Asked by: Sammy Wilson (Democratic Unionist Party - East Antrim)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment of the effect of the UK leaving the EU on UK patients' access to new medicines.
Answered by Steve Brine
Ensuring continued patient access to new medicines is a key element of the United Kingdom’s commitment to continuing a close working relationship with our European partners. While the detail of any future arrangements will be subject to broader negotiations on the UK’s exit from the European Union, the UK remains clear that continued cooperation is in the best interest of both UK and EU patients and public health and safety.
Asked by: Sammy Wilson (Democratic Unionist Party - East Antrim)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what plans his Department has to introduce a new National Stroke Strategy when the existing strategy expires in 2017.
Answered by David Mowat
Decisions on whether the National Stroke Strategy should be renewed are a matter for NHS England. Action is being taken to ensure the progress made on stroke continues. This includes:
- ongoing work in virtually all parts of the country to organise acute stroke care to ensure that all stroke patients, regardless of where they live or what time of the day or week they have their stroke, have access to high quality specialist care;
- publication of the Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) Outcomes Strategy in 2013, which includes many stroke specific strategic ambitions;
- a CVD collaborative group which brings together relevant stakeholders in the field of CVD and provide a forum where relevant work being undertaken in this area and potential new initiatives can be discussed and responsibilities for action determined;
- NHS England’s National Clinical Director for Stroke is working with clinical networks, urgent and emergency care networks, clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) and Sustainability and Transformation Plan areas on how stroke care is best delivered to local communities; and
- services for the management of transient ischaemic attack (TIA) are changing in many areas to meet the new standard that all TIA patients should be seen and assessed within 24 hours, not just high risk patients. CCGs are being encouraged to increase the geographical coverage of early supported discharge services.
Prevention of stroke and CVDs is also a priority for NHS England, particularly attempting to reduce the very high prevalence of CVD in patients with mental health illness.
Asked by: Sammy Wilson (Democratic Unionist Party - East Antrim)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what proportion of nurses earn £35,000 or more per year.
Answered by Ben Gummer
Information from the Health and Social Care Information Centre shows that 32% of qualified nurses earned more than £35,000 in the year ending 31 March 2015. This includes only nurses who worked for the full 12 months. It reflects the actual earnings of each nurse and is not adjusted for part-time working. It excludes nurses in general practice.
Asked by: Sammy Wilson (Democratic Unionist Party - East Antrim)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the contribution of 7 November 2014 by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health, Official Report, column 116, what the evidential basis is for the statement that the restraining factor is the lack of information for clinicians about off-label use.
Answered by George Freeman
We know that new research evidence is being made available in healthcare all the time and that translating this into practice poses a number of challenges. We need to support clinicians in incorporating the most up to date and robust evidence into patient care and are in the process of setting up a round-table discussion with key stakeholders to look at how we can do that better in the case of off-label use of out-of-patent drugs.
Asked by: Sammy Wilson (Democratic Unionist Party - East Antrim)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the likely effects of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership on the National Health Service.
Answered by Jane Ellison
The Government has no intention of opening up National Health Service services to further competition through the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), and this is not a focus of the negotiations. Our focus for health is to enable our world-class pharmaceutical and medical devices sectors to benefit from improved access to the United States market, increasing growth and employment in the United Kingdom.
The UK has already undertaken long-standing agreements on trade, including in health services, since the 1995 General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATs). The UK's objective in Fair Trade Agreement negotiations, including TTIP, is to maintain commitments in health services that are broadly in line with our existing obligations under GATS. These agreements have not impacted on our ability to provide public services to date and we do not consider that TTIP will change this. As is the case now, to work or operate here any overseas healthcare professionals or companies would have to comply with UK standards and regulations, in just the same way as UK healthcare providers do.
We have made clear to the European (EU) Commission, who is negotiating the TTIP on behalf of member states, that it must always be for member states to decide for themselves whether or not to open up public services to competition, and this is the approach that the EU Commission is taking. The TTIP should not reduce the ability of member states to make future decisions about whether and to what extent to involve the private sector in the provision of public services.
If investment provisions are included in the TTIP, they will strike an appropriate balance between protection for UK investors abroad, and ensuring that the Government is not prevented from acting in the public interest in areas such as public health and the NHS.
The Government is committed to an NHS that is always there for everyone who needs it, funded from general taxation, free at the point of use. The TTIP could not change this.