Department of Health and Social Care

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority has advised that between 2020 and 2022, the years in which they have the most recently data available, 25% of patients in same-sex female couples in the United Kingdom received National Health Service-funded in vitro fertilization (IVF), after completing six self-funded rounds of intrauterine insemination.

Integrated care boards are expected to commission fertility services in line with National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines. The NICE is currently reviewing the fertility guidelines and will consider whether the current recommendations for access to NHS-funded treatment are still appropriate. We expect this review to be published in 2025. The Government will also be receiving advice from NHS England on the eligibility criteria for IVF and on access to treatment, and this will inform the Government’s considerations of future policy options.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency’s (MHRA) role is to continually monitor the safety of medicines during their use. We have robust, safety monitoring and surveillance systems in place for all healthcare products, including finasteride. As part of our monitoring and surveillance activities, we take into account any changes in the usage of a particular medicine.

Finasteride containing medicines are prescription only medicines. This means they must be prescribed by a doctor or other authorised health professional, and must be dispensed from a pharmacy or from another specifically licensed premises.

The MHRA has recently completed an extensive safety review into finasteride, with the subsequent updates to the product information having been implemented, and the development of a patient alert card is underway. We also published a Drug Safety Update to raise awareness amongst healthcare professionals of the adverse psychiatric and sexual side effects. We are aware that the European Medicines Agency has launched a review, and we are monitoring this closely. Further information on the Drug Safety Update is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/drug-safety-update/finasteride-reminder-of-the-risk-psychiatric-side-effects-and-of-sexual-side-effects-which-may-persist-after-discontinuation-of-treatment

Please be reassured that the MHRA continuously monitors the safety of finasteride via information from various sources, including the published literature. Information from all sources is carefully screened and may identify unexpected side effects, indicate that certain side effects occur more commonly than previously believed, or that some patients are more susceptible to some effects than others. If a new side effect is identified, information is carefully considered in the context of the overall side effect profile for the medicine. When necessary, the MHRA may take action to ensure that a medicine is used in a way which minimises risk and maximises benefits to the patient.

We want to ensure that people who care for family and friends are better able to look after their own health and wellbeing.

Local authorities have duties to support people caring for their family and friends. The Care Act 2014 requires local authorities to deliver a wide range of sustainable, high-quality care and support services, including support for carers. Additionally, the Better Care Fund includes funding that can be used for unpaid carer support, including short breaks and respite services for carers.

Social prescribing can also work well for those who are socially isolated or whose wellbeing is being impacted by non-medical issues, and routinely present to primary or secondary care as a result.

The Department worked with NHS England and the Carers Partnership to produce a social prescribing summary document that was disseminated to local carer organisations in March 2023. This aimed to help upskill staff at carer organisations on social prescribing as an intervention for loneliness, and to increase unpaid carer health and wellbeing.

The Department of Health and Social Care funds independent research through its research delivery arm, the National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR). This project is funded through the NIHR Adult Social Care Policy Research Unit.

The publication of research is led by the research team and in line with NIHR commitments to the transparent and independent publication of high-quality research will be made available on the Adult Social Care Policy Research Unit Website. The views expressed in outputs of the research are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care.

The Department of Health and Social Care is still considering this research as part of its ongoing policy work. We are working closely the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, and the role of a specific Adult Social Care funding formula is considered within the consultation ‘Local authority funding reform: objectives and principles’, published on 18 December 2024. We will update further in due course.

Department ministers regularly discuss a range of topics with other Cabinet colleagues. In response to the pressures facing adult social care, the Government will make up to £3.5 billion of additional funding for social care authorities available in 2025/26, which includes a £680 million increase in the Social Care Grant.

The Dental Statistics - England 2023/24, published by the NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) on 22 August 2024, is available at the following link:

https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/statistical-collections/dental-england/dental-statistics-england-202324

The NHSBSA’s annual dental statistics publication provides details of dental activity and dental workforce data for National Health Service dental treatment in England, including the number of dentists delivering NHS treatment, by contract type and commissioning region.

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

Earlier this year, the Department ran a consultation on introducing a further piece of legislation to give the General Dental Council powers to provisionally register overseas qualified dentists, which would help to address some of the workforce challenges.

The Government is committed to delivering a National Health Service that is fit for the future, and this means we require world class NHS infrastructure across the entire NHS estate. Beyond hospitals, we know we need the right infrastructure in the right places to deliver on our commitments of creating a true Neighbourhood Health Service and ensuring that patients receive the care they deserve.

We are aware of the additional demand and challenges placed upon primary care infrastructure by significant housing developments. The Department of Health and Social Care has worked closely with the Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government to address this issue in the recently published updated National Planning Policy Framework, clearly outlining the importance of health infrastructure. The Department of Health and Social Care will continue to work with the Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government on updating guidance and ensuring that all new and existing developments have an adequate level of healthcare infrastructure.

The relevant integrated care board is responsible for deciding how the NHS budget for its area is spent, and allocates funding according to local priorities. Any further support for NHS organisations will be set out at the Autumn Spending Review.

We have committed to developing a 10-year plan to deliver a National Health Service fit for the future. We will carefully be considering policies, including those that impact people with palliative and end of life care needs, with input from the public, patients, health staff, and our stakeholders, including those in the hospice sector, as we develop the plan.

The engagement process has been launched, and I would encourage the palliative and end of life care sector, including hospice providers, service users, and their families, to engage with that process to allow us to fully understand what is not working as well as it should, and what the potential solutions are. Further information is available at the following link:

https://change.nhs.uk/en-GB/

On 19 December the government announced the biggest investment in a generation for hospices to help ensure that hospices can continue to deliver the highest quality end of life care possible for their patients, families, and loved ones.

We are supporting the hospice sector with £100 million funding for adult and children’s hospices to ensure they have the best physical environment for care.

Children and young people’s hospices will also receive a further £26 million revenue funding for 2025/26. This is a continuation of the funding which until recently was known as the children and young people’s hospice grant.

We will set out the details of the funding allocation and dissemination in the new year.

We have committed to developing a 10-year plan to deliver a National Health Service fit for the future. We will carefully be considering policies, including those that impact people with palliative and end of life care needs, with input from the public, patients, health staff, and our stakeholders, including those in the hospice sector, as we develop the plan.

The engagement process has been launched, and I would encourage the palliative and end of life care sector, including hospice providers, service users, and their families, to engage with that process to allow us to fully understand what is not working as well as it should, and what the potential solutions are. Further information is available at the following link:

https://change.nhs.uk/en-GB/

On 19 December the government announced the biggest investment in a generation for hospices to help ensure that hospices can continue to deliver the highest quality end of life care possible for their patients, families, and loved ones.

We are supporting the hospice sector with £100 million funding for adult and children’s hospices to ensure they have the best physical environment for care.

Children and young people’s hospices will also receive a further £26 million revenue funding for 2025/26. This is a continuation of the funding which until recently was known as the children and young people’s hospice grant.

We will set out the details of the funding allocation and dissemination in the new year.

The following table shows the waiting time, measured in the number of days, between referral and first contact for children and young people aged under 18 years old in England, from 2020/21 to 2023/24:

Source: Mental Health Services Dataset.

In addition, the following table shows the waiting time, measured in the number of days, between referral and first contact for children and young people aged under 18 years old, in the Basingstoke and Deane local authority district, from 2020/21 to 2023/24:

Source: Mental Health Services Dataset.

Finally, the following table shows the waiting time, measured in the number of days, between referral and first contact for children and young people aged under 18 years old, in the Hampshire county local authority, from 2020/21 to 2023/24:

Source: Mental Health Services Dataset.

We have made necessary decisions to fix the foundations of the public finances in the Autumn Budget. Resource spending for the Department will be £22.6 billion more in 2025/26 than in 2023/24, as part of the Spending Review settlement. The employers’ National Insurance rise will be implemented in April 2025. We will set out further details on allocation of funding for next year in due course.

We recently announced a proposed funding uplift for general practice for 2025/26 of £889 million, representing a 7.2% cash growth, estimated at approximately 4.8% real terms growth. This is the largest uplift to general practice (GP) funding since the beginning of the five-year framework and means we are reversing the recent trend with a rising share of total National Health Service resources going to GPs.

We committed to restoring the front door of the NHS by shifting the focus of the NHS out of hospitals into the community. We know when patients are not able to get a GP appointment, they end up in accident and emergency, which is worse for the patient, and more expensive for the taxpayer. That is why it is key that we increase the capacity of appointments for GPs. We have already committed to recruiting over 1,000 newly qualified GPs from this October through an £82 million boost to the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme which will increase the number of appointments delivered in general practice.

Primary care providers, including GPs, are valued independent contractors that provide almost £20 billion worth of services in the NHS. Every year we consult with each contracted sector about the services it provides, and the money providers are entitled to in return. As in previous years, this issue will be dealt with as part of that process. We have recently begun discussions on the annual GP contract.

In accordance with the Abortion Act 1967, all abortions in England must be notified to the Chief Medical Officer within 14 days of the procedure. This information is used by the Department to monitor compliance with the act. The Department also publishes this data in line with the Code of Practice for Statistics, to ensure it is available to commissioners and providers of abortion services and others with an interest in abortion in England and Wales. There is no legal duty placed on the Department to publish data collected through abortion notification forms.

The Department regularly consults the Office for Statistics Regulation, which is the independent regulatory arm of the UK Statistics Authority, and provides independent regulation of all official statistics produced in the United Kingdom.

Through the Severe Acute Respiratory Infection Watch programme, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) undertakes surveillance of hospitalisations due to confirmed respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).

The UKHSA also undertakes monitoring and evaluation of immunisation programmes, including the effectiveness of vaccines in preventing hospital admissions. Such an analysis is being developed for the maternal vaccination programme for infant RSV prevention.

The UKHSA also provided analysis on RSV prevention considerations for very and extremely premature babies as part of the October 2024 meeting of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.

Coverage of the respiratory syncytial virus maternal vaccine programme will be measured in women who were at least 28 weeks gestation at the time of the start of the programme, and after they give birth. The first coverage data for this cohort will be published in January and will be broken down by region and integrated care system.

Coverage of the respiratory syncytial virus maternal vaccine programme will be measured in women who were at least 28 weeks gestation at the time of the start of the programme, and after they give birth. The first coverage data for this cohort will be published in January, when uptake can be compared to uptake in other maternal programmes like pertussis.

Fracture Liaison Services (FLS) are a globally recognised care model for secondary fracture prevention. The Government is committed to expanding access to these important preventative services.

FLS provision is ultimately a matter for integrated care boards, who are best placed to make commissioning decisions according to local need. The Department is continuing to work closely with NHS England to develop plans to ensure better quality and access to these important preventive services.

NHS England plays an important role in supporting the National Health Service to run effective influenza and COVID-19 vaccination programmes for NHS staff.

As part of this, NHS England provides a range of resources and tools to support this offer and is working to increase influenza and COVID-19 vaccination uptake in 2024/25. In addition, improved Federated Data Platform reporting is providing more detailed regional uptake intelligence. NHS England is encouraging integrated care boards to work with the highest performing trusts in their region to share best practice and lessons learned, and provide additional support for those providers where uptake is low.

NHS England plays an important role in supporting the National Health Service to run effective influenza and COVID-19 vaccination programmes for NHS staff.

As part of this, NHS England provides a range of resources and tools to support this offer and is working to increase influenza and COVID-19 vaccination uptake in 2024/25. In addition, improved Federated Data Platform reporting is providing more detailed regional uptake intelligence. NHS England is encouraging integrated care boards to work with the highest performing trusts in their region to share best practice and lessons learned, and provide additional support for those providers where uptake is low.

On 10 November 2023, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) issued advice on standing up a targeted, routine vaccination programme for the prevention of gonorrhoea.

Officials across the Department, the UK Health Security Agency, and NHS England are developing policy options based on the JCVI’s advice, taking into account a number of factors, including programme deliverability, interrelationship with other immunisation programmes, and National Health Service delivery options. A decision on the vaccination programme is expected shortly after the outcome of this process.

It is a priority for the Government to support the National Health Service to diagnose cancer, including blood cancer, as early and as quickly as possible, and to treat it faster, to improve outcomes.

In addition to improving cancer waiting time performance, the NHS has implemented non-specific symptom pathways for patients who present with vague and non-site-specific symptoms, which do not clearly align to a tumour type. This includes leukaemia, which the national evaluation found was one of the most common cancers diagnosed via these pathways. We are close to national coverage for NSS pathways, with 115 out of the 121 NSS services being live nationally.

Since October 2017, the Human Medicines (Amendment) Regulations 2017 have allowed all schools to buy adrenaline auto-injector (AAI) devices without a prescription, for emergency use. The Department has published non-statutory guidance to accompany this legislative change, with the guidance being available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/using-emergency-adrenaline-auto-injectors-in-schools

This guidance advises schools on the recognition and management of an allergic reaction and anaphylaxis, and outlines when and how an AAI should be administered for pupils. The guidance makes clear that any AAIs held by a school should be considered a spare device and not a replacement for a pupil’s own AAIs. It also states that children at risk of anaphylaxis should have their own prescribed AAIs at school for use in an emergency, and that they should always carry two devices.

In November 2021, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and the Commission on Human Medicine’s Adrenaline Auto-injector Expert Working Group, with wide-ranging input from patient groups, leading allergy experts and healthcare professionals, published a report which outlined recommendations for the safe and effective use of AAIs, including quicker treatment, to help save lives. The MHRA has worked alongside the Department and wider health system to take forward these recommendations, some of which are already in place.

In June 2023, the MHRA, with the support of allergy awareness advocates, launched a safety campaign to raise awareness of anaphylaxis and provide advice on the use of AAIs.

The MHRA produced a toolkit of resources for health and social care professionals to support the safe and effective use of AAIs. Alongside this, the MHRA produced guidance, which states that prescribers should prescribe two AAIs to make sure patients always have the second dose and that those who are prescribed AAIs should always carry two of them.

A public consultation will be needed before a decision can be made on the wider availability of AAIs in public places, including with first aid organisations, together with legislative change.

The Community First Responder (CFR) programme enables volunteers trained by the ambulance service to attend certain types of emergency calls in the area where they live or work. CFRs have had first aid training but are not medically trained. CFRs are trained in the administration of a patient’s own AAI, which would ensure the correct medication and dose for that patient. In general, CFRs do not carry medication.

Fracture Liaison Services (FLS) are a globally recognised care model for secondary fracture prevention. This government is committed to expanding access to these important preventative services.

FLS provision is ultimately a matter for Integrated Care Boards, who are best placed to make commissioning decisions according to local need. I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Strangford on 05/11/2024 to Question UIN 13008. Officials are continuing to work closely with NHS England on how to ensure better quality and access to FLSs – including on how best to support systems.

The Department uses the data and outputs from both the Labour Force Survey and Annual Population Survey to feed into some of our own statistical products. We recognise the importance of these surveys, and whilst it is disappointing that the accredited official statistics status has been removed from these two surveys, we understand these products continue to follow statistical best practice where possible.

The reduced sample size in the Annual Population Survey means there may be more uncertainty around some of our estimates at a local authority level, and there may be a gap in some of our data at local authority level in the short term. We will continue to work with the Office for National Statistics to ensure that any implications for our own evidence is clearly understood and explained to our users, in line with the Statistics Code of Practice.

There is no such thing as the Global Majority Fellowship Programme. The NHS Global Fellowship programme offers volunteer reciprocal leadership development opportunities for clinical and non-clinical staff to experience health systems across the globe.

NHS England provided £441,773.27 for the NHS Global Fellowships Programme for the financial year 2023/24.

Hepatitis B is usually asymptomatic in the early years, and therefore, many people remain unaware of their infection. The UK Health Security Agency estimates that 268,767 people were living with chronic hepatitis B in England in 2022, 38.1% of whom we estimate are diagnosed. As a result, raising both professional and public awareness remains critical to reducing the undiagnosed burden of hepatitis B.

In April 2022, the NHS England introduced the bloodborne virus opt out testing in emergency departments programme, which was implemented across 34 sites. In its first 24 months 1,185,678 hepatitis B tests had been conducted in the programme, which has led to 1,957 new diagnoses of hepatitis B. Following the success of this programme, it is now being expanded to a further 47 sites nationwide. Further information is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/bloodborne-viruses-opt-out-testing-in-emergency-departments/emergency-department-bloodborne-virus-opt-out-testing-12-month-interim-report-2023

In addition, the list of sites and go live dates is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/bloodborne-viruses-opt-out-testing-in-emergency-departments/appendix-for-emergency-department-bloodborne-virus-opt-out-testing-12-month-interim-report-2023

The United Kingdom has continued to see the success of well-established antenatal screening. Antenatal screening coverage has remained high at 99.8%, which ensures pregnant women living with hepatitis B are diagnosed and interventions are implemented, to prevent transmission of hepatitis B to their children.

As set out in the published Hepatitis B in England 2024 report, effective interventions have also been developed to raise awareness of hepatitis B among healthcare professionals and communities at risk of acquiring viral hepatitis, support primary care in identifying and managing cases, and offer testing and immunisations to close contacts. These interventions need to be more widely implemented to continue to improve diagnosis and access to care. The Hepatitis B in England 2024 report is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hepatitis-b-in-england/hepatitis-b-in-england-2024#raising-awareness-supporting-the-diagnosis-of-people-living-with-undiagnosed-hepatitisand-reducing-barriers-to-treatment

Details of ministers’ meetings with external individuals and organisations are published quarterly in arrears on GOV.UK website. Data for the period of July to September 2024 will be published in due course.

I can confirm that Department ministers expect to continue to engage with prevention and public health stakeholders across a number of important issues next year.

The Government will improve hospital discharge processes, to tackle delayed discharges, and to make sure people do not spend longer than necessary in hospital, freeing up hospital beds.

We will do so by developing local partnerships, working between the National Health Service and social care, making sure people get the right support from health and social care services to return home as soon as possible. Currently, every acute hospital has access to a care transfer hub, which brings together professionals from the NHS and local authorities to manage discharges for people with more complex needs, and collaboration between integrated care boards and local authorities will continue to be supported by the Better Care Fund framework through 2025/26.

The Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities recommended in March 2021 that the Government stop using the term BAME, which stands for Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic. Since then, where possible, the Department has referred to ethnic minority groups individually, rather than as a single group. Where an aggregated ethnic group is referred to, the term ‘ethnic minority’ has been used. Further information about how the Government refers to different ethnic groups can be found on GOV.UK website, at the following link:

https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/style-guide/writing-about-ethnicity/

The National Health Service is always specific, where possible, about the ethnic groups referred to, only using collective terminology where there is a legitimate need to do so. Where collective terminology is needed, it is guided by context.

Department officials continue to engage with Taiwanese officials. Any new reciprocal healthcare agreement between the United Kingdom and Taiwan would be subject to negotiations.

Patients, including those with motor neurone disease (MND), have been let down for too long whilst they wait for the care they need. The Government is committed to putting patients first. This means making sure that patients are seen on time and ensuring that people have the best possible experience during their care.

We have made a commitment that 92% of patients should wait no longer than 18 weeks from Referral to Treatment within our first term. This includes those waiting for treatment for MND. As a first step to achieving this, following the Budget, we will deliver an additional 2 million operations, scans, and appointments across all specialities during our first year in Government, which is equivalent to 40,000 per week.

At the national level, there are a number of initiatives supporting service improvement and better care for patients with MND, including the Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) Programme for Neurology and the RightCare Progressive Neurological Conditions Toolkit. NHS England has also established a Neurology Transformation Programme (NTP), a multi-year, clinically led programme to develop a new model of integrated care for neurology services, including MND.

The GIRFT National Specialty Report made recommendations designed to improve services nationally and to support the National Health Service to deliver care more equitably across the country. The report highlighted differences in how services are delivered, and provided the opportunity to share successful initiatives between trusts to improve patient services nationally.

In addition, the NTP has developed a model of integrated care for neurology services to support integrated care boards (ICBs) to deliver the right service, at the right time, for all neurology patients, including providing care closer to home. A toolkit is being developed to support ICBs to understand and implement this new model. The NTP has also developed an online, interactive adult neurology dashboard to support systems to understand their local neurology landscape and benchmark against other ICBs in England. It sets out key metrics and visualisations for neurology services locally, providing information about the scope and quality of local neurology services using existing whole population, whole pathway data.

The NTP is also working with the National Clinical Director for Neurology and the Neurology Clinical Reference Group to develop a revised service specification for neurology, which will: set out clear deliverables for specialised centres; provide a clearer model of care, incorporating up-to-date guidance and best practice; and set out new quality outcomes focusing on improving patient outcomes and experience.

The United Kingdom has one of the most extensive immunisation programmes in the world, with uptake rates amongst the highest globally.

No specific assessment has been made of the impact of the support given to people who have experienced a severe adverse reaction or bereavement after receiving a vaccine on levels of vaccine hesitancy. However, to assess public confidence in vaccinations programmes more generally, the UK Health Security Agency undertakes research to understand how knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes towards immunisation, vaccine safety, and disease severity influence vaccine uptake. And to ensure that those being offered vaccines are aware of the potential benefits and side effects of vaccines, public-facing information is provided in multiple languages and accessible formats, with training standards provided for healthcare professionals who will support the consent process.

The Government remains committed to addressing challenges around vaccine confidence and to improving vaccination uptake rates to fully protect the public from preventable diseases.

We are committed to getting the National Health Service catching cancer on time, diagnosing it earlier, and treating it faster, so that more patients survive this horrible set of diseases. This includes in relation to children and young people.

NHS England and other NHS organisations, nationally and locally, publish information on the signs and symptoms of many different types of cancer, including those that are most common in children. Further information on cancer signs and symptoms is available on the NHS.UK website.

The Department is not currently taking any additional specific action to expand on information of the signs and symptoms of childhood cancers. However, we are committed to improving outcomes for children and young people with cancer and are considering next steps to take forward work in this area through the relaunch of Children and Young People Cancer Taskforce.

The Department does not hold information on diagnosed respiratory conditions caused by air quality and housing conditions.

The Government is committed to a preventative approach to the public’s health, and is determined to improve air quality for everyone. That is why we are working across Government to tackle these issues. This includes supporting the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs to deliver their comprehensive and ambitious Clean Air Strategy, and an initial £3.4 billion towards heat decarbonisation and household energy efficiency over the next three years, to improve housing conditions.

It is unacceptable that alcohol deaths are now at record high levels. Under our Health Mission, the Government is committed to prioritising preventative public health measures to support people to live longer, healthier lives. The Department will continue to work across Government to better understand how we can best reduce alcohol-related harms.

The Government is guided by the advice of the Joint Committee on Vaccines and Immunisation (JCVI) on eligibility for vaccination programmes. Given the continued effectiveness of vaccines and improved treatments, for most people there is a much lower risk of severe illness compared to earlier in the pandemic.

The JCVI advises that older people and those who are immunosuppressed are the two groups who continue to be at higher risk of severe disease and death, and that vaccination every six months remains appropriate given the durability of protection afforded by the currently available vaccines. Its advice is to offer vaccination in autumn 2025 and spring 2026 to these groups, and also any individuals living in care homes for older adults, as care homes for older people are particularly high-risk settings and may include some younger individuals. This advice is available at the GOV.UK website, in an online only format. The Government is considering this advice carefully and will respond in due course.

Appropriate levels of testing will remain to support diagnosis for clinical care and treatment, and to protect very high-risk individuals and settings. Those who are clinically extremely vulnerable and immunocompromised are part of the group who is eligible for COVID-19 treatments in the community, enabling them easy access to anti-viral treatments. The Government will also maintain essential COVID-19 surveillance activities in the community, primary and secondary care, and in high-risk settings.

The standard of medical training is the responsibility of the General Medical Council (GMC), which is an independent statutory body. The GMC has the general function of promoting high standards of education and co-ordinating all stages of education to ensure that medical students and newly qualified doctors are equipped with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes essential for professional practice.

Each individual medical school sets its own undergraduate medical curriculum. This has to meet the standards set by the GMC, who then monitor and check to make sure that these standards are maintained. Whilst curricula do not necessarily highlight specific conditions for doctors to be aware of, they instead emphasise the skills and approaches that a doctor must develop in order to ensure accurate and timely diagnoses and treatment plans for their patients.

The NHS England Antimicrobial Resistance Programme, a prescribing workstream, has collaborated with the Workforce Training and Education directorate to co-produce, with stakeholders from university schools of pharmacy, an indicative curriculum and competency framework for antimicrobial resistance and antimicrobial stewardship, as a part of the new initial education and training programme for United Kingdom pharmacists who will graduate with independent prescribing rights from 2025/26. The prescribing workstream has plans to make contact with the GMC and the Nursing and Midwifery Council during 2025/26 to establish how antimicrobial stewardship is taught and examined in undergraduate medical and nursing courses in England, and to support improvement as required.

The independent Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) advises the Department on the approach to vaccination and immunisation programmes. The aim of the COVID-19 immunisation programme is to prevent serious disease, leading to hospitalisation and/or mortality, arising from COVID-19. On 13 November 2024, the JCVI published advice on the COVID-19 vaccination programme in 2025 and spring 2026. This advice is available on the GOV.UK website, in an online only format.

For spring 2025, the JCVI advises that, as with previous spring campaigns, a COVID-19 vaccine should be offered to adults aged 75 years old and over, residents in a care home for older adults, and the immunosuppressed aged six months and over. The Government has accepted the JCVI’s advice on eligibility for the spring 2025 COVID-19 vaccination programme. The Government is considering the advice for autumn 2025 and spring 2026 carefully, and will respond in due course.

In the 12 months to October 2024, an estimated 379.6 million general practice appointments were delivered, of which approximately 2.8 million were appointments for COVID-19 vaccinations. As the JCVI has not advised for an expanded cohort of vaccine eligibility for 2025 compared to 2024, noting that advice on autumn 2025 is still being considered, additional capacity for general practice appointments is not likely to be required.

This data is not held centrally by the Department. Community First Responders (CFRs) are community volunteers who respond to incidents, supporting ambulance services. CFRs are not trained to drive under blue light emergency conditions, and must follow all road traffic laws.

Emergency Medical Technicians are trained to drive under blue light conditions, and may be deployed to incidents in a single crewed vehicle or a twin crewed vehicle with an accompanying paramedic.

We have committed to getting back to the 18-week standard by the end of this Parliament, addressing the unacceptably long waits experienced by too many people. The Department is working with NHS England on a reform plan for elective care, which will be published in the coming weeks, and will set out more detail on the plans for more timely, accessible, and accurate diagnostic testing.

Approximately £1.5 billion of additional capital funding has been allocated in the Budget for 2025/26 to support National Health Service performance across secondary and emergency care. This investment includes the purchasing of new diagnostic scanners, which will reduce waiting times and increase diagnostic capacity outside of hospitals, in communities and primary care, including in Community Diagnostic Centres (CDC). Details of how this investment will be spent are currently being developed with NHS England.

All existing CDC locations have been chosen based on robust guidance to ensure that they meet certain specifications in order to reduce health inequalities, and integrated care boards were responsible for making recommendations on where there was the greatest need across their areas, including in rural areas. This includes ensuring that they have good transport links to improve access to diagnostic tests for the communities where the need is greatest.

No comparative assessment has been made. However, data for prostate cancer diagnosis rates are collected by integrated care board (ICB), both Basingstoke and Hampshire are located within the Hampshire and Isle of White ICB. The following table shows this data up to 2022:

For comparison, the following table shows the national data for 2022:

The Department is supporting the National Health Service in taking steps to speed up and improve the efficiency of diagnostic pathways. This includes the introduction of a best-practice timed pathway for prostate cancer so that those suspected of having prostate cancer receive a multi-parametric magnetic resonance imaging scan first; this ensures only those men most at risk of having cancer undergo an invasive biopsy. For patients, the prostate best-practice timed pathway may reduce anxiety and uncertainty of a possible cancer diagnosis, with less time between referral and receiving the outcome of a diagnostic test.

Furthermore, NHS England’s Getting It Right First Time programme published guidance in April 2024 to support the implementation of good practice in management of prostate cancer, which includes ensuring the diagnostic pathways for prostate cancer were implemented from primary care setting to secondary care presentation.

The Department has invested £9.3 million to bolster the safety of artificial intelligence (AI) in health and care, and to ensure the regulatory pathway is clear for both developers and adopters. Ensuring technologies are safe is a top priority and, through this funding, the Department has supported the launch of regulatory projects such as the AI and Digital Regulation Service (AIDRS) and the AI Airlock.

The AIDRS collaborates between the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulation Agency (MHRA), the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, the Health Research Authority, and the Care Quality Commission. The service, by providing a collaborative one stop shop of information, advice, and guidance, allows adopters and developers of AI to easily understand what regulatory and evaluation pathways need to be followed before an AI tool can be safety deployed across health and care.

The AI Airlock is an MHRA-led initiative, supported by the NHS AI Lab, designed to create a controlled testing environment where developers can rigorously validate AI tools in real-world clinical settings before full-scale deployment, ensuring they meet National Health Service standards for safety, efficacy, and integration into existing healthcare workflows. The AI Airlock fosters collaboration between developers, regulators, and healthcare providers, and reduces the risks associated with early-stage implementation while providing valuable feedback for developers to refine their products.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is the independent body responsible for developing authoritative, evidence-based recommendations for the National Health Service on whether new, licenced medicines represent a clinically and cost-effective use of resources.

The NICE has published guidance recommending abiraterone for the treatment of metastatic hormone-relapsed prostate cancer before chemotherapy is indicated, and for castration-resistant metastatic prostate cancer previously treated with a docetaxel-containing regimen. NHS England funds abiraterone for these indications of prostate cancer in line with the NICE’s recommendations, making it routinely available for clinicians to prescribe to eligible patients.

The NICE was unable to recommend abiraterone for use in the treatment of newly diagnosed, hormone-sensitive, metastatic prostate cancer in its guidance published in 2021. However, the NICE is preparing to review this technology appraisal to determine whether to recommend abiraterone for this indication at current prices, following the patent expiry for abiraterone. Further information will be available on the NICE's website in due course.

Pending the outcome of this review, NHS England has published an interim clinical commissioning policy on 13 December 2024 that will make abiraterone acetate and prednisolone available as a routine commissioning treatment option, within the criteria set out in the policy for patients with newly diagnosed high-risk hormone-sensitive metastatic prostate cancer.

Health is a devolved matter and decisions on the availability of medicines in Scotland and Wales are a matter for their own administration.

The UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC) reviewed the use of artificial intelligence technologies, such as automated grading in the NHS Diabetic Eye Screening (DES) Programme, in 2021. At the time, it concluded that this should not be used due to the limited evidence that it provides better health and value for money when compared to manual grading.

We are aware that the UK NSC has received a submission via its annual call process to consider automated retinal image analysis systems in the NHS DES programme. The UK NSC is currently reviewing all annual call proposals. Further information on the annual call process can be found on the GOV.UK website, in an online only format.

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

The responsibility for commissioning primary care services, including NHS dentistry, to meet the needs of the local population has been delegated to the integrated care boards (ICBs) across England. For the Cheltenham constituency, this is the NHS Gloucestershire ICB.