Asked by: Baroness Scott of Needham Market (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment criteria they are using to assess the case for commissioning a specialised service for very severe chronic fatigue syndrome.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The myalgic encephalomyelitis, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), final delivery plan, published on 22 July 2025, includes an action for the Department and NHS England to explore whether a specialised service should be prescribed by my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care for very severe ME/CFS. Officials from the Department have commenced discussions with NHS England on how best to take forward this action.
Three factors determine whether a service is a prescribed specialised service. These are: the number of individuals who require the service; the cost of providing the service or facility; and the number of people able to provide the service or facility.
Asked by: Patrick Spencer (Independent - Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many and what proportion of patients have waited more than 21 days for a GP practice appointment in (a) rural and (b) urban areas in 2025.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England publishes monthly data on general practice appointments (GPAD), including the approximate length of time between appointments being booked and taking place, although this is not a proxy for “waiting times”. There are a number of factors which can influence the timing of appointments, and it is not possible to estimate the time between the patient’s first attempt to contact their surgery and an appointment.
In England, in September 2024, 44.1% of appointments took place on the same day as they were booked, and 81.8% took place within two weeks of booking, 88.8% within 21 days, and 10.8% occurred after more than 21 days. NHS England does not include information on rurality in this publication.
In our newly published Medium-Term Planning Framework we have set an ambitious new target to deliver all urgent appointments on the same day, helping to ensure the patients who need urgent care will be prioritised.
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
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 ensure no one is denied treatment outright because of their cleft.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Patients born with cleft should have care plans tailored to meet their individual needs, with support from multi-disciplinary teams where necessary. Access to dental care is an important part of this and we recognise that some groups of patients may find it difficult to access. We have asked integrated care boards to commission extra urgent dental appointments and are also committed to reforming the dental contract, with a focus on matching resources to need and improving access.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
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 merits of increasing levels of research into the (a) causes of and (b) treatment pathways for endometriosis.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), the research delivery arm of the Department, funds and supports a range of research to support women’s health conditions, including endometriosis. These awards seek to improve outcomes for women with endometriosis by better understanding the condition, enabling earlier diagnosis, and evaluating current and emerging treatment options.
Ongoing NIHR funded research includes a £2.1 million trial to look at the effectiveness of keyhole surgery to treat endometriosis, with a new £2.4 million NIHR funded research programme on pain management for endometriosis due to start in March 2026. Further information on both of these studies is available, respectively, at the following two links:
https://fundingawards.nihr.ac.uk/award/NIHR129801
https://fundingawards.nihr.ac.uk/award/NIHR169738
The NIHR continues to welcome funding applications for research into endometriosis. Applications are subject to peer review and judged in open competition, with awards being made on the basis of the importance of the topic to patients and health and care services, value for money, and scientific quality.
Asked by: Joe Robertson (Conservative - Isle of Wight East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his department will put in place constitutional standards for hospital discharges.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
There are no immediate plans to introduce additional constitutional standards at this time, including for the timeliness of discharge from hospital.
However, the Urgent and Emergency Care plan for 2025/26 set as a priority that hospitals should tackle the delays in patients waiting to be discharged. They should profile discharges by pathway to support local planning, eliminate discharge delays of more than 48 hours caused by in-hospital issues, and work with local authorities to tackle the longest delays, starting with those over 21 days.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
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 17 November 2025 to Question 87859 on Hereditary Diseases, if his Department will publish any estimates or research they have of the annual cost to the public purse for the NHS of treating (a) congenital and (b) genetic disorders arising from consanguineous unions.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
No, the Department is not planning to publish any estimates or research on the annual cost to the public purse for the National Health Service of treating congenital and genetic disorders arising from consanguineous unions. The Department does not hold this information and has no plans to collect this information.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many NHS providers are making use of the NHS barcode.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England figures show that 81 trusts in England use National Health Service number barcodes on patient identification wrist bands. This total includes a mix of trusts compliant with the former ISB 1077 and the current DCB1077 standard, a standard which supports the accurate, timely, and safer identification of NHS patients in England, by using barcodes for positive patient identification. 37 trusts, of the 81 trusts, are compliant with the current DCB1077 standard.
Asked by: James McMurdock (Independent - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
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 reduce short-term readmissions following mental health inpatient discharge.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
In 2023, NHS England published guidance on the commissioning and delivery of acute inpatient mental health care for adults and older adults, which is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/acute-inpatient-mental-health-care-for-adults-and-older-adults/
This encourages integrated care boards and mental health providers to monitor the length of hospital stay, the number of people who are clinically ready for discharge and who have not been discharged, reasons for delayed discharges, and reasons for readmission within six months, in order to monitor the effectiveness of local discharge arrangements and to identify improvements.
NHS England is also delivering a universal culture of care improvement programme, which all National Health Service and major independent providers are participating in. The programme is based on co-produced standards for high quality inpatient care, which include commitments to improve discharge and follow up support.
Improving access to high quality community mental health care is critical to reducing the number of avoidable admissions to hospital and supporting people in community settings following a hospital spell. Since 2019, NHS England has invested significant additional funding to support services to transform and expand services in line with the vision set out in the Community Mental Health Framework. The new approach integrates community mental health services with primary care, whilst also improving partnerships with voluntary, community, and social enterprise organisations, local authorities, and other local organisations to offer people holistic and personalised care for both their clinical and social needs, with both a ‘need-led’ and ‘no wrong door’ approach.
NHS England continues to prioritise improving services for people with mental health problems, including through the development of new guidance on delivering personalised care and support, for instance the Personalised Care Framework: a Modern Care Programme Approach, the piloting and rollout of 24/7 Neighbourhood Mental Health Centres across the country, and the development of a new modern service framework for severe mental illness expected in 2026.
Asked by: James McMurdock (Independent - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he has to improve post-discharge support for mental health patients.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The first statutory guidance on discharge from mental health hospitals, published in 2024 under the NHS Act 2006, emphasised the importance of communication and collaboration between responsible agencies to ensure the patient’s safe and timely discharge and continued care and support after hospital.
This is underpinned by the Community Mental Health Framework, which sets out a vision for new models of integrated primary and community mental health services to address longstanding challenges in mental health services, including maximising continuity of care. Neighbourhood mental health centres build on this model, bringing together a range of community mental health services under one roof, including crisis services and short-stay beds, ensuring people’s holistic needs can be met. To ensure that people are provided with the right support to live successfully and safely in the community after discharge, section 117 of the Mental Health Act places a duty on the National Health Service and local social services authorities to provide after-care to eligible patients who have been detained in hospital for treatment, under certain sections of the act.
We know there are sometimes disagreements between local authorities over who should be paying for a persons’ after-care and what services should be provided. The Mental Health Bill seeks to address these issues and bring clarity, mitigating delays to the provision of aftercare services.
There is also the NHS Continuing Healthcare, which is a package of NHS-funded ongoing care for adults with the highest levels of complex, intense, or unpredictable needs, who have been assessed as having a primary health need, to meet needs that have arisen as a result of disability, accident, or illness.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans are in place to ensure that the medical records of deaf and hearing-impaired patients are appropriately marked prior to the introduction of the Single Patient Record in 2028.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Reasonable Adjustment flag is part of the NHS Spine, and professionals and their administrative staff can work with an individual to create the flag using the National Care Records Service, to ensure that an individual’s needs for reasonable adjustments are recorded and shared, to ensure appropriate support by health and care services. Work is continuing to allow direct integration of the flag with clinical systems, using the Patient Flags Application Programming Interface.
The Single Patient Record (SPR) programme is at an early stage of development. Inclusivity and ease of access is central to the vision for the design of the SPR, and the record of people’s reasonable adjustments, and their needs, will be part of the information made available to staff.