Tag: Lord Mawson

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Mawson on 2016-02-25.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of their planned pharmacy cuts on patients and health services in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.

Lord Prior of Brampton

Community pharmacy is a vital part of the National Health Service and can play an even greater role. In the Spending Review, the Government re-affirmed the need for the NHS to deliver £22 billion in efficiency savings by 2020-21 as set out in the NHS’s own plan, the Five Year Forward View. Community pharmacy is a core part of NHS primary care and has an important contribution to make as the NHS rises to these challenges. The Government believes efficiencies can be made without compromising the quality of services or public access to them. Our aim is to ensure that those community pharmacies upon which people depend continue to thrive and so we are consulting on the introduction of a Pharmacy Access Scheme, which will provide more NHS funds to certain pharmacies compared to others, considering factors such as location and the health needs of the local population.

The Government’s vision is for a more efficient, modern system that will free up pharmacists to spend more time delivering clinical and public health services to the benefit of patients and the public.

We are consulting the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee, other pharmacy bodies and patient and public representatives on our proposals. An impact assessment will be completed to inform final decisions and published in due course.

NHS England has a statutory duty to ensure the adequate provision of NHS pharmaceutical services across England and will ensure that duty continues to be met, including in respect of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Mawson on 2016-02-25.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they or NHS England have made of the effectiveness of minor ailments services provided by community pharmacies in reducing pressure on GP practices and other parts of the NHS, and what assessment they have made of the impact of their planned pharmacy cuts on such services.

Lord Prior of Brampton

NHS England has taken account of the potential impact of a pharmacy minor ailments service on general practitioner services and other parts of the National Health Service. The findings of the Minor Ailment Study (MINA), conducted by the University of Aberdeen, in collaboration with NHS Grampian and the University of East Anglia, on behalf of Pharmacy Research UK in 2014, were considered. The study’s main conclusions were:

– consultations for minor ailments continue to be a burden on high cost service providers but there needs to be consensus amongst healthcare professionals regarding what constitutes a minor ailment suitable for treatment in the community pharmacy setting;

– the evidence considered suggests that community pharmacy-based minor ailment schemes are an effective and cost-effective strategy for managing patients;

– health professionals and patients need to be confident in the ability of pharmacists and their staff to manage minor ailments; and

– future initiatives to shift demand from high cost settings to community pharmacy should adopt an interdisciplinary approach to explore and address patient decision-making behaviour.

In addition, evaluations of local minor ailments schemes have continued to inform decision-making about local commissioning of such schemes.

Community pharmacy is a vital part of the NHS and can play an even greater role. In the Spending Review the Government re-affirmed the need for the NHS to deliver £22 billion in efficiency savings by 2020/21 as set out in the NHS’s own plan, the Five Year Forward View. Community pharmacy is a core part of NHS primary care and has an important contribution to make as the NHS rises to these challenges. The Government believes efficiencies can be made without compromising the quality of services or public access to them. Our aim is to ensure that those community pharmacies upon which people depend continue to thrive and so we are consulting on the introduction of a Pharmacy Access Scheme, which will provide more NHS funds to certain pharmacies compared to others, considering factors such as location and the health needs of the local population.

The Government’s vision is for a more efficient, modern system that will free up pharmacists to spend more time delivering clinical and public health services to the benefit of patients and the public.

We are consulting the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee, other pharmacy bodies and patient and public representatives on our proposals. An impact assessment will be completed to inform final decisions and published in due course.

Local commissioning and funding of services from community pharmacies, such as minor ailment services, will be unaffected by these proposals.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Mawson on 2015-02-11.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what impact assessments have been carried out regarding the implementation of the Union Customs Code and its impact on micro and small businesses’ access to simplified procedures, the requirement to provide a six-digit Harmonised Tariff Code and changes to existing transit procedures.

Lord Deighton

HM Revenue and Customs has been formally consulting with UK trade bodies and businesses about the impact of the European Commission’s draft proposals for regulations to enable implementation of the Union Customs Code. Discussions have considered the impact of requirements to provide a six-digit commodity code that is needed for enhanced safety and security purposes and changes to existing transit arrangements which have enabled us to preserve a valuable simplification for movement of goods albeit in a different form. Trade views have been invaluable in informing the UK position, helping us to influence negotiations with the Commission and Member States and in securing agreement to necessary changes where possible. The UCC represents a package of measures to modernise and simplify customs procedures and requirements while also addressing the need to tighten safety and security and fight against fraud measures and its impact is being assessed in this overall context.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Mawson on 2014-06-25.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many full-time equivalent general practitioners have been employed by the National Health Service in each of the last five years.

Earl Howe

General Practitioners (GPs) are independent contractors who hold contracts with NHS England to provide primary healthcare services for the National Health Service.

The annual National Health Service General and Personal Medical Services workforce census, published by the Health and Social Care Information Centre, shows the numbers of GPs working in the NHS in England at 30 September each year. The numbers of full-time equivalent GPs working in the NHS in England from 2009 to 2013 are shown in the following table. The latest available statistics are as at 30 September 2013 and were published on 25 March 2014.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Mawson on 2014-05-07.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how often ministers of the Department of Health visit local communities across the country to verify that the figures in relation to health and social care on which policy is based equate with the facts that people experience on the ground.

Earl Howe

Ministers in the Department frequently undertake visits to a wide range of health and social care settings across the country during which they meet a large numbers of staff, service users and patients.

Since May 2010 Ministers in the Department have undertaken a total of 646 official visits.