Asked by: Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether there has been a call for evidence or consultation to support the review of NHS adult gender dysphoria clinics in England.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Review of Adult Gender Services is aiming to publish its report later in summer 2025. NHS England and the Government will need time to consider the findings, advice, and recommendations before issuing their response.
The Review has examined records, including patient case notes, and conducted site visits at each of the nine adult gender dysphoria clinics to develop a detailed understanding of the operation and delivery of services within each clinic. Further information about how evidence was gathered is detailed in the published key lines of enquiry, a copy of which is attached.
The Review conducted focus groups with patients of the services, and detailed surveys for patients of the service, their friends and family, and for clinicians delivering these services.
Asked by: Lord Boateng (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what proportion of NHS doctors and clinicians recruited from overseas by the NHS in the past three years were from (1) Nigeria, (2) Ghana, and (3) other Sub-Saharan African countries; and whether they have made an assessment of the impact of such recruitment on the health care systems of those countries.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We hugely value our health and social care workers from overseas who work tirelessly to provide the best possible care and enhance our health and care workforce with their valuable skills, experience, and expertise.
No assessment has been made of the savings to the taxpayer resulting from the recruitment of doctors and clinicians trained in Nigeria, Ghana, and other Sub-Saharan African countries. There is also no plan to reimburse the Governments of those countries for the cost of training doctors and clinicians currently working in the National Health Service.
Information on the proportion of NHS doctors and clinicians recruited from overseas in the past three years from Nigeria, Ghana, and other Sub-Saharan African countries is not collected centrally, and no assessment has been made of the impact of such recruitment on the healthcare systems of those countries.
Asked by: Lord Boateng (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the saving to the taxpayer resulting from the recruitment of doctors and clinicians trained in (1) Nigeria, (2) Ghana, and (3) other Sub-Saharan African countries.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We hugely value our health and social care workers from overseas who work tirelessly to provide the best possible care and enhance our health and care workforce with their valuable skills, experience, and expertise.
No assessment has been made of the savings to the taxpayer resulting from the recruitment of doctors and clinicians trained in Nigeria, Ghana, and other Sub-Saharan African countries. There is also no plan to reimburse the Governments of those countries for the cost of training doctors and clinicians currently working in the National Health Service.
Information on the proportion of NHS doctors and clinicians recruited from overseas in the past three years from Nigeria, Ghana, and other Sub-Saharan African countries is not collected centrally, and no assessment has been made of the impact of such recruitment on the healthcare systems of those countries.
Asked by: Lord Boateng (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to reimburse the governments of (1) Nigeria, (2) Ghana, and (3) other Sub-Saharan Africa countries, for the cost of training doctors and clinicians currently working in the NHS.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We hugely value our health and social care workers from overseas who work tirelessly to provide the best possible care and enhance our health and care workforce with their valuable skills, experience, and expertise.
No assessment has been made of the savings to the taxpayer resulting from the recruitment of doctors and clinicians trained in Nigeria, Ghana, and other Sub-Saharan African countries. There is also no plan to reimburse the Governments of those countries for the cost of training doctors and clinicians currently working in the National Health Service.
Information on the proportion of NHS doctors and clinicians recruited from overseas in the past three years from Nigeria, Ghana, and other Sub-Saharan African countries is not collected centrally, and no assessment has been made of the impact of such recruitment on the healthcare systems of those countries.
Asked by: Steve Barclay (Conservative - North East Cambridgeshire)
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 the decision to discontinue the electronic Bed and Capacity Management Systems initiative on (a) A&E waits and (b) patient transfers.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The decision not to proceed with stand-alone investment into electronic bed management systems was based on value for money with other investments offering greater benefits for patients.
The Government is committed to returning accident and emergency services to the standards patients rightly expect. Our new urgent and emergency care plan, published on 6 June 2025, sets out a fundamental shift in the approach to urgent and emergency care. It will drive collaboration across the system to deliver improvements for patients this year, backed by nearly £450 million of capital investment.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the use of artificial intelligence for note-taking in the NHS.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to supporting and enabling the safe, effective, and ethical deployment and adoption of new technologies for the National Health Service. Ambient voice technologies (AVTs) hold transformative potential for the health and care system as note-taking aides. Their adoption, when used safely and securely, is encouraged to improve both the quality of patient care and operational efficiency. NHS England has published guidance on how digital technologies should be approved for use in the NHS, covering key areas such as implementation, information governance, data, security, privacy, and controls. Additional national guidance has been published explaining how AVT solutions should be selected, deployed, and scaled. These standards are required for any AVT solution to be considered safe, effective, and eligible for NHS adoption.
There are strict safeguards in place throughout the NHS to protect data. All providers of services which handle patient data must protect that data in line with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018, and every health organisation is required to appoint a Caldicott Guardian to advise on the protection of people’s health and care data, to ensure it is used properly. This includes where artificial intelligence (AI) is used in relation to patient records.
To mitigate the likelihood and severity of any potential harm to individuals arising from the use of data in AI, the Information Commissioners Office has developed detailed AI guidance which provides information on data protection, including Data Protection Impact Assessments and UK GDPR. It has also produced an AI toolkit to support organisations auditing compliance of their AI-based technologies. NHS bodies are expected to make use of this guidance and toolkit, including those using AVTs.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to develop artificial intelligence note-taking technology for the NHS to safely and securely store patient data.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to supporting and enabling the safe, effective, and ethical deployment and adoption of new technologies for the National Health Service. Ambient voice technologies (AVTs) hold transformative potential for the health and care system as note-taking aides. Their adoption, when used safely and securely, is encouraged to improve both the quality of patient care and operational efficiency. NHS England has published guidance on how digital technologies should be approved for use in the NHS, covering key areas such as implementation, information governance, data, security, privacy, and controls. Additional national guidance has been published explaining how AVT solutions should be selected, deployed, and scaled. These standards are required for any AVT solution to be considered safe, effective, and eligible for NHS adoption.
There are strict safeguards in place throughout the NHS to protect data. All providers of services which handle patient data must protect that data in line with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018, and every health organisation is required to appoint a Caldicott Guardian to advise on the protection of people’s health and care data, to ensure it is used properly. This includes where artificial intelligence (AI) is used in relation to patient records.
To mitigate the likelihood and severity of any potential harm to individuals arising from the use of data in AI, the Information Commissioners Office has developed detailed AI guidance which provides information on data protection, including Data Protection Impact Assessments and UK GDPR. It has also produced an AI toolkit to support organisations auditing compliance of their AI-based technologies. NHS bodies are expected to make use of this guidance and toolkit, including those using AVTs.
Asked by: Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many nurses have been trained in England in each of the past three years.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Higher Education Statistics Agency publishes data on the number of students qualifying from higher education courses in the United Kingdom, and this includes information on a broad ranges of undergraduate nursing courses. The published data is not detailed enough to allow for the reliable identification of all students completing courses which specifically lead to registered nursing status.
As a proxy for the number of students completing nursing courses each year, the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) publish information on the number of UK trained nurses joining their register for the first time, who are resident in England.
The following table shows the number of UK trained nurses joining the NMC register in England for the first time by financial year:
Financial year | Number of UK qualified registered nurses joining the NMC register for the first time |
2022/23 | 16,420 |
2023/24 | 18,478 |
2024/25 | 19,670 |
Source: Nursing and Midwifery Council, March 2025 Annual Data Report.
Asked by: Luke Evans (Conservative - Hinckley and Bosworth)
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 9 June 2025 to Question 54369 on Non-surgical Cosmetic Procedures: Advertising, what options he is considering for further regulation in the non-surgical cosmetic procedure sector.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
In considering options for further regulation of the non-surgical cosmetics sector, the Department has had discussions with a wide range of stakeholders. This includes representatives from professional associations of practitioners operating in the sector, representatives from statutory professional regulatory bodies overseeing healthcare professionals, officials from the Care Quality Commission, representatives from the Professional Standards Authority accredited registers programme, and representatives from local government and legal professionals. The Department has also liaised with officials in the Devolved Administrations and other Government departments.
The Government has considered how the current regulatory landscape of the cosmetics sector operates and what additional levers are available to increase safety in this area. This includes a consideration of the powers granted through the Health and Care Act 2022 to introduce a licensing scheme for non-surgical cosmetic procedures in England and the previous government’s proposals for licensing, which were consulted on in 2023.
We will set out the details of what action we will take in the response to the consultation on the licensing of non-surgical cosmetic procedures in England, which we intend to publish in due course.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether funding is allocated to implementing artificial intelligence in the NHS, in particular technology for supporting patient diagnosis; and if so, what proportion of NHS funding is allocated for that purpose.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We will transform diagnostic services and will support the National Health Service to speed up waiting times for diagnostic tests, including through supporting the roll-out of artificial intelligence (AI). Shorter diagnostic waiting times are a crucial part of reducing overall waiting times and returning to the referral to treatment 18-week standard.
No current assessment has been made on the extent to which AI is being used in the NHS for diagnosing patients. Whilst some funding has been allocated for AI diagnostics, the full proportion of allocated NHS funding is not held.
Against a backdrop of increasing demand for NHS services and significant workforce pressures, AI presents significant opportunities for improving the delivery of care and outcomes for patients. AI tools have the potential to make healthcare more timely, effective, and accessible to the public. To make the most of these opportunities, the Prime Minister has accepted all 50 recommendations of Matt Clifford's AI Opportunities Action Plan.
Through the AI in Health and Care Award, £113 million has been provided to test and evaluate AI technologies in crucial areas, such as imaging and diagnostics. This funding is helping us to generate the evidence needed to deploy effective AI tools across the NHS and improve the lives and health outcomes of our population.
The Department is also focusing the £21 million AI Diagnostic Fund on the deployment of technologies in key, high-demand areas such as chest X-rays and chest computed tomography scans to enable faster diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer in over half of acute trusts in England.
The 2025 Spending Review settlement commits to a major transformation of care delivery, moving from analogue to digital systems, hospital to community-based care, and from treatment to prevention. To support this, the NHS productivity plan is backed by a nearly 50% increase to NHS technology and digital transformation spend since 2025/26, with a total investment of up to £10 billion by 2028/29.
This investment builds upon existing funding that the NHS has directed towards significantly innovating technology in diagnostics, including AI, across the NHS.