Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
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 ensure (a) transparency and (b) parental consent in clinical trials involving children.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
There are legal measures in place to ensure informed consent in clinical trials, through the Medicines for Human Use (Clinical Trials) Regulations 2004. Parental consent for clinical trials investigating medicines which involve children is also legislated for via the same Regulations.
Promoting and ensuring transparency is central to the role of the Health Research Authority to facilitate safe and ethical research as defined in the Care Act 2014. This includes clinical trials involving children.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what measures are in place to ensure informed consent in clinical trials.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
There are legal measures in place to ensure informed consent in clinical trials, through the Medicines for Human Use (Clinical Trials) Regulations 2004. Parental consent for clinical trials investigating medicines which involve children is also legislated for via the same Regulations.
Promoting and ensuring transparency is central to the role of the Health Research Authority to facilitate safe and ethical research as defined in the Care Act 2014. This includes clinical trials involving children.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the 4% increase in NHS dental charges on access to dental care for low-income (a) people and (b) families.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
National Health Service dental charges provide an important contribution to pressurised NHS budgets. It is particularly important to maintain this contribution at sustainable levels, whilst we work to improve NHS dentistry. In setting the charges, we strive to strike a balance between the contribution the charges represent to the overall NHS budget, and the cost to charge-paying patients, recognising the primary policy objectives of improving oral health and guarding against creating financial barriers in accessing NHS dentistry.
We consider that the latest 4% uplift is proportionate, as it remains below the Consumer Prices Index, and represents a £1 increase to a Band 1 course of treatment. To ensure everyone has access to dentistry when needed, there are a range of exemptions to NHS dental patient charges for those who need the most financial support.
The Department has produced an Impact Assessment with respect to the 4% uplift of NHS dental charges for patients in England from April 2024, which is available from the following link:
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukia/2024/48/pdfs/ukia_20240048_en.pdf
In line with our Public Sector Equality duty, the Department has also considered the impact of the change on equality, and on those from disadvantaged groups.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions she has had with healthcare professionals on minimum service levels during strikes in the NHS.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
As part of the consultations on introducing minimum service levels in both ambulance and hospital services, the Department hosted workshops to which a wide range of representative groups were invited. This included employer and provider organisations, and unions representing healthcare professionals.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment her Department has made of the impact of the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023 on the ability of healthcare professionals to participate in industrial action.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023 allows for regulations to be laid in Parliament in the health sector. The Strikes (Minimum Service Levels: NHS Ambulance Services and the NHS Patient Transport Service) Regulations 2023 came into force on 8 December 2023.
As we set out in in our consultation response on minimum service levels in the ambulance sector, in our engagement with representatives from ambulance trusts, they indicated that establishing a minimum service level at the level specified in the regulations would require approximately 80% of an ambulance service’s resources on a typical shift. Therefore, if an employer chose to issue work notices during a strike, it is likely that a high proportion of all levels of paramedics, emergency care assistants, and other staff in the ambulance teams rostered to work on a strike would be named, and this would have a significant impact on the ability of employees to participate in strike action. The Department has consulted on whether to implement similar regulations for hospital services, and will set out its response in due course.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
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 increase pertussis vaccination rates among (a) young children and (b) pregnant women.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), in partnership with NHS England and the Department, undertakes a range of actions to improve vaccination coverage for all ages in England. This includes initiatives to improve access to the immunisation programme, data to better identify under-served individuals and populations, training for healthcare professionals, and communication with the public.
For example, on 4 March 2024, the UKHSA launched a new multi-media marketing campaign across England to remind parents and carers of the risk of their children missing out on protection against serious diseases that are re-emerging in the country, with an urgent call to action to catch up on missed vaccinations.
Expectant mothers are encouraged to take up the maternal pertussis vaccine, which is 97% effective at preventing death in young infants from whooping cough. Parents and carers are also being reminded to check that children are vaccinated against whooping cough, which is offered to all infants at eight, 12, and 16 weeks of age, as part of the six in one combination vaccine, with an additional dose included in the pre-school booster vaccine.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she is taking steps to ensure adequate supplies of pertussis vaccine in the context of the rise in instances in the Czech Republic.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) centrally procures and manages the United Kingdom’s supply of the pertussis vaccine, for the routine national immunisation programmes. Due to the stockpiles maintained in the UK for the national programme, there is good supply available of all pertussis-containing vaccines for the routine immunisation programmes.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to her Department's press release entitled £5 million fund to tackle fatal drug deaths across the UK, published on 29 August 2023, how this funding will be distributed; and what criteria her Department is using to select projects for this funding.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
As part of the Reducing Drug Deaths Innovation Challenge, which aims to reduce drug-related deaths across the United Kingdom, the Department is investing in 12 projects to develop technologies aimed at improving detection, response, or intervention in potential drug-related deaths.
Applicants submitted proposals, and these were assessed by an independent panel. Detailed assessment criteria were worked up by NHS Fife, and then moderated before awards were made. They included how well the project met the challenge described in the competition scope, the main technical challenges addressed, what similar products were available and how the proposal differentiated from them, project plan and milestones, expertise, cost, and commercial potential. We awarded funding to 12 projects, with further information available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/5-million-fund-to-tackle-fatal-drug-deaths-across-the-uk
This funding supports wider Government initiatives to tackle drug misuse in society. The UK’s drugs strategy, published in December 2021, has a key objective to prevent 1,000 drug deaths in England by 2025. This aligns with work within and across the four nations of the UK to improve systems of support and reduce drug-related deaths.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
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 provide public health interventions for people at risk of overdosing on (a) naloxone and (b) other synthetic opioids.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department is actively monitoring, and responding to, the continued threat posed by the growing levels of potent synthetic opioids such as nitazenes and illicit fentanyl in the United Kingdom. A core part of this response is expanding access to naloxone, which is a lifesaving medicine that reverses the effects of an opioid overdose. The Government recently consulted on proposed amendments to the Human Medicines Regulations 2012 so that more professionals and services can give out take-home supplies of naloxone to those at-risk of an overdose, as well as their friends and family. This consultation closed on 6 March 2024, and we will publish the next steps in due course.
For those using opiates, treatment is the safest place to be. The Government is investing an additional £780 million over three years, through to 2024/25, to create a world-class treatment and recovery system, the largest ever single increase in treatment and recovery funding in England. £532 million is being invested specifically to improve drug and alcohol treatment and recovery services. This funding is in addition to the Public Health Grant, and will grow the capacity and quality of the drug treatment system.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Department is taking steps to improve how it collects data on non-fatal overdoses involving synthetic opioids.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department has a longstanding surveillance system in place to collect information on the nature and location of novel drug use, drug markets, and reports alerting us to drug harms experienced. We continue to monitor the threat posed by synthetic opioids, and are working to improve drug surveillance on synthetic opioids through development of an early warning system. The early warning system dashboard will pull together overdose-response data from ambulances, toxicology labs, and other key sources, so we know in near-real time where to target responses.
We know that most overdoses take place when individuals are alone or accompanied by others also using drugs. This means they are largely transitory and hidden events with no opportunity for sampling. A key indicator, therefore, are those who do come into contact with first responders, who are administered the lifesaving opioid reversal drug naloxone, or who are admitted to hospital. Ambulance data represents an opportunity for rapidly identifying local spikes in overdoses and, for this purpose, we are establishing data feeds with ambulance trusts in England on callouts where naloxone has been administered.