Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will publish a breakdown of the cost to the public purse of NHS spend on (a) branded pharmaceuticals, (b) generic pharmaceuticals and (c) companion diagnostics in the last 12 months.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
On 7 November 2024, the NHS Business Service Authority published data on the costs of medicines, appliances, dressings, and medical devices prescribed within primary and secondary care in England. This report is available at the following link:
A breakdown of the prescribing costs in England between branded and generic medicines is available for primary care only, and can be found at the following link:
Such publications do not account for income received under the 2024 voluntary scheme for branded medicines pricing, access, and growth (VPAG) or the statutory scheme. Information on how the VPAG and the statutory scheme, which operate United Kingdom-wide, control the cost of sales of branded medicines to the National Health Service is available at the following link:
VPAG and statutory scheme sales data does not reflect the total cost to the NHS. The publication reports net sales of non-exempt products and non-exempt companies only, and is exclusive of additional costs such as pharmacy and wholesaler margins.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an estimate of the projected net NHS spend on medicines (a) before and (b) after accounting for forecast rebates due via the (i) Voluntary Scheme for Branded Medicines Pricing, Access and Growth and (ii) Branded Health Service Medicines (costs) Regulations 2018 for the next five years.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Annex 3 of the document titled Annexes to the 2024 Voluntary Scheme for Branded Medicines Pricing, Access and Growth outlines the forecasts of measured sales and payments from branded medicines. This document is available at the following link:
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
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 the NHS Long Term plan target of increasing clinical trial participation for children and young people with cancer to 50% by 2025.
Answered by Andrew Gwynne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department is committed to maximising our potential to lead the world in clinical trials and ensuring clinical trials are more accessible, including for children and young people. The Department does not hold data on the overall percentage of children and young people with cancer that are enrolled in clinical trials nationwide, but does collect data on participation through National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) funded infrastructure.
The Department funds research and research infrastructure through the NIHR. NIHR-funded infrastructure is enabling clinical trial participation for children and young people with cancer. In particular, the NIHR Clinical Research Network, now the NIHR Research Delivery Network, supported 15 cancer studies which children and young people were eligible for between 2021/22 and 2023/24, and across all these studies, 715 total participants were recruited during this timeframe.
Through the NIHR, the Department also jointly funds the Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre Paediatric Cancer Network with Cancer Research UK and the Little Princess Trust, which brings together clinicians and translational scientists to run early phase clinical trials for children and young people with cancer.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
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 (a) diagnosis and (b) referral rates for 13–24-year-olds with cancer.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We are committed to getting the National Health Service diagnosing cancer earlier and treating it faster, so that more patients survive this horrible set of diseases. This includes children, teenagers, and young adults.
The Department is taking steps to improving waiting times for cancer diagnosis across all cancer patient groups in England. We will start by delivering an extra 40,000 scans, appointments, and operations each week to ensure that patients are seen as quickly as possible.
We are also working with the NHS to maximise the pace of the roll-out of additional diagnostic capacity, delivering the final year of the three-year investment plan for establishing Community Diagnostic Centres, with capacity prioritised for cancer. This will help us continue to meet the Faster Diagnosis Standard, which aims to ensure that over 75% patients have cancer diagnosed or ruled out within 28 days of referral from a general practice (GP) or screening service.
To support timely and effective referrals, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has set out detailed guidance for GPs on the symptoms of cancer in children and young people, recommending referral within 48 hours for those presenting with a range of potential cancer symptoms.
Lord Darzi’s independent investigation into the NHS highlighted that there is more to be done to increase the speed at which patients are diagnosed with and treated for cancer. His report will inform our 10-year plan to reform the NHS, which will include further details on how we will improve cancer diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes. This includes children and young people.
On 21 October 2024, the Department launched a national engagement exercise to inform the plan. We encourage people and organisations who would like to share their views on the priorities of children and young people with cancer to do so via the online platform, change.NHS.UK. Following the engagement exercise, the Department will carefully consider how the priorities of this group should be reflected in the plan and any subsequent work.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he plans to take to ensure that the priorities of (a) children and (b) young people with cancer are included within the ten-year plan.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We are committed to getting the National Health Service diagnosing cancer earlier and treating it faster, so that more patients survive this horrible set of diseases. This includes children, teenagers, and young adults.
The Department is taking steps to improving waiting times for cancer diagnosis across all cancer patient groups in England. We will start by delivering an extra 40,000 scans, appointments, and operations each week to ensure that patients are seen as quickly as possible.
We are also working with the NHS to maximise the pace of the roll-out of additional diagnostic capacity, delivering the final year of the three-year investment plan for establishing Community Diagnostic Centres, with capacity prioritised for cancer. This will help us continue to meet the Faster Diagnosis Standard, which aims to ensure that over 75% patients have cancer diagnosed or ruled out within 28 days of referral from a general practice (GP) or screening service.
To support timely and effective referrals, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has set out detailed guidance for GPs on the symptoms of cancer in children and young people, recommending referral within 48 hours for those presenting with a range of potential cancer symptoms.
Lord Darzi’s independent investigation into the NHS highlighted that there is more to be done to increase the speed at which patients are diagnosed with and treated for cancer. His report will inform our 10-year plan to reform the NHS, which will include further details on how we will improve cancer diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes. This includes children and young people.
On 21 October 2024, the Department launched a national engagement exercise to inform the plan. We encourage people and organisations who would like to share their views on the priorities of children and young people with cancer to do so via the online platform, change.NHS.UK. Following the engagement exercise, the Department will carefully consider how the priorities of this group should be reflected in the plan and any subsequent work.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
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 improve maternity services in the West Yorkshire region.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We are committed to improving maternity and neonatal services across the country, to ensure that all women and babies receive the care they deserve. The West Yorkshire and Harrogate Local Maternity and Neonatal System (LMNS), as part of the West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board, focuses on transforming maternity services through NHS England’s three-year delivery plan, ensuring that care is personalised, and women are listened to. Further information is available at the following link:
https://www.wypartnership.co.uk/our-priorities/maternity
The West Yorkshire and Harrogate LMNS has multiple working groups, which focus on the four key themes of the three-year delivery plan. This work includes implementing the Saving Babies Lives Care Bundle version 3, which is a package of initiatives designed to reduce stillbirths, neonatal brain injury, neonatal death, and preterm birth, and meeting the requirements of the Maternity Incentive Scheme which provides financial incentives for trusts to meet certain safety requirements.
The LMNS has oversight and assurance through various metrics including clinical outcome data, workforce data, patient and staff surveys, a health inequalities dashboard, and a perinatal quality surveillance model.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
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 he potential merits of introducing Mental Health Support teams in every school.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department is working across the Government to consider how to deliver on our commitment of a specialist mental health professional in every school. We need to ensure that 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: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to introduce a national plan to tackle shortages of pancreatic enzyme replacement therapy.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department has been working with suppliers to address current supply issues with Creon, which is a brand of pancreatic enzyme replacement therapy (PERT) used by patients with conditions such as cystic fibrosis and certain cancers including pancreatic cancer. The supply issues with Creon are impacting countries throughout Europe and have been caused by limited availability of raw ingredients and manufacturing capacity constraints to produce volumes needed to meet demand. These issues have resulted in knock-on supply disruptions of alternative PERT medications. The Department is continuing to work with all suppliers of PERT to help resolve the supply issues in the short and longer term. This includes asking that they expedite deliveries, source stock from other markets, and increase production.
The supplier of Creon has advised that they expect to have regular supplies released each month going forward, and are working to increase the quantities released. Serious Shortage Protocols are in place for Creon 10,000 and 25,000 capsules which pharmacists can use to restrict supply to one month at a time to ensure more patients have access to it whilst stock is limited.
We have worked closely with colleagues in NHS England to issue comprehensive guidance to healthcare professionals about these supply issues, and encourage sharing of local solutions. The guidance provides advice on how to manage patients whilst there is disruption to supply and is being kept under review, with updates made as necessary.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps the Government is taking to improve breast cancer screening in Colne Valley constituency.
Answered by Andrew Gwynne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England has developed a national plan in collaboration with key stakeholders, including Cancer Alliances, to improve uptake within the breast screening programme. The plan sets out the priorities and interventions, as well as the required monitoring of the impacts and outcomes to be achieved, to improve uptake through expanding access, data, analytics, contracting, communication, and IT developments, while reducing inequalities.
On a local level, the Kirklees Health and Care Partnership has worked with local public health services to collaborate with homes and neighbourhood housing, to identify areas of low uptake of breast, bowel, and cervical screening, and areas of deprivation combined with areas of council housing. This has resulted in homes and neighbourhood staff actively delivering a pilot focused on promoting the benefits and importance of screening. Working with tenants to understand their level of understanding of screening, their challenges, and the barriers to attendance, and working to overcome these barriers.
Local public health services have also recently launched a breast screening campaign titled Don’t let it be you, which aims to encourage people eligible for breast screening to go for their screening, and not ignore their letter.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
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 4 October 2024 to Question UIN 7300on Visual Impairment: Rehabilitation, what evidence informed his Department's decision not to regulate vision rehabilitation specialists.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government has made no assessment of the potential merits of extending statutory regulation to vision rehabilitation specialists. Whilst statutory regulation is sometimes necessary where significant risks to users of services cannot be mitigated in other ways, it is not always the most proportionate means of ensuring public protection.