The below Parliamentary question was asked by Melanie Onn on 2016-03-15.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of trends in waiting times for elective surgery for people with inflammatory bowel disease.
Jane Ellison
Inflammatory bowel disease is not uniquely identified in the International Classification of Diseases and therefore it is not possible to specifically identify waiting times for people with this condition.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Madders on 2016-03-15.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to address historic allegations of mistreatment of whistleblowers in the NHS.
Ben Gummer
The Department supports the right of staff working in the National Health Service to raise concerns and expects all NHS organisations to support staff in raising concerns. We expect all NHS organisations to adopt the national whistleblowing policy for the NHS as a minimum standard, which will be published by NHS Improvement and NHS England next month, and comply with the Employment Rights Act 1996, as amended by the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998.
A regulation-making power was included in the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015 to prohibit discrimination against whistleblowers (or applicants believed by the prospective employer to have been whistleblowers) when they apply for jobs with prescribed NHS employers. The Department is aiming to consult shortly on draft regulations to implement this power.
NHS England, Monitor and the NHS Trust Development Authority are currently developing a support scheme for NHS workers and former NHS workers, whose performance is sound and who can demonstrate that they are having difficulty finding employment in the NHS as a result of having made protected disclosures. This scheme will be piloted in the next financial year.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Rosie Cooper on 2016-03-15.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what guidance his Department has issued on the length of time a patient should expect to wait between a telephone consultation taking place and being given an appointment to see their GP.
Alistair Burt
There is no central guidance to general practitioner (GP) practices on waiting times for telephone consultations.
GPs can conduct telephone consultations with patients if they feel it is appropriate to do so. This could remove the need for the patient to go on to have a face to face consultation, however, it is for the GP to use his or her clinical judgement to decide if and when a face to face consultation should take place, and for the patient to decide if they wish to attend.
This Government is committed to improving access to GP consultations and the Prime Minister’s GP Access Fund encourages practices in the schemes to use innovative methods to provide appointments to patients.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Gwynne on 2016-03-15.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 25 January 2015 to Question 23840, on cancer: drugs, whether his Department plans to undertake an impact assessment of NHS England’s consultation proposals for a new Cancer Drugs Fund.
George Freeman
The Department has no such plans.
NHS England is responsible for the operational management of the Cancer Drugs Fund. NHS England has advised that it does not, as a rule, produce impact assessments as standalone documents. Instead, it seeks to ensure that, as part of its processes to develop any policy or proposal, it considers quality, value for money, equality and accessibility issues.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2016-03-15.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what his policy is on maintaining the social work bursary; and if he will make a statement.
Alistair Burt
The Government is committed to ensuring a good supply of high quality social workers. This ambition will be achieved through a range of different training initiatives.
There is room for standards of training and the quality of intake to be improved, however, no final decision has been taken on the future of the social work bursary. Any changes would be subject to public consultation.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nigel Evans on 2016-03-15.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many children up to the age of four received the meningitis B vaccination in (a) Lancashire and (b) the UK in 2015.
Jane Ellison
The Meningitis B (MenB) immunisation for infants was introduced on 1 September 2015.
The vaccine is offered alongside other routine immunisations at two and four months of age, with a booster dose at 12-13 months. A limited one-off catch-up programme was also offered, targeting infants born in May and June 2015. Information on the number of children who received the meningitis B vaccination as part of National Health Service programme in 2015 is not yet available.
Coverage of vaccines offered in the routine childhood immunisation programme is usually evaluated at 12 months of age, however, in order to provide more timely information about the newly introduced MenB vaccine, a temporary sentinel surveillance programme was set up to extract monthly coverage data direct from general practice systems for children who had just reached six months of age in England. Preliminary vaccine coverage at six months of age for children born in May, June and July 2015 is available at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/vaccine-uptake.
It is anticipated that coverage for both doses of vaccine will increase when evaluated again when they are 12 months of age.
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Gwynne on 2016-03-15.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment his Department has made of the performance of the current data collection infrastructure and its capability to collect real world data in the way outlined in NHS England’s plans for a new Cancer Drugs Fund; and if he will make a statement.
George Freeman
Public Health England’s (PHE) National Cancer Registration and Analysis Service is the only national patient-level data source that collects data including outcomes on the whole care pathway on all patients diagnosed with cancer in England. Data are collected from all National Health Service trusts include information on Systemic Anti-Cancer Therapy.
There is presently no agreement between NHS England and PHE to provide outcome information on patients receiving Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF) funded treatments, on a regular basis. However, PHE and NHS England are currently in discussion to establish a dedicated resource to provide routine and bespoke information and analysis, and this could include defined outcome analyses on the CDF.
The Accelerated Access Review (AAR) is also looking at ways to better harness data to support the assessment, adoption and reimbursement of innovative treatments, and discussions are ongoing around the scope for aligning the revised CDF with the AAR recommendations.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Gwynne on 2016-03-15.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many episodes of (a) traumatic brain injury, (b) spinal injury, (c) fractures, (d) dislocated shoulders and (e) ligamentous tears were sustained in school sports in each of the last five years.
Jane Ellison
The Department does not hold this information.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Gwynne on 2016-03-15.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment his Department has made of the (a) causes of the disparity in cancer survival rates between England and Wales and (b) extent to which such disparities are due to access and availability of medicines.
Jane Ellison
No such assessments have been made.
We are advised by the Office for National Statistics that, although a Welsh government report published positive cancer survival data on 3 February 2016, this did not compare survival rates with the other UK countries. Such data is not readily comparable due to differences in methods and time periods.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2016-03-15.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, when he plans to announce details of the 2016-17 social work bursary.
Alistair Burt
The Department plans to publish details of the number of new social work bursaries that will be available in the 2016 academic year, by the end of May 2016. This will include details of the number of new bursaries allocated to each Higher Education Institute for both undergraduates and postgraduates.