achieving measurable and sustained reductions in health inequalities by 2020 and reducing the gaps in life expectancy and healthy life expectancy are priority objectives in the Department’s Shared Delivery Plan: 2015 – 2020. Action is largely led locally to ensure that the solutions put in place reflect the needs of individual communities.
To address the differences in life expectancy across Plymouth, Plymouth Clinical Commissioning Group and health services have introduced the ‘Thrive’ initiative. This aims to tackle the four lifestyle choices (inactivity, diet, alcohol consumption and smoking) that lead to respiratory diseases, cancer, stroke and heart disease. The work, currently in its second year, is the start of the long term drive to improve health and reduce inequalities in Plymouth. Health organisations such as Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust, Livewell Southwest and general practitioner Practices have signed up in support of the Thrive initiative.
In order to ensure that health services are supporting those communities with the highest need, the ‘Success Regime’ has been introduced across Devon, which aims to protect and promote services for patients in local health and care systems that are struggling with financial or quality problems. Additionally, the Sustainability and Transformation Plan for Wider Devon includes a requirement to ensure that sustainable general practice is in place for all populations with equitable access times for routine and urgent treatment.
Asked by: Oliver Colvile (Conservative - Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps the Government is taking to increase the number of non-medical prescribing nurses.
Answered by Philip Dunne
The Department and NHS England have successfully extended prescribing responsibilities to a wider group of health professions, including nurses. This is helping the National Health Service to deliver more timely and effective patient care. These professionals are termed ‘non-medical prescribers’, in order to distinguish them from doctors and dentists.
There are two types of non-medical prescriber:
― Independent Prescribers are able to complete whole episodes of care for a patient, taking responsibility from consultation through to diagnosis and finally, if appropriate, prescription.
― Supplementary Prescribers work in conjunction with a doctor to provide patient care. Supplementary Prescribing is a voluntary partnership between an independent prescriber (in this case a doctor) and a supplementary prescriber, to implement a patient-specific clinical management plan, with the patient’s agreement.
To become a non-medical prescriber, nurses must undertake a recognised Nursing and Midwifery Council accredited prescribing course through a United Kingdom university, sponsored by their employer on the basis of service need.
Local NHS organisations with their knowledge of the healthcare needs of their local population are therefore responsible for investing in training for nurses’ prescribing roles to deliver the best patient care and meet the changing needs of patients and services.
Asked by: Oliver Colvile (Conservative - Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many non-medical prescribing nurses there are at level (a) PL1, (b) PL2, (c) PL3 and (d) PL4.
Answered by Philip Dunne
This information is not collected by the Department.