Asked by: Peter Gibson (Conservative - Darlington)
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 adequacy of the delivery of palliative care services required by the Health and Social Care Act 2022; what steps he is taking to monitor the delivery of those services; and if he will take steps to provide regular reports to Parliament on the progress of the delivery of those services.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
No assessment has been made. While the National Health Service has always been required to commission appropriate palliative and end of life care services to meet the reasonable needs of the population, as part of the Health and Care Act 2022, the Government added palliative care services to the list of services an integrated care board must commission, to clarify this responsibility.
NHS England has actively increased its support to local commissioners to improve the accessibility, quality and sustainability of palliative and end of life care for all. This has included the publication of statutory guidance and service specifications, with further resources available on the FutureNHS Collaboration Platform. The statutory guidance and service specifications can be found at the following links:
In addition, NHS England has funded the establishment of a palliative and end of life care Strategic Clinical Network in every NHS England region, which work closely with local commissioners regarding the development of accessible, high quality and sustainable services.
Asked by: Peter Gibson (Conservative - Darlington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to provide guidance to integrated care boards on the (a) quantity and (b) quality of palliative care they are required to provide under the Health and Social Care Act 2022.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
No assessment has been made. While the National Health Service has always been required to commission appropriate palliative and end of life care services to meet the reasonable needs of the population, as part of the Health and Care Act 2022, the Government added palliative care services to the list of services an integrated care board must commission, to clarify this responsibility.
NHS England has actively increased its support to local commissioners to improve the accessibility, quality and sustainability of palliative and end of life care for all. This has included the publication of statutory guidance and service specifications, with further resources available on the FutureNHS Collaboration Platform. The statutory guidance and service specifications can be found at the following links:
In addition, NHS England has funded the establishment of a palliative and end of life care Strategic Clinical Network in every NHS England region, which work closely with local commissioners regarding the development of accessible, high quality and sustainable services.
Asked by: Peter Gibson (Conservative - Darlington)
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 assessment of the potential impact of ring-fencing funding for palliative care on the uniform provision of palliative care across the country.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
No assessment has been made. While the National Health Service has always been required to commission appropriate palliative and end of life care services to meet the reasonable needs of the population, as part of the Health and Care Act 2022, the Government added palliative care services to the list of services an integrated care board must commission, to clarify this responsibility.
NHS England has actively increased its support to local commissioners to improve the accessibility, quality and sustainability of palliative and end of life care for all. This has included the publication of statutory guidance and service specifications, with further resources available on the FutureNHS Collaboration Platform. The statutory guidance and service specifications can be found at the following links:
In addition, NHS England has funded the establishment of a palliative and end of life care Strategic Clinical Network in every NHS England region, which work closely with local commissioners regarding the development of accessible, high quality and sustainable services.
Asked by: Peter Gibson (Conservative - Darlington)
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 assessment of the adequacy of NHS funding for hospices that provide commissioned services on behalf of the NHS.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
No assessment has been made. While the National Health Service has always been required to commission appropriate palliative and end of life care services to meet the reasonable needs of the population, as part of the Health and Care Act 2022, the Government added palliative care services to the list of services an integrated care board must commission, to clarify this responsibility.
NHS England has actively increased its support to local commissioners to improve the accessibility, quality and sustainability of palliative and end of life care for all. This has included the publication of statutory guidance and service specifications, with further resources available on the FutureNHS Collaboration Platform. The statutory guidance and service specifications can be found at the following links:
In addition, NHS England has funded the establishment of a palliative and end of life care Strategic Clinical Network in every NHS England region, which work closely with local commissioners regarding the development of accessible, high quality and sustainable services.
Asked by: Peter Gibson (Conservative - Darlington)
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 (a) cost and (b) bed-capacity savings from commissioning more palliative care services from hospices; and if he will take steps to ensure that Integrated Care Boards utilise all the available hospice beds in their areas.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
No assessment has been made at a national level. As set out in the Health and Care Act 2022, it is the legal duty of integrated care boards to commission palliative and end of life care to meet the needs of their local populations. NHS England has published statutory guidance to support commissioners with this duty.
As such, commissioners are encouraged to consider cost effective commissioning from a range of providers and settings, in order to best meet the needs and preferences of their population. We have made over £400 million available to hospices since 2020 to secure and increase additional National Health Service capacity and enable hospital discharge, ensuring hospices can continue to deliver care to those who need it. More specifically, hospices have been amongst services eligible for funding to support discharge and improve patient flow totalling £200 million, information about which can be found at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/discharge-funding-for-step-down-care-200-million-fund/
Asked by: Peter Gibson (Conservative - Darlington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the potential savings to the public purse of repurposing unused prescribed medication.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
NHS England is leading a programme on medicines optimisation which aims to help patients to improve outcomes and safety, take medicines as intended, avoid taking unnecessary medicines and reduce wastage. For example, Regional Medicines Optimisation Committees were established in 2016 to support and optimise local prescribing practice and reduce unwarranted variation. Community pharmacies also offer the New Medicines Service, providing further support to patients newly prescribed certain medicines, and the Discharge Medicines Service, enabling hospitals to refer recently discharged patients to a community pharmacy for support with new medication.
Structured Medicine Reviews are offered by general practices (GPs) where increasingly pharmacists are part of multi-disciplinary teams to review patients’ medication, optimise medication and prevent wastage. In addition, electronic Repeat Dispensing (eRD) allows a GP to send repeat prescriptions to a patient’s pharmacy to manage the dispensing of the specific medicines required. As part of the eRD service, the pharmacy is required to make sure that the patient still needs all of their medicines and dispense to the patients only those that are needed.
In September 2021, the findings and recommendations of the national overprescribing review were published, setting out a series of practical and cultural changes necessary to ensure patients receive the most appropriate treatment for their needs while ensuring value for money.
All pharmacies must by law accept unwanted medicines from patients for disposal. However, the Department does not promote the reuse of medicines returned from patients. Where medicines have left a pharmacy, it is not possible to assure the quality of returned medicines on physical inspection alone. When medicines are returned from patients’ homes, there is no way of guaranteeing that the medicines have been stored or handled appropriately. This could affect patient safety. Therefore, no estimate of the potential savings of repurposing unused prescribed medication has been made.
Asked by: Peter Gibson (Conservative - Darlington)
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 reduce waste in GP dispensing practices.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
NHS England is leading a programme on medicines optimisation which aims to help patients to improve outcomes and safety, take medicines as intended, avoid taking unnecessary medicines and reduce wastage. For example, Regional Medicines Optimisation Committees were established in 2016 to support and optimise local prescribing practice and reduce unwarranted variation. Community pharmacies also offer the New Medicines Service, providing further support to patients newly prescribed certain medicines, and the Discharge Medicines Service, enabling hospitals to refer recently discharged patients to a community pharmacy for support with new medication.
Structured Medicine Reviews are offered by general practices (GPs) where increasingly pharmacists are part of multi-disciplinary teams to review patients’ medication, optimise medication and prevent wastage. In addition, electronic Repeat Dispensing (eRD) allows a GP to send repeat prescriptions to a patient’s pharmacy to manage the dispensing of the specific medicines required. As part of the eRD service, the pharmacy is required to make sure that the patient still needs all of their medicines and dispense to the patients only those that are needed.
In September 2021, the findings and recommendations of the national overprescribing review were published, setting out a series of practical and cultural changes necessary to ensure patients receive the most appropriate treatment for their needs while ensuring value for money.
All pharmacies must by law accept unwanted medicines from patients for disposal. However, the Department does not promote the reuse of medicines returned from patients. Where medicines have left a pharmacy, it is not possible to assure the quality of returned medicines on physical inspection alone. When medicines are returned from patients’ homes, there is no way of guaranteeing that the medicines have been stored or handled appropriately. This could affect patient safety. Therefore, no estimate of the potential savings of repurposing unused prescribed medication has been made.
Asked by: Peter Gibson (Conservative - Darlington)
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 ensure that surplus prescribed medication is recycled.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
NHS England is leading a programme on medicines optimisation which aims to help patients to improve outcomes and safety, take medicines as intended, avoid taking unnecessary medicines and reduce wastage. For example, Regional Medicines Optimisation Committees were established in 2016 to support and optimise local prescribing practice and reduce unwarranted variation. Community pharmacies also offer the New Medicines Service, providing further support to patients newly prescribed certain medicines, and the Discharge Medicines Service, enabling hospitals to refer recently discharged patients to a community pharmacy for support with new medication.
Structured Medicine Reviews are offered by general practices (GPs) where increasingly pharmacists are part of multi-disciplinary teams to review patients’ medication, optimise medication and prevent wastage. In addition, electronic Repeat Dispensing (eRD) allows a GP to send repeat prescriptions to a patient’s pharmacy to manage the dispensing of the specific medicines required. As part of the eRD service, the pharmacy is required to make sure that the patient still needs all of their medicines and dispense to the patients only those that are needed.
In September 2021, the findings and recommendations of the national overprescribing review were published, setting out a series of practical and cultural changes necessary to ensure patients receive the most appropriate treatment for their needs while ensuring value for money.
All pharmacies must by law accept unwanted medicines from patients for disposal. However, the Department does not promote the reuse of medicines returned from patients. Where medicines have left a pharmacy, it is not possible to assure the quality of returned medicines on physical inspection alone. When medicines are returned from patients’ homes, there is no way of guaranteeing that the medicines have been stored or handled appropriately. This could affect patient safety. Therefore, no estimate of the potential savings of repurposing unused prescribed medication has been made.
Asked by: Peter Gibson (Conservative - Darlington)
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 reduce the waste of prescription medicines.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
NHS England is leading a programme on medicines optimisation which aims to help patients to improve outcomes and safety, take medicines as intended, avoid taking unnecessary medicines and reduce wastage. For example, Regional Medicines Optimisation Committees were established in 2016 to support and optimise local prescribing practice and reduce unwarranted variation. Community pharmacies also offer the New Medicines Service, providing further support to patients newly prescribed certain medicines, and the Discharge Medicines Service, enabling hospitals to refer recently discharged patients to a community pharmacy for support with new medication.
Structured Medicine Reviews are offered by general practices (GPs) where increasingly pharmacists are part of multi-disciplinary teams to review patients’ medication, optimise medication and prevent wastage. In addition, electronic Repeat Dispensing (eRD) allows a GP to send repeat prescriptions to a patient’s pharmacy to manage the dispensing of the specific medicines required. As part of the eRD service, the pharmacy is required to make sure that the patient still needs all of their medicines and dispense to the patients only those that are needed.
In September 2021, the findings and recommendations of the national overprescribing review were published, setting out a series of practical and cultural changes necessary to ensure patients receive the most appropriate treatment for their needs while ensuring value for money.
All pharmacies must by law accept unwanted medicines from patients for disposal. However, the Department does not promote the reuse of medicines returned from patients. Where medicines have left a pharmacy, it is not possible to assure the quality of returned medicines on physical inspection alone. When medicines are returned from patients’ homes, there is no way of guaranteeing that the medicines have been stored or handled appropriately. This could affect patient safety. Therefore, no estimate of the potential savings of repurposing unused prescribed medication has been made.
Asked by: Peter Gibson (Conservative - Darlington)
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 assessment of the potential merits of making the sale of cigarettes subject to a system of licensing to help prevent the prevalence of illegal cigarettes.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
An assessment provided in the Khan Review suggests a retailers' licensing scheme would reduce underage and illicit sales and protect law abiding businesses. We will shortly be unveiling a wide-reaching set of proposals to support our ambition to be Smokefree by 2030, and this will include action to further tackle illicit tobacco.