Asked by: Paul Burstow (Liberal Democrat - Sutton and Cheam)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer to Question 224942 of 2 March 2015, for what reason NHS England requires successful individual funding requests to demonstrate exceptionality against a draft commissioning policy which has yet to be finalised; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by George Freeman
In the absence of guidance from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, it is for commissioners to make funding decisions on the basis of the evidence available.
NHS England has advised that it considers individual funding requests against published clinical policies.
Asked by: Paul Burstow (Liberal Democrat - Sutton and Cheam)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department has taken to reduce mental health stigma and discrimination as a result of signing up to the Time to Change Pledge.
Answered by Norman Lamb
In January 2014, we published Closing the Gap: Priorities for Essential Change in Mental Health. This set out 25 of the most important changes that we want to make in the next few years to improve the lives of people with mental health problems and help reduce health inequalities. This included reducing stigma and discrimination around mental health.
The Department is funding the Time to Change campaign from 2011/12 to 2015/16. This funding enables Time to Change to work with people with experience of mental health problems to challenge attitudes and discrimination; run social marketing campaigns and work with local and regional partners on community-led activity.
In addition, on the 10 October 2014, World Mental Health Day, I issued a challenge to FTSE 100 companies to sign up to Time to Change, highlighting the key role employers play in tackling mental health problems in the workplace and encouraging and supporting people back into work, as well as supporting overall employee wellbeing.
The Department provides Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) training for its staff. This course is delivered by Departmental staff who have been trained by MHFA England. The course provides staff with an understanding of a wide range of mental health issues/conditions. It provides staff with skills to feel confident to talk to individuals about mental health and provide assistance on a first aid basis. Through the course, the trainee will also gain knowledge of support services available and be able to signpost to appropriate support, where needed. The course encourages people to talk about mental health and one of its aims is to reduce mental health stigma and discrimination.
The Department takes part in the Time to Change Time to Talk Day. This is advertised on the staff intranet which provides details of the campaign and information on the wider work of Time to Change. Staff drop-in sessions are also held where staff can talk to Health and Wellbeing staff and MHFA trainers about mental health issues.
Asked by: Paul Burstow (Liberal Democrat - Sutton and Cheam)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 2 March 2015 to Question 224944, if he will place in the Library NHS England's monthly data on individual funding requests relating to specialised services.
Answered by George Freeman
NHS England has advised that, once its national database is completely up and running and all data from the NHS England regions have been migrated over to it, NHS England will consider the publication of information on individual funding requests relating to specialised services.
Asked by: Paul Burstow (Liberal Democrat - Sutton and Cheam)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what progress Health Education England has made in developing training programmes for health and care employers to ensure that all staff have an awareness of mental health problems and how they may affect their patients by January 2015; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Dan Poulter
Health Education England (HEE) has been mandated to develop mental health awareness training for all health care staff. This will be launched on 9 March. This is an introductory module with the aim of raising the awareness of mental health issues within healthcare staff. It is designed to give a broad overview of what encompasses mental illness, the link between mental and physical health diagnoses and outline possible treatment options.
The package ensures free access to all healthcare staff and is available as part of HEE E-Learning for Health.
Asked by: Paul Burstow (Liberal Democrat - Sutton and Cheam)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what progress Health Education England has made in ensuring that training is available so that there can be a specialist GP in every clinical commissioning group trained in the physical and mental health needs of armed forces veterans by summer 2015.
Answered by Dan Poulter
Health Education England (HEE) is working with partners to develop an updated e-Learning programme comprising of a pre-assessment; three e-learning sessions on ‘Caring for Veterans and their Families’, ‘Mental Health problems in Veterans’, and ‘Veterans with Severe or Long-term Injuries’; and a post-course assessment.
The e-Learning package is expected to be available in summer 2015, following which HEE will work with partners to promote the package across the National Health Service.
Asked by: Paul Burstow (Liberal Democrat - Sutton and Cheam)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what progress Health Education England has made in developing a mutual health e-learning package to support continuing professional development for GPs by January 2015; and how many GPs have used that package.
Answered by Dan Poulter
Health Education England (HEE) is not currently developing a mutual health e-learning package to support continuing professional development for general practitioners (GPs).
However, HEE has been mandated by the Department to develop a mental health e-learning package which will be available to the public from 9 March. The package has been designed for all primary and secondary healthcare staff, including GPs.
No uptake figures are currently available.
Asked by: Paul Burstow (Liberal Democrat - Sutton and Cheam)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what progress Health Education England has made in ensuring that a module on perinatal mental health is included in core training for midwives.
Answered by Dan Poulter
Health Education England (HEE) has been working with the Nursing and Midwifery Council and Royal College of Midwives, to ensure midwives in training have a core training module focussing on perinatal mental health, with the intention that this will be in place for those entering training in 2015.
HEE has developed three perinatal mental health e-learning modules, in partnership with the Institute of Health Visiting, focusing on both the recognition and interventions needed around perinatal depression and other mental health disorders.
Asked by: Paul Burstow (Liberal Democrat - Sutton and Cheam)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many individual funding requests have been (a) made to NHS England and (b) considered by an individual funding request panel of NHS England for funding for (i) any treatment and (ii) Duodopa in each month since April 2014; and how many of those funding requests for funding for Duodopa were (A) successful and (b) unsuccessful in each month since April 2014.
Answered by George Freeman
NHS England has confirmed that, to be successful, any individual funding request (IFR) for Duodopa must demonstrate exceptionality against the cohort of patients with Parkinson's disease in NHS England’s draft commissioning policy.
Although it does not routinely commission Duodopa for the treatment of advanced Parkinson’s disease, NHS England has advised that, it will consider funding this treatment in exceptional clinical circumstances. Clinicians can submit IFRs for this treatment to NHS England on behalf of their patients.
NHS England has IFRs for all treatments/interventions were received by NHS England through the standard IFR process. 238 of these were considered by an NHS England IFR panel.
21 requests for Duodopa were received as shown in the table.
IFR team | Indication | Number of IFRs received | Approved | Not Approved |
Midlands and East | Duodopa | 3 | 0 | 3 |
North | Duodopa | 5 | 0 | 5 |
London | Duodopa | 11 | 0 | 11 |
South | Duodopa | 2 | 0 | 2 |
Source: NHS England
NHS England is unable to provide monthly figures due to the small volume of requests as this could lead to the identification of individual patients.
NHS England has advised that the SSC1315 on Individual Funding Requests for Clinically Urgent Treatment Outside Established Policy has officially expired but has been maintained whilst a review is taking place regarding how such cases will be handled in the future.
It has confirmed that not all non-clinical IFRs require an expert opinion. This is only sought when it is felt that further expert opinion is required. It should be noted that Duodopa became NHS England’s responsibility from April 2014. Prior to then cases were considered by clinical commissioning groups.
Details of IFRs processed under specialised services circular SSC1315 for the period 1 October 2013 to 24 February 2015 are shown in the table:
IFR team | Indication | Number of IFRs received | Approved | Not Approved | ||
critical clinically urgent | urgent non-clinical | critical clinically urgent | urgent non-clinical | |||
Midlands & East | All | 11 | 5 | 6 | 0 | 0 |
Duodopa | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
North | All | 13 | 12 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
Duodopa | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
London | All | 37 | 31 | 3 | 3 | 0 |
Duodopa | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
South | All | 18 | 10 | 1 | 3 | 4 |
Duodopa | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
Source: NHS England
Further information about NHS England’s IFR process is available at:
www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/cp-03.pdf
Asked by: Paul Burstow (Liberal Democrat - Sutton and Cheam)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many statutory consultees to each technology appraisal conducted by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence in each of the last three years were (a) patient organisations, (b) manufacturers, (c) professional organisations and (d) other organisations.
Answered by George Freeman
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has advised that the consultees for all technology appraisals over the years 2012-14 can be broken down into the specified groups as follows:
patient organisations: 83 separate patient groups
manufacturers: 52 separate companies
professional organisations: 93 separate professional groups
other organisations: 42 separate other organisations
Asked by: Paul Burstow (Liberal Democrat - Sutton and Cheam)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, when Duodopa has been (a) routinely and (b) not routinely available for use on the NHS in England in each of the last five years.
Answered by George Freeman
Duodopa has never been routinely commissioned by NHS England.
NHS England assumed responsibility for directly commissioning specialised services in April 2013 and prior to this, responsibility for commissioning specialised services rested with the national NHS Specialised Services and the 10 regional specialised commissioning groups. Details of any consultations and commissioning decisions are not held centrally.