Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps he has taken to help reduce waiting times for cancer (a) screening and (b) testing in Fylde constituency.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government understands that more needs to be done to reduce waiting times for cancer patients, including those in Fylde constituency. To achieve this, we have delivered an extra 40,000 operations, scans, and appointments each week during our first year in Government, as the first step to ensuring early diagnosis and faster treatment.
We will support the National Health Service to transform diagnostic services by spending £1.65 billion on additional capacity, including new surgical hubs and diagnostic scanners, to support the delivery of over 30,000 more procedures and 1.25 million diagnostic tests, as they come online.
In March 2025, performance across Lancashire and South Cumbria, which includes the Fylde constituency, for diagnosing patients within the 28-day standard was 80% against the 75% standard.
NHS England North West is currently the responsible commissioner for the three cancer screening programmes, namely breast, bowel and cervical, for the Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board footprint, which includes the Fylde constituency.
For bowel screening, additional funding has been provided to the Lancashire programme to increase capacity and to support the local population to access colonoscopy, as required.
For breast screening, a full review of all screening sites has been carried out across the region to ensure that they meet the needs of the local population, and the provider programme team meets regularly with system partners to maximise uptake.
NHS England North West has also provided funding for an Improving Uptake Officer post. This role involves working directly with general practices and local community groups to improve uptake, as well as contacting individuals who have not attended their appointment to offer them a new appointment.
For cervical screening, insight work was carried out in 2023 across the North West to understand the reasons why individuals were not coming forward for their cervical screening and to gain views from residents on what would support more people to take up their cervical screening. Using findings from this work, a number of pilot projects are currently being implemented to understand the impact on improving uptake. These include online booking of appointments, training for cervical sample takers to improve patient experience, community champions, and alternative venues for screening.
Asked by: James Cartlidge (Conservative - South Suffolk)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure that people with Parkinson’s disease have access to their medication on time.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidance on Parkinson’s disease in adults highlights the importance of patients getting Parkinson’s medicines on time, to prevent harmful effects. NICE guidance states that people with Parkinson’s disease who are admitted to hospital or care homes should be given their medicines at the appropriate times, which, in some cases, may mean allowing self-medication.
Whilst hospital providers are responsible for ensuring that patients within hospital settings, including those with Parkinson’s disease, receive their appropriate medication on time, there are tools to support both patients and staff to achieve this. Electronic prescribing systems, currently in use in 85% of hospitals in England, enable in-depth monitoring and reporting on missed or delayed dosing of medications.
Parkinson’s UK has produced resources, as part of their Get It on Time campaign, which support people with Parkinson's with medicine management in preparation for a hospital stay. These resources can also support hospital and care home staff to make sure that patients and residents get their medication on time, every time.
NHS England has also published guidance, developed in partnership with charities, including Parkinson’s UK, to help local National Health Service staff take practical steps to improve the care for patients with progressive neurological conditions in hospitals. The Right Care Toolkit for progressive neurological conditions provides advice on medicine optimisation, highlighting the importance of the timely administration of specific drugs for Parkinson’s, such as Levodopa, in both acute and community health settings.
Asked by: Clive Jones (Liberal Democrat - Wokingham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if his Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of an (a) centralised and (b) nationwide case-finding programme to identify people at high risk of (i) developing and (ii) inheriting less survivable cancers.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Disease Registration Service (NDRS) has committed to developing a National Inherited Cancer Predisposition Register (NICPR) as part of its 2024 to 2027 strategy, building on the work to establish the National Lynch Registry. The NICPR will launch on 30 June, and will look at a wider range of cancers for which there is an increased inherited risk, including for less survivable cancers. It will identify high-risk individuals who are eligible for targeted screening and surveillance, and will act as an electronic referral route into national screening programmes where these exist, for instance Lynch syndrome and bowel screening.
The NICPR is also a key commitment in the Rare Disease Action Plan for England, with NDRS in NHS England as the lead delivery partner, further highlighting its relevance to improving care for people with rare inherited cancer risk.
NHS England is also working on case-finding approaches for less survivable cancers, where the evidence suggests this is appropriate. It is currently developing a public-facing Family History Checker, which enables people and their families affected by pancreatic cancer to self-assess if they may inherit risk. Individuals identified as being at risk are referred directly to the European Registry of Hereditary Pancreatic Diseases research trial, which aims to understand inherited conditions of the pancreas. Referrals to the trial can be made by any healthcare professional across all health sectors or by individuals via self-referral, contributing to a centralised approach to case-finding.
As part of our National Cancer Plan, we have been working with members of the Less Survivable Cancers Taskforce, a group of charities focusing on cancers with poor survival rates, to identify how we can improve diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes for less survivable cancers.
Asked by: Clive Jones (Liberal Democrat - Wokingham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 25 March 2025 to Question 38918 on Cancer: Young People, what steps (a) his Department and (b) the National Institute for Health and Care Research has taken to (i) enrol 50 per cent of young people with cancer into clinical trials by March 2025 and (ii) publish data on this target.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
To support the delivery of this ambition, the Department, through NHS England, has put in place new national service specifications, covering both Principal Treatment Centre and associated Teenage and Young Adult (TYA) Designated Hospital provision, and has established networks to oversee pathways of care, coordinate clinical trial access, and develop local strategies to increase clinical trial recruitment. Alongside this, NHS England has also introduced a metric to monitor trial participation within the TYA Cancer Quality Dashboard.
The Department-funded National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) funds research and research infrastructure, which supports patients and the public to participate in high-quality research, including clinical research for teenagers and young adults with cancer.
The Department does not hold data on the overall percentage of children and young people with cancer that are enrolled into clinical trials nationwide, but does collect data on general participation through NIHR funded research infrastructure. The Department reports on this data where it is appropriate to do so.
Asked by: James Cartlidge (Conservative - South Suffolk)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to improve services for people living with Parkinson’s disease in South Suffolk constituency.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
At the national level, there are a number of initiatives supporting service improvement and better care for patients with Parkinson’s disease in England, including the Getting It Right First Time Programme for Neurology and the RightCare Progressive Neurological Conditions Toolkit. These initiatives will help to improve services for people living with Parkinson’s disease in South Suffolk.
NHS England has also established a Neurology Transformation Programme, a multi-year, clinically led programme, which has developed a new model of integrated care to support integrated care boards (ICBs) to deliver the right service, at the right time, for all neurology patients, including those with Parkinson’s. This focuses on providing access equitably across the country, with care as close to home as possible and early intervention to prevent illness and deterioration in patients with long-term neurological conditions. A toolkit is being developed to support ICBs to understand and implement this new model, which will include components on delivering acute neurology services, improving health equity in neurology, and improving community neurology services.
NHS England commissions the specialised elements of Parkinson’s care that patients may receive from 27 specialised neurology centres across England. Within specialised centres, neurological multidisciplinary teams ensure that patients can access a range of health professionals and specialised treatment and support, according to their needs. NHS England is updating the Neurosciences specialised neurology (adults) service specification, 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. We are expecting the revised specification and standards to be published later in 2025.
Asked by: Lord Whitty (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what terms of reference apply to the activities of practitioner-patient consultative groups; and what guidance they give to such groups.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
General practice (GP) Patient Participation Groups (PPGs) are a requirement in the GP Contract, as specified in The National Health Service (General Medical Services Contracts) Regulations. Providers must establish and maintain a group to obtain feedback from patients on the services they deliver.
The form a PPG takes is not specified. This provides flexibility for practices to work in partnership with people and communities in the ways that best support the local population. The contractor is expected to engage with the group at frequent intervals throughout the financial year, as agreed with the group, with the view to obtain, review, and implement patient feedback. As such, PPGs are financed under the Global Sum Payments, which covers all services included in these regulations.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant the Answer of 2 June 2025 to Question 54075 on Care Homes: Fylde, how many care homes have been subject to regulatory action by the Care Quality Commission under Regulation 18 in the last three years in Fylde constituency .
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
In the last three years, the Care Quality Commission has issued Action Plan requests, previously called Requirement Notices, for breach of Regulation 18 on three care homes: Rathmore Care Home; Villarose Rest Home; and Windmill Lodge.
There are currently no regulatory actions against Regulation 18 (Staffing) for care homes in the Fylde parliamentary constituency.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of increased use of e-cigarettes on young people in Fylde constituency.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The health advice is clear, that while vapes are less harmful than smoking and can be an effective quit aid for smokers, children and non-smokers should never vape. The main established health risk associated with vaping is from nicotine, which can cause addiction. Children and young people are particularly susceptible to the addictive nature of nicotine as their lungs and brains are still developing.
This is why the Tobacco and Vapes Bill will ban vapes and nicotine products from being deliberately promoted and advertised to children to stop the next generation from becoming hooked on nicotine. The bill, currently going through Parliament, includes a range of measures to tackle youth vaping, which will benefit the young people of Fylde. In addition, the disposable vapes ban came into effect on 1 June, making the sale and supply of single use vapes illegal. This ban protects the environment and removes products from the market that particularly appeal to children.
We are also committed to funding research in this area to inform policy across the United Kingdom. Earlier this year, we announced a £62 million research project into adolescent health, funded by UK Research and Innovation, that will investigate the long-term health effects of vaping on young people’s health and wellbeing. We have also commissioned, via the National Institute for Health and Care Research, the most comprehensive analysis of youth vaping studies ever conducted in this area, which is due to be published later this year.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Written Statement of 22 May 2025 on Childhood Obesity, HCWS652, whether the output of TV channels not viewed as live broadcast TV will count as (a) TV and (b) online.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to implementing advertising restrictions for less healthy food and drink on television and online, as part of its ambition to raise the healthiest generation of children ever.
Advertising restrictions for less healthy food or drink will be determined by whether a television channel or video-on-demand service is regulated by Ofcom. All Ofcom-regulated services, whether broadcast or delivered over the internet, will be subject to a 9:00pm watershed. All other internet-delivered television services will be subject to the 24-hour restriction.
We announced in a Written Ministerial Statement to Parliament on 22 May that the Government will set out in legislation an explicit brand exemption from the advertising restrictions for brand advertising that does not identify a less healthy food or drink product. This will provide legal clarification on this aspect of the existing policy as it was understood and agreed by Parliament during the passage of the Health and Care Bill, following extensive consultation.
Asked by: Clive Jones (Liberal Democrat - Wokingham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the membership is of the Patient Voice Panel as a part of the Children and Young People Cancer Taskforce; and what meetings it has held in the last 12 months.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to including the voices of young cancer patients in the work of the taskforce and the National Cancer Plan. That’s why the Department has worked with taskforce members to assemble a Patient Experience Panel of people with lived experience of cancer. The panel is made up of a diverse group, including parents of children with cancer, young adults who were diagnosed with cancer as teenagers, and those who were diagnosed as children.
The panel has met three times so far, and will continue to feed directly into the work of the taskforce.