Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that the National Institute for Health and Care Research, the Medical Research Council, and the UK Research and Innovation work together collaboratively to ensure progress on funding brain tumour research.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Research is crucial in tackling cancer, which is why the Department invests over £1 billion per year in health research through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). NIHR research expenditure for all cancers was £121.8 million in 2022/23, and the NIHR spends more on cancer than any other disease group.
In May 2018 the Government announced £40 million for brain tumour research as part of the Tessa Jowell Brain Cancer Mission, through the NIHR. Since this announcement, the NIHR has committed £11.3 million across 17 projects, with the Medical Research Council (MRC) awarding £10.4 million. There is still funding available from the original £40 million, and we expect to spend more as new research progresses.
The Department is taking steps to ensure that funders work closely together to coordinate work along the translational pathway, from the discovery and early translational science typically supported by the MRC, feeding through to the applied health and care research funded by the NIHR. These steps include convening a brain cancer research roundtable in May 2024, to bring together research experts and funders, to determine how to accelerate research efforts in this area.
As an example of coordination, the Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation (EME) Programme is a partnership between the MRC and the NIHR, supporting research in the mechanisms of diseases, and treatments which have the potential to make a step-change in the promotion of health, treatment of disease, and improvement of rehabilitation or long-term care. The EME’s portfolio includes a £1.5 million clinical trial testing the effectiveness of a targeted form of proton beam radiotherapy for a type of brain cancer called oligodendroglioma. The NIHR also coordinates with the MRC to complement their investments, such as a £2 million investment supporting researchers to understand and treat cancers with exceptionally poor survival rates, including cancer of the brain, lung, and oesophagus.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
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 that (a) medical physicists and (b) clinical engineers have adequate access to advanced (a) radiotherapy and (b) other relevant equipment in hospitals.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government and NHS England work closely together to ensure that staff have access to appropriate equipment, to ensure that cancer patients can receive high quality radiotherapy treatment across England. This includes supporting advances in radiotherapy, using cutting-edge imaging and technology to help target radiation doses at cancer cells more precisely.
The Government has invested in the latest technology in radiotherapy, ensuring that every radiotherapy provider had access to modern, cutting-edge radiotherapy equipment, enabling the rollout of new techniques like stereotactic ablative radiotherapy. The total central investment made between 2016 and 2021 was £162 million, and enabled the replacement or upgrade of approximately 100 radiotherapy treatment machines. Since April 2022, the responsibility for investing in new radiotherapy machines has sat with local systems. This is supported by the 2021 Spending Review, which set aside £12 billion in operational capital for the National Health Service from 2022 to 2025.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will undertake an audit of NHS equipment used in radiotherapy treatments.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Since April 2022, the responsibility for investing in new radiotherapy machines has sat with local systems. Consequently, the Department has no plans to audit National Health Service equipment used in radiotherapy treatments.
Oral Evidence Mar. 25 2024
Committee: Health and Social Care Committee (Department: Department of Health and Social Care)Found: To recap, there is a historic issue that women who received radiotherapy above the waist to treat Hodgkin
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
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 assessment of the potential impact of recent advances in clinical (a) technology and (b) other equipment on the number of (i) medical physicists and (ii) clinical engineers that are required in the NHS.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department does not plan to make specific assessments of the impacts, but advances in clinical technology and equipment are crucial to the work of NHS England. For example, the Government has invested in the latest technology in radiotherapy, ensuring that every radiotherapy provider had access to modern, cutting-edge radiotherapy equipment, enabling the rollout of new techniques like stereotactic ablative radiotherapy. The total central investment made between 2016 and 2021 was £162 million, and enabled the replacement or upgrade of approximately 100 radiotherapy treatment machines.
The Department does not plan to make specific assessments of the number of medical physicists and clinical engineers required in the National Health Service, but is backing the NHS’s Long-Term Workforce Plan with over £2.4 billion of funding over the next five years, to ensure additional education and training places. We are also working with NHS England to reform and modernise the way staff work and harness new technology and innovations to double NHS labour productivity, and to make sure staff can spend more time with patients. Finally, NHS England is also growing the cancer workforce, with 50% more staff in the cancer workforce when compared to 2010.
Mentions:
1: Lord Patel (XB - Life peer) Compromised children with cancers will then have to be transferred out of the Evelina to other places where radiotherapy - Speech Link
2: Lord Markham (Con - Life peer) will take place at University College Hospital London, which has two particular benefits for patients: radiotherapy - Speech Link
Mar. 19 2024
Source Page: FOI responses published by MOD: week commencing 18 March 2024Found: However, some drugs, particularly the anthracyclines12 and bleomycin, and trans -thoracic radiotherapy
Correspondence Mar. 15 2024
Committee: Health and Social Care Committee (Department: Department of Health and Social Care)Found: This is an historic cohort of women who from 1962 to 2003 received radiotherapy treatment above the
Mar. 15 2024
Source Page: I. Equity in medical devices: Independent Review. Incl. appendices [Chair, Dame Margaret Whitehead]. 130p. II. Government response to the report of the equity in medical devices: independent review. 64p.Found: AI algorithm development InnerEye was a project in Cambridge to develop an AI algorithm to support radiotherapy
Mar. 14 2024
Source Page: Freedom of Information responses from the MHRA - week commencing 4 December 2023Found: 235preexist ing vertigo, tinnitus, ear infection, M énière’s disease, l abyrinthit is, oti tismedia, radiotherapy