Written Evidence Feb. 07 2024
Committee: Public Accounts CommitteeFound: NHS0009 - NHS Supply Chain and efficiencies in procurement SME Procurement Approvals and Assurance Written
Mentions:
1: Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con - Life peer) to develop and implement a new public procurement regime for more than £300 billion-worth of public contracts - Speech Link
2: Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab - Life peer) backbone of our economy, especially in the regions and nations of the UK where access to government contracts - Speech Link
3: Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con - Life peer) Unlike a regular dynamic market, contracts are advertised only to members of the market. - Speech Link
May. 05 2011
Source Page: Procurement guide for commissioners of NHS-funded services. 35 p.Found: Procurement guide for commissioners of NHS-funded services. 35 p.
May. 24 2024
Source Page: Procurement Act 2023 guidance documents - Define phaseFound: touch contracts, defence and security contracts, and utilities contracts).
May. 24 2024
Source Page: Procurement Act 2023 guidance documents - Plan phaseFound: Relevant authority’ is defined in section 12ZB of the National Health Services Act 2006 and includes NHS
Apr. 12 2024
Source Page: Procurement Act 2023 guidance documentsFound: touch contracts, defence and security contracts, and utilities contracts).
Asked by: Damien Egan (Labour - Kingswood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an estimate of the number of (a) children, (b) women and (c) people affected by dental surgeries no longer providing NHS services in Kingswood constituency since 2022.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Our Dentistry Recovery Plan, backed by £200 million, will make dental services faster, simpler, and fairer for National Health Service dental patients across England. It will fund approximately 2.5 million additional appointments, or more than 1.5 million additional courses of dental treatment. Patients unable to access an urgent dental appointment directly through an NHS dental practice are advised to contact NHS 111 for assistance.
We are committed to evaluating the impacts of the measures included in our plan, and we will publish monthly data on progress once available. No estimates are currently available of the number of children, women, and people affected by dental surgeries no longer providing NHS services in the Kingswood constituency since 2022. Annual dental statistics, including the number of dentists offering NHS services since 2015, are available at the following link:
https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/nhs-dental-statistics
Annual data on the number of NHS dental contracts commissioned since 2015/16 is available at the following link:
https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/dental-data/nhs-payments-dentists
Asked by: Yvonne Fovargue (Labour - Makerfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions NHS England have had with Greater Manchester NHS on their statutory responsibilities to commission NICE approved medicines.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Ministers have not met with Greater Manchester NHS Board about the statutory commissioning of National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommended medicines. Similarly I am informed that NHS England is not aware of any such discussions.
The National Health Service in England is legally required to make funding available for treatments recommended in NICE technology appraisal and highly specialised technologies guidance, normally within three months of the publication of final guidance. This requirement is reflected in the NHS Constitution as a right to drugs and treatments that have been recommended by NICE for use in the NHS, if their doctor believes they are clinically appropriate.
The NHS Standard Contract is mandated by NHS England for use by commissioners for all contracts for healthcare services other than primary care. The 2024/25 standard contract states that, where any service involves or may involve the prescribing of medicines, the provider must ensure that its formulary reflects all relevant positive NICE technology appraisals. NICE’s guideline on developing and updating local formularies states that when a NICE technology appraisal recommends a medicine, it should be adopted into the local formulary automatically if clinically appropriate and relevant to the services provided by the organisation, and that this process should take place within three months.
Correspondence Mar. 07 2024
Committee: Criminal Justice CommitteeFound: The purpos e of the audit was to ensure future pathology contracts delivered both val ue for money and
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 she (a) has made an assessment of the potential implications for her policies of the report of the APPG for Hospice and End of Life care entitled Government funding for hospices, published in January 2024 and (b) plans to take steps in response to the findings in that report.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department is already taking actions which will address many of the recommendations of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hospice and End of Life Care report.
As part of the Health and Care Act 2022, the Government added palliative care services to the list of services that an integrated care board (ICB) must commission, which will ensure a more consistent national approach and support commissioners in prioritising palliative and end of life care.
In July 2022, NHS England published statutory guidance and service specifications for commissioners on palliative and end of life care, setting out the considerations for ICBs in order to meet their legal duties. The guidance makes specific reference to commissioners defining how their services will meet population needs 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The majority of palliative and end of life care is provided by National Health Service staff and services. However, we also recognise the vital part that voluntary sector organisations, including hospices, play in providing support to people at end of life, and their families. Most hospices are charitable, independent organisations which receive some statutory funding for providing NHS services. The amount of funding hospices receive is dependent on many factors, including what other statutory services are available within the ICB footprint. Charitable hospices provide a range of services which go beyond that which statutory services are legally required to provide. Consequently, the funding arrangements reflect this.
NHS England has developed a palliative and end of life care dashboard, which brings together all relevant local data in one place. The dashboard helps commissioners understand the palliative and end of life care needs of their local population, enabling ICBs to put plans in place to address and track the improvement of health inequalities and ensure that funding is distributed fairly, based on prevalence.
Additionally, as of April 2024, NHS England will include palliative and end of life care in the list of topics for regular performance discussions between national and regional leads. These meetings will provide an additional mechanism for supporting ICBs to continue to improve palliative and end of life care for their local population.
The Government have also provided additional funding to help deliver the one-off payments to eligible staff employed by non-NHS organisations, who employ their staff on dynamically linked Agenda for Change contracts. Organisations were able to apply for the funding and needed to show they had been negatively financially impacted by the pay deal, and that their staff are employed on dynamically linked Agenda for Change contracts.