Apr. 25 2024
Source Page: Building a New Scotland: Justice in an independent ScotlandFound: independent judiciary and a robust and independent system of criminal prosecution and investigation of deaths
Apr. 25 2024
Source Page: Domestic Homicide and Suicide Review Taskforce Minutes: March 2024Found: would deliver this presentation at a future meeting.Marsha Scott (MS) asked about the data related to deaths
Mentions:
1: Baroness Cox (XB - Life peer) Finally, provision of funds is recommended for labourers working in the sewers to safeguard them from deaths - Speech Link
2: Lord Bishop of Guildford (Bshp - Bishops) sewers, where—as my friend the Bishop of Sialkot, who came to lunch last Saturday, tells me—there are deaths - Speech Link
3: Lord Bishop of Leicester (Bshp - Bishops) health and safety regulations and protective equipment cause untold preventable accidents, illnesses and deaths - Speech Link
Mentions:
1: Andrew Bridgen (Ind - North West Leicestershire) In last week’s Backbench Business debate on the covid-19 pandemic response and trends in excess deaths - Speech Link
2: Christian Wakeford (Lab - Bury South) On Monday, the Official for National Statistics released its reports on alcohol-specific deaths registered - Speech Link
Mentions:
1: Navendu Mishra (Lab - Stockport) Tragically, however, premature deaths from liver disease have surged to their highest levels in decades - Speech Link
2: Navendu Mishra (Lab - Stockport) Deaths due to alcohol-related liver disease in England have increased by 87% over the last two decades - Speech Link
3: Kirsten Oswald (SNP - East Renfrewshire) However, minimum unit pricing has reduced alcohol-related harms and alcohol-specific deaths by 13.4%. - Speech Link
4: Alison Thewliss (SNP - Glasgow Central) deaths due to chronic liver disease in Scotland have increased by 85% in the last three decades. - Speech Link
5: Andrea Leadsom (Con - South Northamptonshire) a year; that is 5,000 deaths too many. - Speech Link
Special Report Apr. 25 2024
Committee: Education Committee (Department: Department for Education)Found: Both the Department and Ofsted have responded to the coroner’s Preventing Future Deaths Report, and
Formal Minutes Apr. 25 2024
Committee: Justice Committee (Department: Ministry of Justice)Found: dated 16 November 2023 Future prison population and estate capacity Independent Advisory Panel on Deaths
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 help increase the number of people participating in smoking cessation programmes.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Smoking is the number one entirely preventable cause of ill-health, disability and death in this country. It is responsible for 80,000 yearly deaths in the United Kingdom and one in four of all UK cancer deaths. It costs our country £17 billion a year, £14 billion of which is through lost productivity alone. It puts a huge pressure on the National Health Service and social care, costing over £3 billion a year. Quitting smoking is the best thing a smoker can do for their health and smokers are three times as likely to succeed with stop smoking services (SSS) when compared to an unsupported quit attempt.
As announced in Stopping the start: our new plan to create a smokefree generation, published in October 2023, the Government is investing an additional £70 million per year for five years to support local authority-led SSS, around doubling current spend and supporting 360,000 people to set a quit date each year. To support engagement with SSS, and increase motivation to quit, we are spending an additional £15 million per year to fund national anti-smoking campaigns. We are also investing up to £45 million over two years to roll out our national ‘Swap to Stop’ scheme and establishing a financial incentives scheme to help pregnant smokers and their partners quit smoking with smoking cessation support.
Vaping is never recommended for children, and carries the potential harms of future addiction while their lungs and brains are still developing. The health advice is clear, vapes can be an effective tool to help smokers quit, but young people and those who have never smoked should not vape, or be encouraged to vape.
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 with Cabinet colleagues to help ensure that lobbying by the tobacco industry does not undermine future public health policies aimed at reducing smoking rates.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Smoking is responsible for approximately 80,000 deaths a year in the United Kingdom, and causes around one in four cancer deaths in the UK. It also costs our country £17 billion a year, and puts a huge burden on the National Health Service. Smoking is an addiction, and there is no liberty in addiction. It causes harm to not only the smoker, but to society as a whole. That is why we have introduced the Tobacco and Vapes Bill to create the first smokefree generation, and enable us to further crack down on youth vaping. The Tobacco and Vapes Bill is available at the following link:
https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3703
The UK is a party to the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, and under Article 5.3 has an obligation to protect the development of public health policy from the vested interests of the tobacco industry. As a world leader in tobacco control, the Government takes this commitment very seriously. In 2023, the Department published guidance for Government engagement with the tobacco industry, which is available at the following link:
The Department regularly publishes correspondence from, or to, those with links to the tobacco industry, and it is available at the following link:
https://khub.net/web/phe-national/public-library/-/document_library/v2WsRK3ZlEig/view/394794557
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she has made a recent assessment of the potential merits of creating a national naloxone programme.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Naloxone is highly effective in reducing opioid overdose-related deaths, and the Government is working to widen access to, and increase the uptake of, this life saving drug. A prescription only medicine that is available across the United Kingdom, naloxone can be prescribed by a doctor or non-medical prescriber or provided, under a Patient Group Direction. It can also be supplied without prescription by drug services, which include specialist National Health Service and voluntary sector treatment services, as well as community pharmacies providing other substance misuse services across the UK.
Naloxone has been available for anyone to use in an emergency since 2005. There is good awareness of it, supported by earlier guidance by the Department and its agencies in 2015, 2018, 2019, and 2023. Drug treatment services and their suppliers also provide independent awareness-raising materials, targeting people who use opioids.
The Government launched a UK-wide public consultation to seek views on our proposal to amend the Human Medicines Regulations 2012 so that more professionals, services, and family members can give out take-home naloxone supplies. The consultation closed on 6 March 2024, and the responses are currently being analysed. The Government will publish its official response shortly.
The Government is working to increase naloxone carriage, and has provided additional investment in drug treatment services to support this work. In England, local authorities and their partners have been increasing naloxone supply in recent years. There are now three naloxone products available, and supply has been meeting demand. To enable the Government to respond to any future change in demand for naloxone, the Department is working with the Home Office to model scenarios where demand for naloxone may increase, and has conducted a commercial engagement exercise to better understand the naloxone market, and the market’s capacity to respond to changes in demand.