Department of Health and Social Care

There are no current plans to collect and publish regional data on the average waiting time for patients with Parkinson’s disease to undergo their first neurology appointment following referral.

NHS England has asked integrated care boards (ICBs) to act primarily as strategic commissioners of health and care services and to reduce the duplication of responsibilities within their structure, with the expectation of achieving a reduction in their running cost allowance. NHS England provided additional guidance to ICBs, National Health Service trusts, and NHS foundation trusts in a letter on 1 April 2025. This letter is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/working-together-in-2025-26-to-lay-the-foundations-for-reform/

Along with the reform of NHS England’s responsibilities, these changes will form part of a package of measures, including the forthcoming 10-Year Health Plan, that positively impact on patient care and safety by driving quality of care, productivity, and innovation in the NHS. ICBs will continue to deliver their statutory responsibilities and NHS England’s transformation team will continue to work with ICBs to develop their plans and ensure the implementation of changes whilst maintaining a focus on delivering NHS statutory functions.

NHS England is supporting provider organisations and integrated care boards, who are the commissioners of audiology services, to improve performance and reduce waiting lists. This includes capital investment to upgrade audiology facilities in National Health Service trusts, expanding audiology testing capacity via community diagnostic centres, and direct support through a national audiology improvement collaborative.

Integrated care board are responsible for commissioning services to meet the needs of their local communities, including in the North East, as they are best placed to take those decisions.

However, more broadly, the Government recognises that urgent and emergency care performance is not at the high standard that patients should expect. We are committed to returning to the safe operational waiting time standards set out in the NHS Constitution.

We have set out plans on the action to be taken to improve services this year and will shortly publish a 10-Year Health Plan, which will set out the radical reforms needed to make the National Health Service fit for the future.

The Government has set out its intention to reform the legislative frameworks of all healthcare professional regulators, starting with the General Medical Council (GMC).

As part of this work, any legislative restrictions on regulators from being able to consider fitness to practise concerns that are more than five years old will be removed from legislation. Regulators such as the GMC will have the discretion to determine whether a concern should be investigated based on the specific details of a fitness to practise case, which may include reflections on the length of time that has elapsed since the concern was raised or occurred.

The Government is aiming to consult on a draft legislative framework for the GMC by the end of this year, and lay the legislation during this Parliament.

We are aware of a supply issue affecting aspirin 300 milligram suppositories until late June 2025, which are used outside of their license of pain and inflammation, for their antiplatelet effect after a stroke. We have issued shortage management guidance to the National Health Service advising on the alternative, aspirin 150 milligram suppositories, which remain available for affected patients.

The Department monitors and manages medicine supply at a national level so that stocks remain available to meet regional and local demand. Information on stock levels within Northumberland is not held centrally.

Medicine supply chains are complex, global, and highly regulated, and there are a number of reasons why supply can be disrupted, many of which are not specific to the United Kingdom and outside of Government control, including manufacturing difficulties, access to raw materials, sudden demand spikes or distribution issues, and regulatory issues. We have drawn on up-to-date intelligence and data on the root causes of medicine supply issues, with manufacturing problems being the most dominant root cause. The Department works closely with industry, the NHS, manufacturers, and other partners across the supply chain to make sure patients across the UK can access the medicines they need.

The resilience of UK supply chains is a key priority, and we are continually learning and seeking to improve the way we work to both manage and help prevent supply issues and avoid shortages. The Department, working closely with NHS England, is taking forward a range of actions to improve our ability to mitigate and manage shortages and to strengthen our resilience. As part of that work, we continue to engage with industry, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, and other colleagues across the supply chain as we progress work to co-design and deliver solutions. We have plans underway to increase the awareness of our work.

The Government recognises the pressures on the National Health Service and the impact this is having on ambulance response times, including in the West Midlands.

We are determined to turn things around, our 10-Year Health Plan will be published in summer 2025, setting out major NHS reforms to move healthcare from hospital to the community, analogue to digital and sickness to prevention.

The NHS Urgent and emergency care plan 2025/26, published on 6 June 2025, requires health systems to focus on those areas likely to have the biggest impact on urgent and emergency care services this year. The plan includes actions that will reduce category 2 ambulance response times to 30 minutes and reduce ambulance handovers to 45 minutes, helping to get 550,000 more ambulances back on the road.

The Government recognises the pressures on the National Health Service and the impact this is having on ambulance response times, including in South Northamptonshire.

We are determined to turn things around, our 10-Year Health Plan will be published in summer 2025, setting out major NHS reforms to move healthcare from hospital to the community, analogue to digital and sickness to prevention.

The NHS Urgent and emergency care plan 2025/26, published on 6 June 2025, requires health systems to focus on those areas likely to have the biggest impact on urgent and emergency care services this year. The plan includes actions that will reduce category 2 ambulance response times to 30 minutes and reduce ambulance handovers to 45 minutes, helping to get 550,000 more ambulances back on the road.

The Government is committed to putting patients first, including in Hampshire. This means making sure that patients, including those waiting to receive high-intensity focused ultrasound, are seen on time and ensuring that people have the best possible experience during their care.

We will transform diagnostic services and will support the National Health Service to increase diagnostic capacity to meet the demand for diagnostic services through investment in new capacity, including ultrasound scanners.

We have made progress in cutting NHS waiting lists and ensuring people have the best possible experience during their care. As of March 2025, the waiting list has reduced by over 219,000 pathways and since July 2024 we have delivered over three million more appointments, exceeding our pledge of two million.

As set out in the Plan for Change, we will ensure 92% of patients return to waiting no longer than 18 weeks from referral to treatment by March 2029, a standard which has not been met consistently since September 2015.

The latest data from March 2025 show that 60.9% of waits for cardiology services are within 18 weeks, which is a 1.6% improvement on the same month in the previous year. While this shows progress, we know there is more to do.

That is why, as well as our commitment to returning to the 92% referral-to-treatment standard for elective care by March 2029, the Elective Reform Plan commits to significant elective reform in cardiology. This includes a key milestone for 2025/26, as set out in National Health Service operational planning guidance, that by the end of March 2026, 65% of waits will be within 18 weeks, with the expectation of a 5% improvement from each provider.

Cardiology is one of five priority specialties identified for significant elective reform in the Elective Reform Plan, due to it being a large volume specialty with waiting list challenges and a high proportion of non-surgical care. Reforms will include increasing specialist cardiology input earlier in patient care pathways, and developing standard and efficient care pathways for common cardiology symptoms. It also includes improving access to cardiac diagnostic tests, including through implementing more straight-to-test pathways, where a general practitioner can refer a patient directly to secondary care for a test, which can reduce unnecessary outpatient appointments and improve waiting times even further for patients across England. These improvements to common cardiology pathways help standardise patient care, reduce inequalities, and improve access to care, especially in the early stages of the pathways, for patients across England.

The Government is committed to prioritising women’s health, and we are taking action to ensure that individuals with endometriosis receive a timely diagnosis and effective treatment. That is why, alongside committing to return to the National Health Service constitutional standard that 92% of patients wait no longer than 18 weeks from Referral to Treatment (RTT) by March 2029, our Elective Reform Plan, published January 2025, sets out a range of efforts to reduce the time patients wait for gynaecological care. This includes rolling out innovative models of care that offer care closer to home and in the community. We also provided additional investment in the Autumn Budget that has enabled us to exceed our pledge to deliver an extra two million operations, scans, and appointments, having now delivered over three million more appointments across elective services, as a first step to achieving the 18-week RTT standard.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has also updated its guidelines on the diagnosis and management of endometriosis, which will help women receive more timely care. This updated version in November 2024 includes updated recommendations that for women with symptoms of endometriosis, initial pharmacological treatment should take place in primary care, and that this can take place in parallel with additional investigations and referral to secondary care if needed. The guideline is available at the following link:

https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng73

As set out in the NHS Operational Planning Guidance 2025/26, integrated care boards are responsible for planning and implementing mental health support teams. Since the inception of the programme, guidance to local commissioners has been to engage with local partners including the voluntary sector in planning for mental health support teams, mapping local support, and through representation in local governance.

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. At the same time, we are also committed to growing homegrown talent and giving opportunities to more people across the country to join the National Health Service. Following publication of our 10-Year Health Plan, we will produce a refreshed workforce plan, setting out how we will train and provide the staff that the NHS needs to care for patients across our communities and treat them on time again.

The immigration White Paper, Restoring Control over the Immigration System, will reshape our immigration system towards those who contribute the most to economic growth, with higher skills standards for graduates and workers. Every area of the immigration system, including work, family, and study, will be tightened up, to reduce record-high levels of net migration and restore control and order to the immigration system. The White Paper is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/restoring-control-over-the-immigration-system-white-paper

Health and Social Care Worker visa data is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/immigration-system-statistics-data-tables

The Department remains committed to moving more healthcare out of hospitals and into the community, to ensure patients and families receive the care they need when and where they need it.

The 10-Year Health Plan will see more tests and scans and services delivered in the community, better joint working between services, and greater use of apps and wearable technology. All will support people to manage their conditions closer to home.

Homecare medicines services will play a key role in this and have already grown considerably in the past five years, now supporting approximately 600,000 patients in England to receive specialist, hospital prescribed medicines at home, work or another convenient place.

The Department and NHS England recognise the importance of strengthening homecare medicine services and continue to prioritise improvements in this area following the House of Lords Public Services Committee’s report, Homecare medicines services: an opportunity lost. The recommendations accepted by the Department and NHS England continue to be explored and developed. Work is underway to scope the opportunities to improve how homecare services can be procured, contracted, and delivered to meet the future needs of the NHS. An update on progress will be provided to the House of Lords Public Services Committee later this year.

The Department remains committed to moving more healthcare out of hospitals and into the community, to ensure patients and families receive the care they need when and where they need it.

The 10-Year Health Plan will see more tests and scans and services delivered in the community, better joint working between services, and greater use of apps and wearable technology. All will support people to manage their conditions closer to home.

Homecare medicines services will play a key role in this and have already grown considerably in the past five years, now supporting approximately 600,000 patients in England to receive specialist, hospital prescribed medicines at home, work or another convenient place.

The Department and NHS England recognise the importance of strengthening homecare medicine services and continue to prioritise improvements in this area following the House of Lords Public Services Committee’s report, Homecare medicines services: an opportunity lost. The recommendations accepted by the Department and NHS England continue to be explored and developed. Work is underway to scope the opportunities to improve how homecare services can be procured, contracted, and delivered to meet the future needs of the NHS. An update on progress will be provided to the House of Lords Public Services Committee later this year.

The Department has not made a specific assessment. Appropriate National Health Service staffing levels are determined locally.

We have taken necessary decisions to fix the foundations in the public finances at the Autumn Budget, enabling the Spending Review settlement of a £22.6 billion increase in resource spending for the Department from 2023/24 outturn to 2025/26.

The employer National Insurance contribution rise was implemented in April and the planning guidance, published on 30 January, sets out the funding available to integrated care boards and the overall approach to funding providers during this next financial year. It takes into account a variety of pay and non-pay factors and pressures on providers of secondary healthcare, including charitable hospices. Further information on the planning guidance is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/2025-26-priorities-and-operational-planning-guidance/

Regarding the national minimum wage, independent organisations, such as charities and social enterprises, including hospices in Kent, are free to develop and adapt their own terms and conditions of employment, including the pay scales. It is for them to determine what is affordable within the financial model they operate, and how to recoup any additional costs they face if they choose to utilise the terms and conditions of NHS staff on the Agenda for Change contract.

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

We are also providing £26 million of revenue funding to support children and young people’s hospices for 2025/26. This is a continuation of the funding which until recently was known as the Children and Young People’s Hospice Grant.

NHS England uses the Oversight Framework to assess the quality and safety of all mental health inpatient services in England, including services in Essex. Risks and issues are escalated nationally using the quality risk and escalation framework.

National Health Service commissioners in England are responsible for ensuring that mental health services are safe, effective, sustainable and meet the needs of the population.

In addition, the Care Quality Commission carries out monitoring and assessments of providers in England to ensure they are providing safe and quality care to people using their services. The Care Quality Commission has a duty under the Mental Health Act 1983 to monitor how services exercise their powers and discharge their duties when patients are detained in hospital or are subject to community treatment orders or guardianship.

No discussions have been held between my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on expanding eligibility to all claimants in receipt of Universal Credit. The Department keeps the earnings thresholds for free prescriptions under review on an annual basis.

Approximately 89% of prescription items dispensed in community pharmacy in England are free of charge, and for the first time in three years prescription charges have been frozen, meaning around 40% of the population will save money on their prescriptions.

No discussions have been held between my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on expanding eligibility to all claimants in receipt of Universal Credit. The Department keeps the earnings thresholds for free prescriptions under review on an annual basis.

Approximately 89% of prescription items dispensed in community pharmacy in England are free of charge, and for the first time in three years prescription charges have been frozen, meaning around 40% of the population will save money on their prescriptions.

In April 2025, a decision was made to suspend the national Medicines Repurposing Programme. The decision was made with consideration to the following factors:

• The programme team and partners have learned that there are fewer repurposing opportunities in practice than was originally envisaged when the programme was established. Partly this is because many opportunities to use existing medicines in new ways can be delivered without a formal repurposing programme;
• Very few repurposed medicines have a strong enough research evidence base to support a licence variation application; and
• The planned integration of NHS England into the Department.

There are alternative sources of advice and support for clinicians or charities wanting to repurpose a medicine, including for a rare condition, such as the Medical Research Council, National Institute for Health and Care Research, and scientific advice from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

Medicines repurposing means using an existing medicine in a new way, outside of its current marketing authorisation. Clinicians are very familiar with the option of prescribing medicines outside their licence, known as off-label use, particularly within specialised care. Off-label access is often agreed at a local level, informed by the available evidence and clinical guidelines, and where the clinician feels this best meets the needs of the patient. When appropriate and supported by the available evidence, national guidance from organisations including the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence or the British National Formulary could potentially support equitable patient access to repurposed medicines.

A further potential route to support patient access to a repurposed medicine used in specialised care in England is to develop a national clinical commissioning policy. A policy will confirm whether a specific treatment should be routinely available to eligible patients in the National Health Service. A policy can only be developed if the medicine is used within prescribed specialised services, namely services for which NHS England is the accountable commissioner, and not services where the accountable commissioners are integrated care boards. National clinical policies are based on the available research evidence and may be subject to a process of funding prioritisation, depending on the cost of the treatment concerned. A NHS clinician can propose a new or revised national clinical commissioning policy where there is sufficient supporting evidence. More information on the process is available at the following link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ya1A9WTzQXQ

NHS England develops clinical commissioning policies in line with published methods and eligibility criteria, which have been subject to consultation. A clinical commissioning policy can recommend medicines that are used on-label or off-label. More information on the policies is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/methods-national-clinical-policies/

The national medicines repurposing programme included a small number of medicines to treat rare diseases. In some cases, the programme supported academics to obtain MHRA scientific advice and gather evidence to support a licensing application. To date, no licensing applications have been received via the programme for medicines to treat rare disease.

The £22.6 billion funding increase announced in the 2024 Autumn Budget provided an above inflation increase for all health spending, with an average growth of 3.4% across 2024/25 and 2025/26.

The funding is not ringfenced and becomes part of the overall Department’s budget. It is therefore not possible to easily track how it has been deployed in a way that is distinct to how the overall budget is allocated. In primary care, we’ve made recent announcements to uplift the general practice and community pharmacy contracts, and on front line services we’ve provided an additional £1.8 billion in 2024/25 for elective care, which then rolls forward into 2025/26, which has helped the National Health Service to deliver two million additional operations, scans, and appointments in our first year of the Government.

The £22.6 billion does not include the additional funding that HM Treasury is providing to departments for employer National Insurance contributions.

The Government is clear that there is no place for sexual misconduct of any kind in medical education or anywhere else. We expect university leaders, working with National Health Service organisations and all others involved in medical education, to stamp out this issue wherever it occurs.

The Department and NHS England are working with medical schools and the Medical Schools Council to improve sexual safety for medical students on placements in the NHS. This includes encouraging those medical schools who are yet to sign up to the NHS sexual safety in health charter to do so, and ensuring that they have in place robust processes and policies and appropriate support for students.

To support universities to tackle sexual misconduct, the Office for Students has also introduced new requirements for preventing, addressing, and investigating incidents to take effect in August 2025. The Department for Education is working with sector bodies to help providers prepare to implement the new measures.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is the independent body that makes recommendations on whether new licensed medicines, including high cost medicines, should be routinely funded by the National Health Service in England, based on the evidence of their costs and benefits. The NICE aims, wherever possible, to publish guidance close to the time of licensing, and the NHS in England is required to fund NICE recommended medicines, normally within three months of final guidance.

The NICE is in the early stages of evaluating obinutuzumab with immunosuppressive therapies for treating lupus nephritis. Its independent committee will meet to consider the evidence on 10 December 2025, and the NICE currently expects to publish final guidance in March 2026. The evaluation is currently on track to be published within 90 days of marketing authorisation.

NHS England has asked integrated care boards (ICBs) to act primarily as strategic commissioners of health services and to reduce the duplication of responsibilities within their structure. NHS England provided additional guidance to ICBs, NHS trusts, and NHS foundation trusts on 1 April 2025, where ICBs were tasked with developing plans setting out how they will manage their resources to deliver across their priorities. This letter is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/working-together-in-2025-26-to-lay-the-foundations-for-reform/

Ministers and the Department will work with the new transformation team at the top of NHS England, led by Sir Jim Mackey, to ensure ICBs continue to fulfil their future functions effectively within the running costs cap and unlock the benefit of working at scale to deliver better care for their population, including for those in rural areas.

We will publish a refreshed workforce plan to deliver the transformed health service we will build over the next decade and treat patients on time again. This will include how we ensure we train healthcare staff, through all training routes, to support patients in all of our communities.

We will publish a refreshed workforce plan to deliver the transformed health service we will build over the next decade and treat patients on time again. This will include how we ensure we train healthcare staff, through all training routes, to support patients in all of our communities.

Pursuant to our answer to Question 52026 on 15 May 2025, the Department is not directly involved in the negotiations over ownership of the land that is proposed for the new access road to Hinchingbrooke Hospital. The New Hospital Programme team in the Department is engaging with the North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust and supporting them in their discussions with the Cambridgeshire Constabulary on the potential acquisition of this land for the new access road.

The Government recognises that the protection in law of certain professional titles is important for public safety. Protecting a title provides assurance to the public that someone using that title is competent and safe to practise.

The title anaesthetist is not protected in law in the United Kingdom. Section 49 of the Medical Act 1983 currently protects the titles physician, doctor of medicine, licentiate in medicine and surgery, bachelor of medicine, surgeon, general practitioner, apothecary, and any name, title, addition, or description implying that a person is registered with the General Medical Council (GMC).

The Government has set out its intention to reform the legislative frameworks of all healthcare professional regulators, starting with the GMC. The Government is aiming to consult on draft GMC legislation by the end of this year and it expects to lay the legislation during this Parliament. The Government will review current protection of title offences including those concerning professions regulated by the GMC as part of this work.

Apprenticeships are an important way to widen routes into the nursing profession, by providing opportunities for people from all backgrounds, and for whom a full-time university course may not be practical or preferred. They also offer existing staff new ways to continue to progress and develop in their career.

We will publish a refreshed workforce plan to deliver the transformed health service we will build over the next decade and treat patients on time again. This will include how we ensure we train healthcare staff, through all training routes, to support patients in all of our communities.

We took the necessary decisions to fix the foundations in the public finances at 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 Department considered the increases to employer National Insurance and the National Living Wage as part of the funding arrangements for community pharmacy in 2024/25 and 2025/26. We have increased funding for community pharmacy to £3.073 billion from April 2025. This represents the largest uplift in funding of any part of the National Health Service, at over 19% across 2024/25 and 2025/26. This shows a first step in delivering stability for the future as well as a commitment to rebuilding the sector.

We have made the 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 and National Minimum Wage rise was implemented in April 2025.

The National Health Service’s planning guidance for 2025/26 has now been published, and sets out the funding available to integrated care boards (ICBs), including the dental ringfence. Dental practices are businesses and decide how they operate themselves, providing they remain compliant with the appropriate regulations. It is up to dental practices to set employee pay and conditions.

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, we will reform the dental contract with the sector, with a shift to focus on prevention and the retention of NHS dentists.

The Government has considered the cost pressures facing adult social care as part of the wider consideration of local government spending within the Spending Review process in 2024.

To enable local authorities to deliver key services such as adult social care, the Government has made available up to £3.7 billion of additional funding for social care authorities in 2025/26, which includes an £880 million increase in the Social Care Grant.

The additional funding available to Kent in 2025/26 means that they have seen an increase to their core spending power of up to 7% in cash terms.

We have made the 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 and National Minimum Wage rise was implemented in April 2025.

General practices (GPs) are valued independent contractors who provide over £13 billion worth of National Health Services. Every year we consult with the profession about what services GPs provide, and the money providers are entitled to in return under their contract, taking account of the cost of delivering services.

We are investing an additional £889 million into GPs to reinforce the front door of the NHS, bringing total spend on the GP Contract to £13.2 billion in 2025/26. This is the biggest increase in over a decade, and we are pleased that the General Practitioners Committee England is supportive of the contract changes.

There are nine specialist mesh centres across England, ensuring that women in every region with complications of mesh inserted for urinary incontinence and vaginal prolapse get the right support. Each mesh centre is led by a multi-disciplinary team to ensure patients get access to the specialist care and treatment that they need, including pain management and psychological support. The mesh centre that serves the West Midlands is located in Nottingham.

NHS England is working with these nine specialist mesh centres to review mesh centre outcomes and patient experience, to ensure they are supporting patients as planned. NHS England has been working with Sling the Mesh and the Rectopexy Mesh Victims and Support Group on this work.

The Government is taking decisive steps to secure the future of life sciences research in the United Kingdom and to ensure we remain internationally competitive. The upcoming Life Sciences Sector Plan sets out a bold vision to strengthen our world-class research and development, attract global investment, and accelerate healthcare innovation.

The National Health Service seeks the best value in its commercial deals for patients and taxpayers. The recent NHS Commercial Framework consultation clarified the circumstances in which indication specific pricing will be considered in England. The framework now provides further guidance relating to the time period over which revenue loss is considered and the components included in its calculation, referencing the potential to include future indications where there is a high degree of confidence of regulatory approval, a National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommendation, and forecast volumes and prices. This will help companies better understand the circumstances in which indication specific pricing may be available to support patient access to new medicines.

The Department does not hold estimates of the number of nurses and doctors expected to leave the National Health Service or retire in the next year.

The Government is committed to making the NHS the best place to work, to ensure we retain more of our skilled and dedicated staff. NHS England is leading work nationally through its retention programme to drive a consistent, system-wide approach to staff retention across NHS trusts. This ensures trusts have access to proven retention strategies, data-driven monitoring, and can foster a more stable, engaged, productive, and supported workforce.

NHS England publishes a compendium of NHS Vacancy Statistics each quarter. The information currently provides four measures of the level of vacancies in the National Health Service, one of which includes the number of medical and registered nursing vacancies reported by NHS trusts to NHS England, which is the most commonly used measure.

Detailed information on the definition of collected data and the available timeseries, along with the measure’s strengths and weaknesses, can be found at the following link:

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/nhs-vacancies-survey

Data for the period to March 2025 was published on 29 May 2025.

Due to the complex nature of how NHS vacancy data is defined and collected, all data sources should be treated with a degree of caution.

NHS Property Services is a company with all of the share capital owned by my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. As a limited company regulated by the Companies Act, it is governed by a board consisting of a majority of non-executive directors, in line with best practise in corporate governance, and this includes a Shareholder Director appointed by my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. Where the company needs to seek formal shareholder consent under the Articles of Association and its scheme of delegation, appropriate departmental approvals are sought.

NHS Property Services publishes an annual statement of accounts, which sets out their performance against corporate key performance indicators agreed with the Department. The latest published set of accounts, setting out performance for the 2023/24 financial year, is available at the following link:

https://www.property.nhs.uk/news-insights/news/annual-report-202324/

The 2024/25 accounts will be published in due course, which will confirm that the company has achieved 100% of its corporate key performance indicators for that year.

In common with other wholly owned subsidiary companies and Arms Lenth Bodies, the Department holds quarterly accountability and performance reviews with the Chair and Chief Executive of NHS Property Services. As is required for all organisations that are arms-length from Government departments, regular periodic reviews are undertaken to ensure the form, function, and accountability arrangements remain appropriate.

NHS Property Services is a company with all of the share capital owned by my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. As a limited company regulated by the Companies Act, it is governed by a board consisting of a majority of non-executive directors, in line with best practise in corporate governance, and this includes a Shareholder Director appointed by my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. Where the company needs to seek formal shareholder consent under the Articles of Association and its scheme of delegation, appropriate departmental approvals are sought.

NHS Property Services publishes an annual statement of accounts, which sets out their performance against corporate key performance indicators agreed with the Department. The latest published set of accounts, setting out performance for the 2023/24 financial year, is available at the following link:

https://www.property.nhs.uk/news-insights/news/annual-report-202324/

The 2024/25 accounts will be published in due course, which will confirm that the company has achieved 100% of its corporate key performance indicators for that year.

In common with other wholly owned subsidiary companies and Arms Lenth Bodies, the Department holds quarterly accountability and performance reviews with the Chair and Chief Executive of NHS Property Services. As is required for all organisations that are arms-length from Government departments, regular periodic reviews are undertaken to ensure the form, function, and accountability arrangements remain appropriate.

NHS England has asked integrated care boards (ICBs) to act primarily as strategic commissioners of health services and reduce duplication of responsibilities within their structure. NHS England provided additional guidance to ICBs, National Health Service trusts and NHS foundation trusts on 1 April 2025 where ICBs are tasked to develop plans setting out how they will manage their resources to deliver across their priorities. The guidance is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/working-together-in-2025-26-to-lay-the-foundations-for-reform/

Local authorities are mandated statutory partner members of ICBs and will maintain their important role to deliver integrated health and care service for their local population. Ministers and the Department will work with the transformation team at the top of NHS England, led by Sir Jim Mackey, to ensure ICBs continue to fulfil their future functions effectively within the running costs cap and unlock the benefit of working at scale to deliver better care for their population.

The NHS England Clinical Priorities Advisory Group (CPAG) continues to meet on a monthly basis to consider policy propositions and service specification propositions that are categorised as in year service. The next scheduled meeting was due for 4 June 2025. The further review of treatments previously considered by CPAG that require significant investment will be deferred until such point that recurrent revenue funding can be identified to support new discretionary spend commitments.

In the last 10 years, where the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has been able to make a recommendation, 92% of blood cancer treatment recommendations were positive. This is significantly higher than the overall rate for cancer treatments (80%).

NICE has made 97 positive recommendations for blood cancer treatments over the last decade, five times more than in the previous ten years. NICE can only recommend treatments when the evidence shows that they provide benefits for patients and value for money to the taxpayer.

NICE cannot evaluate treatments without information from the companies. If a company withdraws from the evaluation process, the assessment is terminated. For blood cancers, the majority of terminated appraisals were because the company did not provide an evidence submission or the technology was unlikely to be a cost-effective use of National Health Service resources.

To market a medicine in the United Kingdom, a company must secure a marketing authorisation or ‘licence’ from the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency. Newly-licensed medicines, including licence extensions for existing medicines, are appraised by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) which is the independent body responsible for developing evidence-based guidance for the National Health Service in England on whether new medicines represent a clinically and cost-effective use of resources. NICE aims wherever possible to issue guidance on new medicines close to the time of licensing. The NHS in England is legally required to fund drugs recommended by NICE, usually within three months of final guidance.

NHS England may also develop a national clinical commissioning policy to confirm whether a specific treatment which has not been appraised by NICE should be routinely available to eligible patients in the NHS in England. A policy can only be developed if the medicine is used within prescribed specialised services, namely services for which NHS England is the accountable commissioner. NHS England develops clinical commissioning policies in line with published methods and eligibility criteria. National clinical policies are based on the available research evidence and may be subject to a process of funding prioritisation, depending on the cost of the treatment concerned. More information is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/methods-national-clinical-policies/