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29 Apr 2009 : Column 1312W—continued
Antibiotics
Mr. Crausby: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps his Department is taking to restrict the prescription of antibiotics. [271246]
Dawn Primarolo:
The Department does not restrict antibiotics but has a policy of appropriate prescribing to support effective treatment of infections and slow
down the development of antibiotic resistance. Initiatives contributing to this include a public education campaign explaining that antibiotics do not cure coughs and colds, guidance on prescribing and feedback of local prescribing data to general practice.
Blood Transfusions
Mr. Gerrard: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps his Department and its agencies are taking to reduce the potential epidemiological risks from imported blood components. [271519]
Dawn Primarolo: The only blood components currently imported from outside the United Kingdom are plasma for fractionation for blood products, and fresh frozen plasma (FFP) for the treatment of children up to the age of 16. This is part of a range of measures in place to reduce the risk of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease transmission.
Plasma for therapeutic use and fractionation is imported from the United States (US), and is collected in facilities which are fully licensed by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Plasma suppliers use donor selection criteria which meet European Union and US standards, which exclude donors at an increased risk of diseases which can be transmitted through plasma, and screen plasma to FDA standards.
All fractionated products made from imported plasma are subject to viral inactivation steps. Single units of FFP for children under the age of 16 are virally inactivated using methylene blue treatment.
Dental Services: South East
Anne Milton: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what recent assessment he has made of levels of access to NHS dentistry in (a) Surrey Primary Care Trust and (b) the South East Coast Strategic Health Authority area for (i) adults and (ii) children; and if he will make a statement. [271750]
Ann Keen: The number of patients seen by an NHS dentist in the previous 24-month period is available in Table D1 of Annex 3 of the NHS Dental Statistics for England, Quarter 2: 30 September 2008 report.
Table D2 of Annex 3 contains the same information as above expressed as a percentage of the population.
In both tables, information is provided by primary care trust and by strategic health authority for adults and children. Information is available for each quarter from 31 March 2006 to 30 September 2008.
This report, published on 26 February 2009, has already been placed in the Library and is also available on the NHS Information Centre website at:
Departmental Billing
John Mason: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what percentage of invoices from suppliers his Department paid within 10 days of receipt in each of the last five months. [271854]
Mr. Bradshaw: The percentage of invoices paid within 10 days to commercial suppliers is shown in the following table.
| Percentage of invoices paid within 10 days to commercial suppliers | |
| (1 )Payment performance was lower in February due to the short term impact on Welfare Foods and Healthy Start payments caused by the introduction of a new web based claims system. This system will bring significant benefits to some of the smaller suppliers who will receive their payments more promptly and more regularly. This new system also provides higher security and validation checks. Figures for March confirm that payment performance is back to their usual high standard of 99 per cent. paid within 10 working days. | |
Departmental Press
Mike Penning: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many articles appearing in health care publications and journals in the last six months have been funded in whole or part by (a) his Department and (b) its executive agencies. [270380]
Mr. Bradshaw: There have been 19 advertorials (paid-for articles) in health care publications and journals funded in whole or in part by the Department's Communications Directorate in the last two years.
To identify this information against a wider definition would incur a disproportionate cost. We anticipate that there would be few additions, but to validate this would require a widespread trawl since the information is not collected routinely.
Dimethyl Fumarate
Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what his policy is on the provision of compensation for those people whose health has been adversely affected by the use of dimethyl fumarate in the treatment of medical conditions. [269868]
Dawn Primarolo: Dimethyl Fumarate is not licensed as a medicine in the United Kingdom.
The Medicines Act 1968 allows clinicians to use unlicensed medicinal products in the treatment of patients. Prescribing of unlicensed products does not require any authorisation from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).
MHRA Guidance Note 14, “The supply of unlicensed relevant medicinal products for individual patients” sets out the obligations and the legal framework that apply to prescribers and prescribing organisations.
This note is available on the MHRA website at:
and a copy has been placed in the Library.
It is the Department’s policy not to make ex-gratia payments to patients who believe their health has been adversely affected by the use of unlicensed pharmaceutical products.
Hospitals: Standards
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many calls have been made to the Healthcare Commission’s helpline for NHS staff to raise concerns about the standards of care at their hospital in each year for which figures are available. [269420]
Mr. Bradshaw: The Care Quality Commission has informed us that the number of calls made to this helpline by national health service staff to raise concerns about an NHS trust was recorded as follows.
| Number of calls | |
It has not been possible to ascertain what proportion of calls related to hospitals or to standards of care, or what proportion referred to the same NHS trust at which the staff were employed.
Maternity Services: Standards
Mr. Kidney: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will issue guidelines for the minimum standard of maternity care based on the UNICEF Ten steps to successful breastfeeding and the UNICEF Baby Friendly Initiative. [271732]
Dawn Primarolo: In its guidance on Maternal and Child Nutrition, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) states that all maternity care providers should implement an externally evaluated, structured programme that encourages breastfeeding, using the Baby Friendly Initiative as a minimum standard. The Department supports the NICE recommendations and encourages all national health service trusts to implement these recommendations.
Prevalence of breastfeeding at six to eight weeks is a key indicator in the Child Health and Well-being Public Service Agreement. The Department supports the implementation of the UNICEF UK Baby Friendly Initiative and have funded 40 primary care trusts with low breastfeeding rates to implement Baby Friendly Initiative, which includes UNICEF UK's 10 steps to successful breastfeeding.
Medical Treatments Abroad
John Battle: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the cost to the NHS of reimbursing other countries for expenditure on provision of treatment for UK nationals living abroad was in each of the last five years. [271110]
Dawn Primarolo:
Under EU Regulations (1408/71) European economic area (EEA) member states reimburse each other for the cost of providing health care to each other's tourists, workers, pensioners and dependants of the latter two groups. The following table shows the breakdown of claims by other EEA member states against the United Kingdom in 2007-08. The costs
relate to UK state pensioners and their dependents and dependents of UK workers, living in other EEA member states. These claims are paid from a central departmental budget.
There are no similar arrangements with regard to non-EEA countries.
| Member state lump sum claims against the UK | |
| £000 | |
| Notes: 1. Totals are based on estimates of the costs of EEA health care claims made annually for the purposes of provisions made in the Department of Health accounts in accordance with Treasury resource accounting rules. 2. Lump sum claims under Articles 94 and 95 of EU Regulation (EC) 574/72 include claims relating to the family members of workers in home state and claims for pensioners and their dependents 3. Totals are rounded to nearest £100,000. 4. Sub totals may not add up to totals due to rounding. Source: Resource Accounting and Budgeting exercise | |
Obesity: Surgery
Lembit Öpik: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many gastric bands have been fitted by surgery in England in the last 12 months; what estimate he has made of the cost of such operations; what guidance his Department has issued on the criteria to be applied in determining candidates for such treatment; and if he will make a statement. [271235]
Dawn Primarolo: Data are not yet available for 2007-08. Data are provided for 2006-07 and show that there were 706 finished consultant episodes where there was a primary diagnosis of obesity and an insertion of a gastric band as a main operation carried out in England.
The reference costs information details the national average of a variety of procedures and treatment undertaken by the national health service in England. It also provides information on the cost to the NHS of buying in services from non-NHS providers in England. However, the cost of gastric band operations cannot be separately identified due to the way that data are collected.
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has set “Guidance on the prevention, identification, assessment and management of overweight and obesity in adults and children”, available at:
A copy has been placed in the Library. This guidance is for both health and non-health professionals, and contains guidance on when bariatric surgery may be considered as an option. Gastric bands are only one type of procedure recommended for the treatment of obesity by NICE.
It is up to primary care trusts as local commissioners and providers of services to determine the most appropriate methods to deliver health care to their populations, based on clinical need and effectiveness, and following medical advice.
Notes:
1. Finished Consultant Episode (FCE):
A finished consultant episode (FCE) is defined as a continuous period of admitted patient care under one consultant within one health care provider. FCEs are counted against the year in which they end. Please note that the figures do not represent the number of different patients, as a person may have more than one episode of care within the same stay in hospital or in different stays in the same year.
2. Number of episodes in which the patient had a (named) primary diagnosis:
These figures represent the number of episodes where the diagnosis was recorded in the primary diagnosis field in a Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) record.
3. The ICD-10 code used to identify Obesity is as follows:
E66—Obesity
4. Main procedure:
The main procedure is the first recorded procedure or intervention in the HES data set and is usually the most resource intensive procedure or intervention performed during the episode. It is appropriate to use main procedure when looking at admission details, (e.g. time waited), but a more complete count of episodes with a particular procedure is obtained by looking at the main and the secondary procedure.
5. The OPCS codes used to identify a gastric band insertion is as follows:
G30.3—Partitioning of stomach using band
Data Quality:
HES are compiled from data sent by more than 300 NHS trusts and primary care trusts in England. Data is also received from a number of independent sector organisations for activity commissioned by the English NHS. The NHS Information Centre for health and social care liaises closely with these organisations to encourage submission of complete and valid data and seeks to minimise inaccuracies and the effect of missing and invalid data via HES processes. While this brings about improvement over time, some shortcomings remain.
Source:
Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), The NHS Information Centre for health and social care
Orphan Drugs
Dr. Gibson: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what his Department’s definition of (a) orphan and (b) ultra-orphan drugs is. [271194]
Dawn Primarolo: A medicinal product may be designated as an orphan medicinal product within the European Union if:
it is intended for the diagnosis, prevention or treatment of a life-threatening or chronically debilitating condition affecting no more than five in 10,000 persons in the European Union at the time of submission of the designation application (prevalence criterion); or
it is intended for the diagnosis, prevention or treatment of a life-threatening, seriously debilitating or serious and chronic condition and without incentives it is unlikely that expected sales of the medicinal product would cover the investment in its development; and
no satisfactory method of diagnosis, prevention or treatment of the condition concerned is authorised, or, if such method exists, the medicinal product will be of significant benefit to those affected by the condition.
Guidance on the interpretation of these criteria is published on the European Medicines Agency website at:
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