Asked by: Simon Burns (Conservative - Chelmsford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the current status is of the application he has received from Anglia Ruskin University on establishing a new medical school; and what the timetable is for a decision on that application.
Answered by Philip Dunne
The Department has not received a formal application from Anglia Ruskin University to establish a new medical school. It is the responsibility of the General Medical Council (GMC) to maintain the list of United Kingdom bodies entitled to award a primary medical qualification and therefore the GMC is responsible for the application process to determine whether new medical schools meet the required standards. Anglia Ruskin University has expressed interest in establishing a new medical school.
Asked by: Simon Burns (Conservative - Chelmsford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether he has received an application from Anglia Ruskin University in Chelmsford to establish a new medical school.
Answered by Philip Dunne
The Department has not received a formal application from Anglia Ruskin University to establish a new medical school. It is the responsibility of the General Medical Council (GMC) to maintain the list of United Kingdom bodies entitled to award a primary medical qualification and therefore the GMC is responsible for the application process to determine whether new medical schools meet the required standards. Anglia Ruskin University has expressed interest in establishing a new medical school.
Asked by: Simon Burns (Conservative - Chelmsford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what meetings representatives from NICE (a) have had and (b) plan to have with Pfizer during the consultation period for palbociclib (Ibrance) since the publication of the draft guidance on that drug on 3 February 2017.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has advised that a meeting with Pfizer to discuss the appraisal of palbociclib took place on 22 February 2017.
Asked by: Simon Burns (Conservative - Chelmsford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will make it his policy to provide protections to NHS frontline staff against violent and dangerous patients similar to those provided for police and fire officers; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Philip Dunne
National Health Service staff are committed to providing health services and work hard to do so. They should not expect to suffer violence at work and this must not be tolerated. The priority is to prevent violence through measures to protect staff and by managing potentially risky situations before they escalate.
Employers in the NHS are responsible for assessing the risks of violence to their staff, for taking action to address these through prevention work, and for pursuing legal action when assaults do occur.
When incidents occur, the Department encourages the NHS to work with local police forces in seeking legal sanctions against anyone who is violent to staff. Joint working agreements on pursuing sanctions are in place between the NHS, the National Police Chiefs Council and the Crown Prosecution Service.
Asked by: Simon Burns (Conservative - Chelmsford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what plans his Department has to ensure that vacant posts in breast radiology are filled over the next five years.
Answered by Philip Dunne
The Department does not collect this information.
National Health Service organisations are best placed to decide how many staff they employ tailoring services to meet the needs of their patients and local communities, to deliver safe care.
Health Education England is responsible for ensuring a secure workforce supply that reflects the needs of local service users, providers and commissioners of healthcare. As part of the investment planning process, clinical radiologists have been prioritised with plans to increase training posts by 32 to 1,144 for 2016-17 recruitment.
Asked by: Simon Burns (Conservative - Chelmsford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many and what proportion of breast radiologist posts were unfilled in each of the last five years for which data is available.
Answered by Philip Dunne
The Department does not collect this information.
National Health Service organisations are best placed to decide how many staff they employ tailoring services to meet the needs of their patients and local communities, to deliver safe care.
Health Education England is responsible for ensuring a secure workforce supply that reflects the needs of local service users, providers and commissioners of healthcare. As part of the investment planning process, clinical radiologists have been prioritised with plans to increase training posts by 32 to 1,144 for 2016-17 recruitment.
Asked by: Simon Burns (Conservative - Chelmsford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many finished consultant episodes there were with a (a) primary and (b) secondary diagnosis of HIV infection in (i) England and (ii) each region in each year since 1989.
Answered by Jane Ellison
Available data is set out in the attached table. This includes data for England from 1998 and regional data from 2003.
Asked by: Simon Burns (Conservative - Chelmsford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to develop the understanding, prevention, diagnosis and treatment of HIV among NHS clinicians who do not specialise in HIV; what assessment he has made of the adequacy and extent of training on HIV for such clinicians; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Jane Ellison
Health Education England has developed a number of e-learning sessions on Sexual Health and HIV across programmes designed for foundation trainees, general practitioners, dentists, radiologists as well as specialists. The programmes cover topics such as HIV testing, the importance of early diagnosis and Oral Manifestations of HIV and AIDS. The content for these programmes is available to all National Health Service employees irrespective of their speciality and includes e-learning resources.
The Department has funded the Medical Foundation for AIDS and Sexual Health to produce resources to support non-specialist clinicians in primary and secondary care services to offer HIV testing to help reduce late diagnosis of HIV. This includes HIV Testing in Practice, an interactive web-based resource for primary care which went live in November 2014.
NHS England commission HIV treatment and care services in-line with a detailed service specification. Non-specialist clinical services, including primary care might be able to deliver parts of the care pathway in discussion with specialist HIV care providers.
Asked by: Simon Burns (Conservative - Chelmsford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to Public Health England's report on HIV in the UK, published in November 2014, what the evidential basis was of the conclusions in the report; from what sources that data was derived; how frequently such data is published; and when data equivalent to that data will next be published.
Answered by Jane Ellison
Public Health England (PHE) undertakes surveillance of the number of people newly diagnosed with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the number of people living with diagnosed HIV infection, and the clinical outcomes of HIV infection, including acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) and deaths. These data relate to the adults in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Scottish data (Health Protection Scotland) and paediatric data (Institute of Child Health) are collected separately and collated to produce the national surveillance tables.
“HIV in the United Kingdom” is a report released annually by PHE in time for World AIDS Day (1 December). The report describes the HIV epidemic in the United Kingdom to date, including trends in new diagnoses and new infections, HIV prevalence, clinical outcomes for people living with HIV and behavioural and HIV testing trends. The data directly inform and evaluate the public health response to the HIV epidemic.
The conclusions of the report are developed by public health professionals who co-ordinate HIV surveillance activities, and are reached through interpretation of the HIV surveillance data.
Data sources, frequency of published data and date of next publication are available in the attached annex.
Asked by: Simon Burns (Conservative - Chelmsford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what data is used to inform the quality dashboard programme developed by NHS England to monitor the quality of HIV care; from what sources that data was derived; how frequently such data is published; and when equivalent data will next be published.
Answered by Jane Ellison
The data for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) quality dashboard are provided by Public Health England (PHE) using the national HIV surveillance and monitoring system which uses data directly submitted to PHE by HIV service providers. PHE uses the data to inform clinically important metrics of the quality of HIV care. These include late HIV diagnosis, time from HIV diagnosis to entry into HIV care, retention in HIV care and effectiveness of HIV treatment and care.
In 2015, the annual national dashboard information will be published in the autumn (data to the end 2014); trust level information (to end 2013) will be circulated (not published) to trusts and commissioners in June 2015.
Trust level data are used to monitor the quality of care and outcomes of HIV services to drive service improvement. The dashboard metrics are published online at:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/commissioning/spec-services/npc-crg/spec-dashboards/