There have been no donations of National Health Service equipment specific to infection control. However, the Government recently announced a £7.5 million package to strengthen medical care in Gaza and the region, including additional funding for UK-Med and the World Health Organization in Egypt. The Government’s funding has provided 1.3 million items of life-saving medicines and enabled UK-Med to support over 500,000 patient consultations across Gaza.

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.

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.

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.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office leads the Government’s response to humanitarian crises. On 16 October 2023, Prime Minister announced a £10 million package of aid to provide food, water, healthcare, and shelter for those affected in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. On 23 October 2023, the Prime Minister announced the United Kingdom will provide a further £20 million of humanitarian aid bringing the total to £30 million. As part of this support, the Department of Health and Social Care helped to arrange for 76,800 surplus trauma kits to be sent from RAF Brize Norton to Egypt by a Ministry of Defence Aircraft on 25 October 2023.

The Department of Health and Social Care will continue keep in close contact with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to understand whether it would be appropriate to provide further support in future.

Since 2016, around £162 million of central investment has been made to replace or upgrade around 100 radiotherapy machines so that every radiotherapy service has access to modern equipment capable of delivering innovative treatment techniques. This investment was in addition to the investment that NHS trusts make to maintain their infrastructure.

From April 2022, the responsibility for investing in new radiotherapy machines sits with local systems. This is supported by the 2021 Spending Review, which set aside £12 billion in operational capital for the NHS (2022 to 2025) and the recent Capital Planning Guidance. This guidance states that integrated care systems will need to develop replacement plans as part of their multi-year capital plans, in partnership with specialised commissioners, Cancer Alliances and Radiotherapy Operational Delivery Networks, based on an assessment of equipment age, capacity and demand, opportunities to improve access and service risk.

NHS England is currently undertaking a stocktake of Linear Accelerator age, which will be completed in summer 2023 and is working with partners to undertake a demand and capacity review which will complete in 2023/24.

From April 2022, the responsibility for investing in new radiotherapy machines sits with local systems. This is supported by the 2021 Spending Review, which set aside £12 billion in operational capital for the National Health Service in 2022 to 2025 and the recent Capital Planning Guidance. This states that integrated care systems will need to develop replacement plans as part of their multi-year capital plans, in partnership with specialised commissioners, Cancer Alliances and Radiotherapy Operational Delivery Networks, based on an assessment of equipment age, capacity and demand, opportunities to improve access and service risk.

The Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety (IMMDS) review update published in December 2022 outlines our next steps in this area, including taking forward the NHS England outcomes registries programme in England. NHS England are working to expand the coverage and breadth of existing outcome registries which will deliver data collections that contain patient, device and outcome-level data. Exemplar registries already record 600,000 to 700,000 patients a year with device details.

As set out in the IMMDS update, the aim is to increase outcome registry coverage from 15% to 80% of Class III implants and Class IIb therapeutic devices over the next three years. The outcome registries will allow traceability and patient outcome data to be gathered for priority medical specialties and therapeutical areas, prioritised according to patient and clinic risk. The outcome registries will be unified under one platform.

We are in discussions with the devolved Governments to develop a United Kingdom wide approach that will enable secure data sharing, system interoperability and coverage where it is appropriate to do so.

The Government recognises that patients reliant on electrical medical equipment may have extra energy costs. Supportive cost of living measures by the government specifically aimed at the most vulnerable have made £15 billion worth of support available to those with the greatest need.  In addition, certain specialised NHS services do make provision for financial rebates to ease energy costs faced by patients using medical equipment at home. Local support may also be available.

No specific estimate or assessment has been made.

However, the Government’s cost of living support includes £15 billion available for the most vulnerable. Specific National Health Services specialised services also grant financial rebates for energy costs, including home oxygen concentrators and home dialysis machines. NHS England is working with regional teams and integrated care systems to identify funding to address increases in the costs associated with operating medical equipment in the home. Local authorities can also provide support.

No specific estimate or assessment has been made.

However, the Government’s cost of living support includes £15 billion available for the most vulnerable. Specific National Health Services specialised services also grant financial rebates for energy costs, including home oxygen concentrators and home dialysis machines. NHS England is working with regional teams and integrated care systems to identify funding to address increases in the costs associated with operating medical equipment in the home. Local authorities can also provide support.

No specific estimate or assessment has been made.

However, the Government’s cost of living support includes £15 billion available for the most vulnerable. Specific National Health Services specialised services also grant financial rebates for energy costs, including home oxygen concentrators and home dialysis machines. NHS England is working with regional teams and integrated care systems to identify funding to address increases in the costs associated with operating medical equipment in the home. Local authorities can also provide support.

In early 2022, NHS England and NHS Improvement will fund several areas in England to implement pre-hospital video triage for people with a suspected stroke. Patients will receive a video consultation from their home or within an ambulance with a hospital-based stroke clinician, who will advise the paramedics on the best treatment.

NHS England and NHS Improvement will continue to work with ambulance services in England and integrated stroke delivery networks to improve pre-hospital care for stroke patients and deliver improvements and innovation across the hyperacute stroke pathway.

Pre-COVID-19, an average of 2.25 million short-acting beta agonist (SABA) inhalers were prescribed per month in England. This is over 450 million doses of a medicine that should only be used when needed for shortness of breath. This over-use of SABA inhalers can occur due to multiple reasons. The work of the national respiratory programme is looking to address these issues.

As part of the NHS Long Term Plan objectives, pharmacists in primary care networks will undertake a range of medicines reviews, including structured medicines reviews. In addition to educating patients on the correct use of inhalers and checking and adjusting patient’s inhaler technique. This will ensure that not only do patients understand how to take their medicines, but why they are important and enable patients/carers to ask questions with the pharmacist.

Pre-COVID-19, an average of 2.25 million short-acting beta agonist (SABA) inhalers were prescribed per month in England. This is over 450 million doses of a medicine that should only be used when needed for shortness of breath. This over-use of SABA inhalers can occur due to multiple reasons. The work of the national respiratory programme is looking to address these issues.

As part of the NHS Long Term Plan objectives, pharmacists in primary care networks will undertake a range of medicines reviews, including structured medicines reviews. In addition to educating patients on the correct use of inhalers and checking and adjusting patient’s inhaler technique. This will ensure that not only do patients understand how to take their medicines, but why they are important and enable patients/carers to ask questions with the pharmacist.

We are informed by NHS England and NHS Improvement that carbon impact of reliever inhalers was reviewed when establishing the proposed indicator as part of the Investment and Impact Fund in the Network Contract Direct Enhanced Services (DES). The final version of the Network Contract DES did not include the Investment and Impact Fund proposals for the first six months of the 2020/21, to ensure Primary Care Networks were able to focus on the COVID-19 pandemic.

The original proposal provided an opportunity to encourage a move towards lower carbon inhalers, where clinically appropriate and as part of regular medicines review, within the evidenced range of existing local prescribing practice. Reliever (SABA) inhalers were not included in the proposals at this stage, given the clinical evidence that an MDI inhaler may remain more appropriate where used for exacerbations (such as asthma attacks). However, NHS England and NHS Improvement are simultaneously pursuing a variety of strategies to also support a shift away from high-carbon SABA options where this can be done in a safe and clinically appropriate way.