Highlights

The Health and Care Bill had its second reading in the House of Lords on Tuesday, with Lord Simon Stevens calling for substantial amendments to the legislation. Lord Stevens is the former NHS Chief Executive (from 2014 to 2021) and was conferred a Life Peerage this year. His title is now ‘Lord Stevens of Birmingham’, and this week saw his…

National leaders have said that suppliers to NHS commissioners must use electronic invoices from April 2022 onwards. This change is being made in order to lessen the reliance on paper for documents relating to administration, supply chains etc within the NHS. According to the NHS, paper use makes up 3% of NHS supply chain carbon emissions. From the April 2022…

An important action plan on reducing HIV transmission in England has been published. The ‘Towards Zero: the HIV Action Plan for England - 2022 to 2025’ paper sets out ambitious objectives such as an 80% reduction in new HIV infections in England by 2025. Progress on tackling HIV has been made already, such as the fulfilment of the UNAIDS 90-90-90…

The Prime Minister Boris Johnson has lauded nearly £500m pounds of investment in the UK Life Sciences industry before a meeting with key biopharmaceutical industry leaders. This monetary injection will be used to create at least 420 jobs and drive economic prosperity across the UK. It also brings the total investment in the industry to over £5bn since July. The…

Sir Keir Starmer has carried out a reshuffle of his Shadow Cabinet ministers this week, with the Shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth being reassigned to Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary. Mr Ashworth, MP for Leicester South, was in the Shadow Health office from 2016 until this month. He was one of the few shadow ministers to retain his job during…

The proposal was disclosed after Labour MP Rosie Cooper asked whether the Secretary of State planned to increase funding available via the MedTech Funding Mandate. Mr Argar also revealed that the Department intends to work with industry on a range of approaches to “tackle the underlying causes of the lack of adoption” as part of the strategy. The plan will…

The move will bolster AstraZeneca’s efforts to develop cutting-edge therapeutics, such as nucleotide-based gene-editing and cell therapies, and support their focus on specialised and precision medicines. The company hopes that the unveiling marks a new wave of scientific innovation for the UK. It also puts the UK’s world-class life sciences cluster in Cambridge, which generates almost £3 billion annually to…

The Guardian has reported that a ‘COVID exit strategy’ is being drawn up by the UK Government that could take effect from April. These reports are unconfirmed by the Government, but leaked documents from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) have been obtained by the newspaper that show plans of winding down the official government-backed testing system and tracing operations.…

The COP26 summit ended last weekend with nearly 200 countries agreeing to the “Glasgow Climate Pact”, to keep 1.5C alive. The summit was the largest international event of its kind ever held in the United Kingdom, and more than 25,000 delegates convened in the Scottish capital to speed up the pace of climate action. The deal was headed for unanimous…