Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether trading standards officers are required to share information on seized non-compliant (a) tobacco and (b) vaping products with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) works in collaboration with a number of enforcement and regulatory agencies to share intelligence, support strategic planning, produce guidance, and review emerging issues. There is no legal requirement for Trading Standards to share seizure data with the MHRA, however this data is shared in cases where the MHRA can provide evidence to support ongoing compliance and enforcement investigations.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to tackle the sale of illegal vapes on the black market.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is concerned about the worrying rise in vaping among children, with youth vaping tripling in the last three years, and one-in-five children having now used a vape. Underage sales and illicit vapes are undermining the work the Government is doing to protect our children's health.
To address this, in April 2023, the Government announced a £3 million investment over two years to enhance work on illicit vape enforcement. Led by National Trading Standards, this builds on existing work by local trading standards officers across the country to ensure that vapes sold in the United Kingdom comply with The Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016, as well as other relevant legislation that applies to vaping products. Activities include data collection and analysis to understand the scale of illegal products and sales, and market surveillance work. Through this work, they identified that 2.1 million illicit vapes were seized across England by trading standards from 2022 to 2023.
To strengthen our enforcement activity, the Government will also provide an additional £30 million of funding per year for enforcement agencies, including trading standards. This increase in investment will help to stamp out criminal activity by boosting the enforcement of illicit tobacco and vapes.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will publish the modelling produced by NHS England which shows that the NHS Dental Recovery Plan will deliver 2.5 million NHS dentistry appointments.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
On 7 February 2024, we published Faster, simpler and fairer: our plan to recover and reform NHS dentistry, which is backed by £200 million and will fund approximately 2.5 million additional appointments, or more than 1.5 million additional courses of dental treatment. The plan sets out our actions to improve dental access for patients by helping the sector to recover from the pandemic, as well as actions needed for long-term reform.
Further information on the modelling for the number of additional appointments being delivered under the plan will be shared with the Health and Social Care Select Committee shortly, and also to be placed in the Library.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many medicine supply issue notifications her Department has received in each month since 2017.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
There are around 14,000 licensed medicines, and the overwhelming majority are in good supply. However, the medicine supply chain is highly regulated, complex, and global and supply disruption is an issue which affects countries all around the world.
The Department’s medicines Discontinuations and Shortages (DaSH) portal was established in October 2020 to collect notifications from suppliers of potential supply issues. Data from before October 2020 cannot be provided as this information is not held. The following table shows the number of supply issue notifications added to the DaSH portal, each month since 2020:
Month added to DaSH | Number of supply issue notifications |
October 2020 | 180 |
November 2020 | 130 |
December 2020 | 90 |
January 2021 | 90 |
February 2021 | 70 |
March 2021 | 60 |
April 2021 | 50 |
May 2021 | 60 |
June 2021 | 130 |
July 2021 | 60 |
August 2021 | 100 |
September 2021 | 90 |
October 2021 | 80 |
November 2021 | 100 |
December 2021 | 100 |
January 2022 | 110 |
February 2022 | 130 |
March 2022 | 70 |
April 2022 | 100 |
May 2022 | 120 |
June 2022 | 140 |
July 2022 | 210 |
August 2022 | 140 |
September 2022 | 180 |
October 2022 | 130 |
November 2022 | 180 |
December 2022 | 110 |
January 2023 | 170 |
February 2023 | 130 |
March 2023 | 140 |
April 2023 | 120 |
May 2023 | 120 |
June 2023 | 130 |
July 2023 | 130 |
August 2023 | 160 |
September 2023 | 110 |
October 2023 | 130 |
November 2023 | 170 |
December 2023 | 140 |
January 2024 | 160 |
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many applications were made to the NHS low income scheme in 2023.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
In 2023 there were 378,367 applications for the NHS Low Income Scheme, which provides income related help to people who are not automatically exempt from charges but who may be entitled to full or partial help if they have a low income and savings below a defined limit.
Source: NHS Business Service Authority data warehouse.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many full time equivalent staff were employed in the health improvement directorate of (a) the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities and (b) Public Health England in each year since 2017.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
A Health Improvement Directorate was not part of the structure of the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) when it was established as part of the Department, in October 2021. The OHID incorporated people and health improvement functions from different parts of Public Health England (PHE) and the Department. The following figures show the total civil servant full time equivalent (FTE) complement of the OHID since its establishment in October 2021:
- 1,115 FTE civil servants as of 31 March 2022;
- 923 FTE civil servants as of 31 March 2023; and
- 777 FTE civil servants as of 31 December 2023.
The number of FTE staff recorded as assigned to PHE’s Health Improvement directorate from 2017 to 2021 was:
- 991 as of May 2017;
- 1,041 as of March 2018;
- 1,064 as of March 2019;
- 1,086 as of March 2020; and
- 1,062 as of March 2021.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate she has made (a) of the number of vaping products that have been seized by trading standards and (b) of those, the number that (i) were non-compliant with UK regulations and (ii) have gone through the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency notification process.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The underage and illicit sale of tobacco, and more recently vapes, undermines the work the Government is doing to regulate the industry and protect public health. The Government is increasing investment for our enforcement agencies by £30 million per year. In addition, the Government also announced £3 million of investment to a new illicit vapes enforcement unit, led by National Trading Standards, building on existing work by trading standards officers across the country. They identified that 2.1 million illicit vapes were seized across England by trading standards in 2022 to 2023. These vapes often contain unknown ingredients, higher levels of nicotine, and are often made easily available through markets that target children. The Department does not hold data on the total number of vaping products seized by Trading Standards that have successfully gone through the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency’s notification process.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking in response to the Kimberley Liu: Prevention of future deaths report, published on December 29, 2023.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The Department takes all prevention of future death reports seriously, including working with healthcare partners where appropriate to develop our responses. We are conscious of the statutory deadline for these reports, and the Department will provide a formal response in due course.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what her Department's policy is on maintaining (a) supply of and (b) access to commonly prescribed medicines.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
There are approximately 14,000 licensed medicines, and the overwhelming majority are in good supply. However, the medicine supply chain is highly regulated, complex, and global, and supply disruption is an issue which affects countries all around the world.
There are a number of reasons why supply can be disrupted, including manufacturing difficulties, regulatory non-compliance, access to raw materials, sudden demand spikes, or distribution issues. Supply issues are driven by a range of factors, many of which are non-specific to the United Kingdom.
Whilst we can’t always prevent supply issues from occurring, the Department has a range of well-established processes and tools to manage them when they arise, and help mitigate risks to patients. We work closely with industry, the National Health Service, and others, to develop bespoke mitigation plans, which are tailored to each issue, to help ensure patients continue to have access to the medicines they need.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many dentists were registered with the General Dental Council in each financial year since 2010-11; and of those registered dentists how many and what proportion provided some NHS care.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The General Dental Council (GDC) is the independent regulator of dentists and dental care professionals (DCPs) practising in the United Kingdom and enforces the standards they must adhere to. In order to practise in the UK, all dentists and DCPs are required to hold registration with the GDC.
The Department does not hold data on how many dentists have been registered with the GDC. Data on the registration of dentists and DCPs with the GDC is held by the GDC. The GDC regularly publish registration reports on their website at the following link:
https://www.gdc-uk.org/about-us/what-we-do/the-registers/registration-reports
The following table shows the number of dentists with National Health Service activity in England only between the years 2010/11 to 2022/23:
Number of dentists with NHS activity in England
Year | Number of dentists |
2010/11 | 22,799 |
2011/12 | 22,920 |
2012/13 | 23,201 |
2013/14 | 23,723 |
2014/15 | 23,947 |
2015/16 | 24,089 |
2016/17 | 24,007 |
2017/18 | 24,308 |
2018/19 | 24,545 |
2019/20 | 24,684 |
2020/21 | 23,733 |
2021/22 | 24,272 |
2022/23 | 24,151 |
Source: Data is from the NHS Dental Statistics for England Annual Report 2017-18 (Workforce Table 8a) and the NHS Dental Statistics for England Annual Report 2022-23 (Workforce Table 1a). The reports are available at the following link:
https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/nhs-dental-statistics