Department of Health and Social Care

One of the Government’s five missions is to build a National Health Service fit for the future. At the heart of the mission will be supporting people in staying healthier for longer, shortening the time people spend in ill health, and promoting greater independence. No specific assessment has been made against the Chief Medical Officer’s 2023 annual report.

The Department is committed to implementing the recommendations of Lord O'Shaughnessy’s review into commercial clinical trials, making sure that the United Kingdom leads the world in clinical trials, and ensuring that innovative, lifesaving treatments are accessible to National Health Service patients, including those with brain tumours.

The Department funded National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR) funds research and research infrastructure, which supports patients and the public to participate in high-quality research.

In addition, the NIHR provides an online service called Be Part of Research, which promotes participation in health and social care research by allowing users to search for relevant studies and register their interest. This makes it easier for people to find and take part in health and care research that is relevant to them.

When designing research studies, researchers consider inclusion and exclusion criteria carefully to ensure they are not unnecessarily excluding specific groups who would benefit from the outcome of their study. The Health Research Authority is developing guidance to improve practices in this area.

The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

We must reset the New Hospital Programme to put it on a sustainable footing, however we are clear that replacing hospitals built wholly or mostly with reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete, including Hinchingbrooke Hospital, is the priority.

We are undertaking a full review of the programme to provide a thorough, costed, and realistic timeline for delivery, and to ensure we can replace the crumbling hospital estate in England. The review will be completed this autumn, and once concluded, Parliament will be updated on the next steps for the programme.

The Department does not currently hold this information. However, the national guidance for the National Health Service’s clinical waste strategy is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/nhs-clinical-waste-strategy/

Organisations across integrated care systems, such as NHS trusts, would have their own policies on how to enact this guidance.

Young people experiencing gender dysphoria or gender incongruence will be provided with care within a different clinical model, embedding multi-disciplinary teams in specialist children’s hospitals. Individuals within these National Health Service specialist gender services will be offered multidisciplinary assessment, within the context of a tailored package of care and support that responds to their individual health and social care needs. A study into the potential benefits and harms of puberty suppressing hormones as one of the treatment options for children and young people with gender incongruence is being developed through a joint programme between NHS England and the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), the research arm of the Department.

It is planned that recruitment into the study will be through these NHS specialist gender services, ensuring that individuals accessing hormone suppression through the study do so following a holistic multidisciplinary assessment within the services above. The study team has submitted their research application, and this is currently undergoing scientific review. Subject to the study achieving the necessary approvals, including ethics approval, the NIHR will publish details of the award, including trial design and methodology, on its website. The study forms part of a wider joint programme of research and evaluation underpinning the delivery of new services for children and young people with gender incongruence. Further research will be needed to continue to build the evidence base and our understanding of best practice in this important clinical area, including for psychosocial interventions. Work will continue with a broad range of stakeholders to inform further study priorities.

Officials across the Department, the UK Health Security Agency, and NHS England routinely develop policy options based on the advice issued by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI).

Officials must consider a number of factors before a policy position can be established, and the time taken to complete this process can vary depending on these factors, and the nature of the JCVI’s advice. It is important to fully consider feasibility and all operational and clinical factors to maintain the high standards of the United Kingdom’s world-leading vaccination programmes, and ensure best value for money for taxpayers.

The Department aims to respond rapidly to the JCVI’s advice, as demonstrated by the recent introduction of programmes to protect older adults and infants, through maternal vaccination, from the respiratory syncytial virus.

The Department invested £10 million of funding into the NHS Breast Screening Programme in 2023, providing 28 new breast screening units and nearly 60 service upgrades, targeted at areas with the greatest challenges of uptake and coverage. This extra capacity aims to boost the uptake of screening in areas where attendance is low, tackle health disparities, and contribute towards higher early diagnosis rates, in line with the NHS Long Term Plan.

In addition, the Digital Transformation of Screening (DToS) programme seeks to design, deliver, and implement a more sophisticated and future-proof digital system for all screening IT systems. Although we know the new system will offer us huge improvements, it is important that the programme is introduced without interrupting the delivery of breast screening services. A full replacement of the IT systems will only take place when the DToS programme can replicate what the current National Breast Screening System does.

The National Health Service has been facing chronic workforce shortages for years, and bringing in the staff and investment the NHS needs will take time. We are determined to fix our NHS, and restore it to a service we are proud of. We are committed to training the staff we need to get patients seen on time.

The Government will make sure the NHS has the staff it needs, to be there for all of us when we need it, and will get staff to the places where patients and the NHS needs them, not just benefiting Ealing and Acton, but the whole of the NHS in England.

Local employers are best placed to understand the diverse needs of their communities and subsequently manage their own recruitment to ensure they have the right number of staff, with the right skill mix, to provide the safe and effective care that their patients need.

We know that the National Health Service has been facing chronic workforce shortages for a number of years and, while there has been growth in the mental health workforce over recent years, more is needed.

That is why, as part of our mission to build an NHS that is fit for the future and is there when people need it, we will recruit an additional 8,500 mental health workers to reduce waiting times and provide faster treatment. We recognise that bringing in the staff needed will take time. We are working to develop a plan to deliver this expansion of the mental health workforce, including where they should be deployed to achieve maximum effect.

Under the GP Contracts, premises liabilities are the responsibility of the contractor. Overall contractual payments reflect this arrangement, with the National Health Service also reimbursing direct premises costs including rent, business rates, water, and clinical waste.

There are 8,842 practice premises across England, of these, 51% are leased premises. The NHS is not a formal party to the leases on these properties. If NHS England were to consider a formal underwriting of the leases, legal advice notes, that would constitute a commitment, which would require capitalisation under the International Financial Accounting Standard IFRS16, and limited NHS capital budgets would have to be diverted to offset this commitment, in addition to the payment of rents against the properties.

This would provide, in effect, a double payment of costs against the asset and would commit substantial capital funds to the exercise, limiting the ability of integrated care systems to invest in the primary care estate, address secondary and community care, mental health services, and critical and usual infrastructure maintenance requirements, significantly adversely affecting the overall investment plans for communities. As a result, NHS England considers that a formal underwriting of leases would not provide best use of public funds.

The following table shows the number of referrals that subsequently received a first contact over six months from the referral request date from 2019/20 to 2023/24, and the number of referrals still waiting for a contact having waited at least six months, regardless of when the referral started, as of the end of March 2024, for those aged zero to 17 years old:

Source: Mental Health Dataset.

As the definition of child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) in the dataset is not clear cut, and the methodology for deriving CAMHS changes over time, the use of age at referral is the most reliable way of defining those referred to CAMHS.

The number provided includes all new referrals in each year where the person was a resident of the local authority of Gateshead. In addition, the number of referrals which have had a contact is included to provide context around the numbers of referrals which have been received and subsequently had a care contact.

For some referrals it may not be expected that a contact would be recorded. For example, in some circumstances, referrals are received by triage teams. These referrals are subsequently closed without a contact, with a new referral opened once triaged.

In some scenarios, referral IDs are being re-used. For the purposes of this analysis, the care contact must take place within the same referral for the same person, as such a small number of contacts may not be included within a specific referral, but this is a data quality issue.

Local authorities are best placed to understand and plan for the needs of their population, which is why under the Care Act 2014, local authorities are tasked with the duty to shape their care market to meet the diverse needs of all local people. In performing that duty, a local authority must have regard to the need to ensure that it is aware of current and likely future demand for such services, and to consider how providers might meet that demand.

The Market Sustainability and Improvement Fund includes grant conditions which require each local authority to submit an adult social care capacity plan. These were submitted to the Department in June 2024. The hon. Member's local authority, Aldershot, submitted their 2024/25 capacity plan, which is currently undergoing processing and quality assurance.

The General Dental Council (GDC) is the independent regulator of dentistry in the United Kingdom. As an independent body, the GDC is responsible for the discharge of its statutory duties and the Government is unable to direct the GDC’s administrative functions or processes.

The GDC is accountable for the discharge of its statutory duties through the requirement for it to submit annual reports to the Privy Council; through scrutiny the Health and Care Select Committee may choose to undertake; and through annual performance reviews by the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care, who can escalate serious or intractable concerns to both Government and Parliament.

The Privy Council may make orders which determine the composition of the Council and processes for the appointment of the Chair of the Council, as set out by Schedule 1 of the Dentists Act 1984.

The adult social care workforce provides vital care and support to people of all ages and with diverse needs, including those with dementia. Care workers are essential to those who draw on care and support, helping them maintain their quality of life, independence, and connection to the things that matter to them.

No specific assessment has been made of the adequacy of dementia training for the adult social care workforce, but as we develop a long-term plan for social care, those working in social care will be at the heart of our reforms. We will outline further plans for social care workforce reform in due course.

We recognise that despite the hard work of general practice teams, patients are still struggling to access care from general practitioners (GPs). We know that GPs are delivering record numbers of appointments, however, patient satisfaction has dropped nationally.

Integrated care boards (ICBs) must ensure that GP services meet the needs of the local population, and NHS England has a legal duty to annually assess the performance of each ICB and to publish a summary of its findings. The assessment must consider how well the ICB has discharged its functions, including the duty to improve the quality of services and the duty to make arrangements to involve patients, carers and the public in commissioning plans and decisions that affect them.

The Department is committed to working closely with NHS England to ensure that people with an eating disorder get the care and treatment they need, when they need it. The Department will focus on improving the performance of the existing waiting time standards for Children and Young Peoples’ Eating Disorder services including in Aldershot.

This will be supported by recruiting 8,500 additional mental health staff across children and adult mental health services, ensuring every young person has access to a specialist mental health professional at school, and setting up Young Futures hubs in every community, offering open access mental health services for young people.

Palliative care services are included in the list of services an integrated care board (ICB) must commission. This promotes a more consistent national approach and supports commissioners in prioritising palliative and end of life care. To support ICBs in this duty, NHS England has published statutory guidance and service specifications.

Whilst the majority of palliative and end of life care is provided by National Health Service staff and services, we recognise the vital part that voluntary sector organisations, including hospices, also play in providing support to people, and their loved ones, at the end of life.

Most hospices are charitable, independent organisations which receive some statutory funding for providing NHS services. The amount of funding charitable hospices receive varies by ICB area, and will, in part, be dependent on the breadth and range of palliative and end of life care provision within their ICB footprint.

We understand that, financially, times are difficult for many voluntary and charitable organisations, including hospices, due to the increased cost of living. We want a society where these costs are manageable for both voluntary organisations, like hospices, and the people whom they serve.

We, alongside NHS England, will continue to proactively engage with stakeholders, including the voluntary sector and independent hospices, on an ongoing basis, in order to understand the issues they face.

People with mental health issues in Aldershot and across the country are not getting the support or care they deserve, which is why we will fix the broken system to ensure that mental health is given the same attention and focus as physical health, so that people can be confident in accessing high quality mental health support when they need it.

We will recruit an additional 8,500 mental health workers to reduce delays and provide faster treatment which will also help ease pressure on hospitals. By cutting mental health waiting lists and intervening earlier with more timely mental health support, we can get this country back to good health.

The Dementia Training Standards Framework sets out the required essential knowledge and skills, as well as the expected learning outcomes applicable across the health and care spectrum. To support the quality of dementia care planning by primary care providers, the Dementia: Good Personalised Care and Support Planning guide promotes consistent personalised care and support planning. To further improve care, NHS England has refreshed the RightCare Dementia Scenario. This sets out best practice for supporting people with dementia, from diagnosis to dying well.

To enhance an integrated approach to hospital discharge, six national discharge frontrunner pilots are testing improved dementia care. This includes dementia hubs, which aim to improve care and support for dementia patients waiting for discharge, so that their needs are at the centre of every decision.

The adult social care workforce provides vital care and support to people of all ages and with diverse needs, including those with dementia. Care workers are essential to those who draw on care and support, helping them maintain their quality of life, independence, and connection to the things that matter to them.

Enhancing skills for staff working in social care is of critical importance. As such, we will continue to develop the Care Workforce Pathway, the new national career structure for adult social care, and linked to this, a new Level 2 Adult Social Care Certificate qualification has already been developed and launched.

We will develop a long-term plan for social care, with those working in social care being at the heart of our reforms. We will outline our further plans for workforce reform in due course.

We know that patients are finding it harder than ever to see a general practitioner (GP), and we are committed to fixing this crisis in GPs to secure the long-term sustainability of the National Health Service. Aldershot sits within the NHS Frimley Integrated Care Board, where 84.8% of appointments were delivered within two weeks of booking, 2.1% higher than the national average.

The Government has committed to fixing the front door to the NHS by shifting the focus from hospitals and into the community. We know that if patients can’t get a GP appointment, they will end up in accident and emergency, which is worse for them, and more expensive for the taxpayer.

NHS England is working to address training bottlenecks, so the health service has enough staff for the future, and we have provided £82 million to fund the recruitment of over 1,000 newly qualified GPs, to increase capacity and reduce workloads.

We are pleased to announce that newly qualified GPs will be included in the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme as part of an initiative to address GP unemployment, with additional funding over 2024/25.

Palliative care services are included in the list of services an integrated care board (ICB) must commission. This promotes a more consistent national approach and supports commissioners in prioritising palliative and end of life care. To support ICBs in this duty, NHS England has published statutory guidance and service specifications.

Whilst the majority of palliative and end of life care is provided by National Health Service staff and services, we recognise the vital part that voluntary sector organisations, including hospices, also play in providing support to people, and their loved ones, at the end of life.

Most hospices are charitable, independent organisations which receive some statutory funding for providing NHS services. The amount of funding charitable hospices receive varies by ICB area, and will, in part, be dependent on the breadth and range of palliative and end of life care provision within their ICB footprint.

The Government is going to shift the focus of healthcare out of the hospital and into the community, and we recognise that it is vital to include palliative and end of life care, including hospices, in this shift.

The Department, alongside NHS England, will continue to proactively engage with our stakeholders, including the voluntary sector and independent hospices, on an ongoing basis, in order to understand the issues they face.

NHS England is leading a programme on medicine optimisation which aims to help patients to improve outcomes and safety, take medicines as intended, avoid taking unnecessary medicines, and reduce wastage. Community pharmacies also offer the New Medicines Service, providing further support to patients newly prescribed certain medicines, and the Discharge Medicines Service, enabling hospitals to refer recently discharged patients to a community pharmacy for support with new medication.

Structured Medicine Reviews are offered by general practices (GPs), where pharmacists are part of multi-disciplinary teams to review patients’ medication, optimise their medication, and prevent wastage. In addition, electronic Repeat Dispensing (eRD) allows a GP to send repeat prescriptions to a patient’s pharmacy to manage the dispensing of the specific medicines required. As part of the eRD service, the pharmacy is required to make sure that the patient still needs all of their medicines, and dispense to the patients only those that are needed.

The national overprescribing review from 2021 set outs a series of practical and cultural changes necessary to ensure patients receive the most appropriate treatment for their needs, while ensuring value for money. The impact of these and other measures is not centrally monitored.

National training, including the Department’s Care Workforce Pathway and new Level 2 Adult Care Certificate qualification, has been developed using current standards and competency frameworks to support people with dementia. This includes the Dementia Training Standards Framework.

As we develop a long-term plan for social care, those working in social care will be at the heart of our reforms. We will outline further plans for social care workforce reform in due course.

To rebuild dentistry in the long term, we will reform the dental contract, with a shift to focus on prevention and the retention of National Health Service dentists.

There are no perfect payment systems and careful consideration needs to be given to any potential changes to the complex dental system so that we deliver a system better for patients and the profession.

NHS England is currently piloting a new way of supporting people experiencing mental ill health, through neighbourhood based, open access community mental health centres, in six sites across the country. An external evaluation of these pilot sites will inform any future decision to roll these centres out in other parts of the country.

We will also roll out Young Futures hubs in every community, providing open access mental health support for children and young people in every community.

To ensure that crisis care services are safe, effective, and consistently provide high quality care across England, NHS England has asked all crisis care services accessible via NHS 111 option two to move at pace and begin reporting access, responsiveness, and patient feedback measures from quarter two of 2024/25.

The collected data will enable a better understanding of where pressures exist in the system and help to drive improvements in waiting times and overall service delivery. These measures will allow NHS England and local providers to monitor performance and implement targeted strategies to reduce waiting times, therefore ensuring a timelier response for individuals in crisis.

We have committed to training thousands more general practitioners (GPs) across the country, as well as taking pressure off those currently working in the system. The inclusion of newly qualified GPs into the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme will also support the recruitment of GPs.

The NHS Frimley Integrated Care Board, which includes Aldershot, advises it is committed to supporting, developing, and retaining its workforce, and that it offers a full and varied training and development offer to clinical staff. This includes the national New GP Fellowship programme, which currently has 40 newly qualified GPs across the Frimley system, two of whom are from Aldershot. The scheme helps the transition into GP, post qualification. Other initiatives include mentoring and national Continuing Professional Development funding for primary care staff.

We recognize that patients are struggling to access general practice (GP), and more must be done to improve the sustainability of the National Health Service both nationally and in rural areas. The Government is committed to fixing the front door to the NHS, which is crucial for its long-term sustainability.

We acknowledge the urgent challenge of ensuring rural areas have the resources to continue serving their patients. To address this, we will increase funding for GPs and primary care, and shift the focus of the NHS from hospitals to community-based care. We will also ensure rural areas have the necessary workforce to provide integrated, patient-centered services.

We are committed to training thousands more GPs across the country, including in rural areas, starting with the training places outlined in the NHS’s Long-Term Workforce Plan. This will increase capacity, secure the future pipeline of GPs, and alleviate the pressure on those currently working in the system.

We are pleased to announce that newly qualified GPs will be included in the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme as part of an initiative to address GP unemployment, with additional funding over 2024/25. This is a step in the journey while the Government works with GPs to identify longer term solutions to GP unemployment and sustainability.

Additionally, we have accepted the DDRB recommendations in full and, subject to consultation with the BMA, we will uplift the pay element of the GP contract by 6% on a consolidated basis (an increase of 4% on top of the 2% interim uplift in April); to provide practices with funding to uplift GP partner, salaried GP and other salaried staff pay by 6%.

The average payments by the NHS Business Services Authority to community pharmacies in the Aldershot constituency were: £68,547.19 per pharmacy per month in 2021/22, or £822,566.32 per pharmacy for 12 months; and £77,398.58 per pharmacy per month in 2022/23, or £928,782.96 per pharmacy for 12 months.

The Government will tackle the challenges patients face when trying to access National Health Service dental care with a rescue plan to provide 700,000 more urgent dental appointments, and to recruit new dentists to areas that need them most. To rebuild dentistry in the long term, we will reform the dental contract, with a shift to focus on prevention and the retention of NHS dentists.

We are clear that the dental recovery plan, Faster, simpler and fairer: our plan to recover and reform NHS dentistry, published on 7 February 2024, did not go far enough to improve access for NHS dentistry patients. As part of our ambitions for dentistry, we will review what elements of the recovery plan can be taken forward within NHS budgets, including on the proposals for dental vans.

We know that patients are finding it harder than ever to see a general practitioner (GP) and we are committed to fixing the the crisis in GPs to secure the long-term sustainability of the National Health Service.

Broxbourne sits within the NHS Hertfordshire and West Essex Integrated Care Board, where 82.7% of appointments were delivered within two weeks of booking, 0.4% lower than the national average.

Our plan to restore GPs and improve the waiting times to see a GP will require both investment and reform. We have committed to train thousands more GPs, end the 8:00am scramble for GP appointments by introducing a modern booking system, and trial new Neighborhood Health Centers to bring community health services together under one roof. Furthermore, the Government will also bring back the family doctor by incentivising GPs to see the same patient.

General practices are able to provide Directed Enhanced Services and Enhanced Services by opting in, and will receive payment for these services separately to global sum payments. As commissioners of primary care, integrated care boards are responsible for commissioning Local Enhanced Services, which are not agreed nationally and can vary in scope and funding to fit local needs.

Palliative care services are included in the list of services an integrated care board (ICB), including the Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent ICB, which covers Newcastle-under-Lyme, must commission. This promotes a more consistent national approach and supports commissioners in prioritising palliative and end of life care. To support the ICBs in this duty, NHS England has published statutory guidance and service specifications.

Whilst the majority of palliative and end of life care is provided by National Health Service staff and services, we recognise the vital part that voluntary sector organisations, including hospices, also play in providing support to people, and their loved ones, at the end of life.

Most hospices are charitable, independent organisations which receive some statutory funding for providing NHS services. The amount of funding charitable hospices receive varies by ICB area, and will, in part, be dependent on the breadth and range of palliative and end of life care provision within their ICB footprint.

We understand that, financially, times are difficult for many voluntary and charitable organisations, including hospices, due to the increased cost of living. We want a society where these costs are manageable for both voluntary organisations, like hospices, and the people whom they serve.

We, alongside NHS England, will continue to proactively engage with our stakeholders, including the voluntary sector and independent hospices, on an ongoing basis, in order to understand the issues they face.

Department officials meet regularly with Hospice UK and alongside our key partners at NHS England, will continue to proactively engage with the sector, including Hospice UK, to understand the issues they are facing.

Most hospices are charitable, independent organisations which receive some statutory funding for providing National Health Services. The amount of funding charitable hospices receive varies by integrated care board (ICB) area, and will, in part, be dependent on the breadth and range of palliative and end of life care provision within their ICB footprint.

Whilst the majority of palliative and end of life care is provided by NHS staff and services, we recognise the vital part that voluntary sector organisations, including hospices, play in providing support to people, and their loved ones, at end of life.

Palliative and end of life care is provided through a range of professionals and providers, both generalists and specialists, across the NHS, social care, and voluntary sector organisations. Therefore, the cost of provision is difficult to measure as relevant consultations and tasks are not always coded as palliative or end of life care. This makes it difficult to estimate how much is spent on palliative and end of life care provision as a whole, and how much might be saved by hospices delivering palliative care.

The Government is going to shift the focus of healthcare out of the hospital and into the community and we recognise that it is vital to include palliative and end of life care, including hospices, in this shift. We will consider next steps on palliative and end of life care, including funding, in the coming months.

Department officials meet regularly with Hospice UK and alongside our key partners at NHS England, will continue to proactively engage with the sector, including Hospice UK, to understand the issues they are facing.

Most hospices are charitable, independent organisations which receive some statutory funding for providing National Health Services. The amount of funding charitable hospices receive varies by integrated care board (ICB) area, and will, in part, be dependent on the breadth and range of palliative and end of life care provision within their ICB footprint.

Whilst the majority of palliative and end of life care is provided by NHS staff and services, we recognise the vital part that voluntary sector organisations, including hospices, play in providing support to people, and their loved ones, at end of life.

Palliative and end of life care is provided through a range of professionals and providers, both generalists and specialists, across the NHS, social care, and voluntary sector organisations. Therefore, the cost of provision is difficult to measure as relevant consultations and tasks are not always coded as palliative or end of life care. This makes it difficult to estimate how much is spent on palliative and end of life care provision as a whole, and how much might be saved by hospices delivering palliative care.

The Government is going to shift the focus of healthcare out of the hospital and into the community and we recognise that it is vital to include palliative and end of life care, including hospices, in this shift. We will consider next steps on palliative and end of life care, including funding, in the coming months.

Department officials meet regularly with Hospice UK and alongside our key partners at NHS England, will continue to proactively engage with the sector, including Hospice UK, to understand the issues they are facing.

Most hospices are charitable, independent organisations which receive some statutory funding for providing National Health Services. The amount of funding charitable hospices receive varies by integrated care board (ICB) area, and will, in part, be dependent on the breadth and range of palliative and end of life care provision within their ICB footprint.

Whilst the majority of palliative and end of life care is provided by NHS staff and services, we recognise the vital part that voluntary sector organisations, including hospices, play in providing support to people, and their loved ones, at end of life.

Palliative and end of life care is provided through a range of professionals and providers, both generalists and specialists, across the NHS, social care, and voluntary sector organisations. Therefore, the cost of provision is difficult to measure as relevant consultations and tasks are not always coded as palliative or end of life care. This makes it difficult to estimate how much is spent on palliative and end of life care provision as a whole, and how much might be saved by hospices delivering palliative care.

The Government is going to shift the focus of healthcare out of the hospital and into the community and we recognise that it is vital to include palliative and end of life care, including hospices, in this shift. We will consider next steps on palliative and end of life care, including funding, in the coming months.

Department officials meet regularly with Hospice UK and alongside our key partners at NHS England, will continue to proactively engage with the sector, including Hospice UK, to understand the issues they are facing.

Most hospices are charitable, independent organisations which receive some statutory funding for providing National Health Services. The amount of funding charitable hospices receive varies by integrated care board (ICB) area, and will, in part, be dependent on the breadth and range of palliative and end of life care provision within their ICB footprint.

Whilst the majority of palliative and end of life care is provided by NHS staff and services, we recognise the vital part that voluntary sector organisations, including hospices, play in providing support to people, and their loved ones, at end of life.

Palliative and end of life care is provided through a range of professionals and providers, both generalists and specialists, across the NHS, social care, and voluntary sector organisations. Therefore, the cost of provision is difficult to measure as relevant consultations and tasks are not always coded as palliative or end of life care. This makes it difficult to estimate how much is spent on palliative and end of life care provision as a whole, and how much might be saved by hospices delivering palliative care.

The Government is going to shift the focus of healthcare out of the hospital and into the community and we recognise that it is vital to include palliative and end of life care, including hospices, in this shift. We will consider next steps on palliative and end of life care, including funding, in the coming months.

We have committed to trialling Neighbourhood Health Centres, to bring together a range of services under one roof. This is part of our broader ambition to move towards a Neighbourhood Health Service, with more care delivered in local communities, to spot problems earlier. Costs will ultimately be dependent on the scope of facilities and delivery model, and the Government will confirm further details and next steps in due course.

The Government is determined to tackle the challenges facing adult social care. We want everyone to live an independent, dignified life. That is why we will build consensus on the long-term reform needed to create a National Care Service. We will engage with a range of stakeholders, including cross-party and people with lived experience. We will set out more detail of our priorities for adult social care in due course.

The Department is committed to working closely with NHS England to ensure that people with anorexia and other eating disorders get the care and treatment they need, when they need it.

We will focus on improving the performance of the existing waiting time standards for children and young people’s eating disorder services. This will be supported by recruiting 8,500 additional mental health staff across children and adult mental health services.

We are currently reviewing the Dental Recovery Plan, and what elements of it can be taken forward effectively and within National Health Service budgets. It is also clear that the plan did not go far enough, and so we are also working on our Dental Rescue Plan, and prioritising initiatives that will see the biggest impact on access to NHS dental care.