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 5 November 2025 to Question 86003, if his Department will commission a specific comparative review, in collaboration with the Medical Research Council, into the relative level of National Institute for Health and Care Research funding for research into myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome compared with other long-term conditions.

Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department does not intend to commission a specific comparative review into the relative level of National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) or Medical Research Council funding for research into myalgic encephalomyelitis, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), compared with other long-term conditions. We recognise that ME/CFS is an under-researched area, and we are committed to working with the ME/CFS community to identify and address barriers to research, with the ambition of supporting and funding more research and capacity-building programmes.

As outlined in the ME/CFS Final Delivery Plan, there has historically been a relatively low amount of biomedical research funded on ME/CFS, compared with disease burden. Our efforts are focussed on delivering the actions outlined in the ME/CFS Final Delivery Plan to support and increase research in this area. Since our answer to Question 86003, we have hosted a showcase on post‑acute infection conditions, bringing together people with lived experience, researchers, clinicians, and funders to stimulate further research. A summary of this showcase has been published on NIHR Open Research. We have also made progress with our new funding opportunity for development awards focussed on the feasibility of a phase 2 platform clinical trial. This would test multiple repurposed pharmaceutical interventions and/or non-pharmacological interventions for the treatment of post-viral conditions including ME/CFS. The committee will now consider the applications, and shortlisting decisions will be shared with the researchers in March.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what safeguards are in place to ensure that patients with a stoma are (a) offered a choice of dispensing provider and (b) actively involved in decisions relating to appliance selection; and how is compliance with those safeguards is monitored across Integrated Care Systems.

Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

There are a range of legislative and operational safeguards in place to support patient choice and facilitate co-decision between clinicians and patients regarding stoma appliances. In terms of legislation, the National Health Service (Pharmaceutical and Local Pharmaceutical Services) Regulations 2013 aim to ensure that pharmaceutical services are delivered in a manner that is not conflicted with inducements that may be provided.

Guidance on Managing conflicts of interest in the NHS, updated in 2024, outlines that in services like stoma, where staff may be sponsored by industry, then such post holders must not promote or favour the sponsor’s specific products, and information about alternative products and suppliers should be provided. In addition, the British Healthcare Trade Association agreed a Code of Practice with its members who are involved in the dispensing of these appliances. The code aims to ensure ethical conduct and to safeguard patient interests in the dispensing process.

How compliance with the safeguards is monitored is a decision for the integrated care systems. Some areas have introduced central prescribing hubs in order to avoid any undue influence from sponsored posts or the dispensing contractors. Under the prescribing hubs a patient can use any dispensing contractor, but the prescription cannot be changed by them.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to encourage patients with a learning disability to apply to be on their GP's learning disability register.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

Being on a general practice’s (GP) learning disability register is crucial to ensuring that people receive the right support at the right time, including access to annual health checks. Our approach focuses both on encouraging eligible patients to join the register and on supporting GPs to identify and register people with a learning disability.

Work is currently underway to increase uptake, including encouraging children and young people to join the learning disability register at 14 years old, and to support people who do not have a confirmed learning disability diagnosis to access the register and appropriate services.

NHS England monitors uptake of the learning disability register and publishes data routinely. Information on the number of people on GP learning disability registers is in the table attached.

NHS England is also working with people with lived experience, clinical professionals, and commissioners to produce guidance on improving identification of learning disability and developing a quality framework setting expectations for annual health checks and health action plans. My Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, wrote to all GPs in October 2025, emphasising the importance of the learning disability register and the need to deliver high-quality annual health checks.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to make GPs aware of the learning disability register.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

Being on a general practice’s (GP) learning disability register is crucial to ensuring that people receive the right support at the right time, including access to annual health checks. Our approach focuses both on encouraging eligible patients to join the register and on supporting GPs to identify and register people with a learning disability.

Work is currently underway to increase uptake, including encouraging children and young people to join the learning disability register at 14 years old, and to support people who do not have a confirmed learning disability diagnosis to access the register and appropriate services.

NHS England monitors uptake of the learning disability register and publishes data routinely. Information on the number of people on GP learning disability registers is in the table attached.

NHS England is also working with people with lived experience, clinical professionals, and commissioners to produce guidance on improving identification of learning disability and developing a quality framework setting expectations for annual health checks and health action plans. My Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, wrote to all GPs in October 2025, emphasising the importance of the learning disability register and the need to deliver high-quality annual health checks.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions he has had with NHS England on reducing long-stay hospital delays caused by social care capacity.

Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department works closely with NHS England on reducing long-stay hospital delays including those caused by social care capacity. Though the Better Care Fund (BCF) the Government provides over £9 billion to be used jointly by the National Health Service and local authorities towards achieving agreed goals for reducing discharge delays.

Local systems have been asked to place a particular focus on reducing bed occupancy and improving patient flow. We have asked National Health Service trusts to work with local authorities on eliminating the longest days, including those caused by waiting for care packages. Areas facing the most significant pressures are receiving targeted support to improve discharge performance.

Updated BCF guidance published in February sets out arrangements to further support timely discharge from hospital including focussing on services that help people regain independence. The updated BCF guidance is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/better-care-fund-framework-2026-to-2027/better-care-fund-framework-2026-to-2027

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps the Department is taking to help raise public and clinical awareness of the BEST4 Screening trial and to support eligible patients to participate in capsule sponge testing for early detection of Barrett’s oesophagus.

Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department funds research and research infrastructure through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). The NIHR is funding the BEST4 trial with over £3 million funding contributed through the NIHR Health Technology Assessment Programme and a further £3 million funding from Cancer Research UK. This includes funding for the research team to engage with the patient community.

The study is also supported by NIHR Research Delivery Network (RDN) portfolio adoption to enable the recruitment of eligible participants and support research delivery. The NIHR RDN is raising awareness of the trial and supporting eligible patients to participate through National Health Service Research text messaging, providing secure mobile screening vans and engaging clinicians to connect them with the study.

Additionally, recruitment for the BEST4 trial is being supported by Be Part of Research, a free service that allows people across the UK to find and sign up to research relevant to them. The NIHR has also supported the trial with proactive communications, including a news item on 08/04/2025.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment the Department has made of the potential causes of recent trends in levels of crisis‑level mental health referrals among children.

Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

To understand the rises in prevalence and demand on mental health services, the Government has launched an independent review into mental health conditions, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and autism. The review will examine the evidence around what is driving rising demand, including determining which trends reflect real increases in disorder, which reflect changes in awareness or access, and which are artefacts of measurement or definition.

The review will look at prevalence, early intervention, and treatment, and the current challenges facing clinical services. It will also explore the extent to which diagnosis, medicalisation, and treatment improve outcomes. In addition, the review will look beyond the National Health Service to examine data across education, employment, housing, and digital culture to understand how they interact and where intervention can make the greatest difference.

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 improve transparency in reporting patient harm occurring in accident and emergency departments.

Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government is committed to transparency in reporting patient harm in the National Health Service. The Learn from Patient Safety Events (LFPSE) service allows frontline workers in NHS providers to record and analyse their own patient safety incidents in order to identify trends. At the national level, NHS England reviews hundreds of incidents each week via LFPSE, looking for risks that can be acted on, including by issuing National Patient Safety Alerts and collaborating with partners to address issues identified.

We recognise that urgent and emergency care performance has not consistently met expectations in recent years and are committed to restoring the waiting standards set out in the NHS Constitution by the end of this Parliament, as outlined in the Medium-Term Planning Framework, which is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/medium-term-planning-framework-delivering-change-together-2026-27-to-2028-29/

NHS England has also published guidance on the Model Emergency Department, setting out core principles and pathways for high-performing emergency departments, which is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/the-model-emergency-department-high-performing-urgent-and-emergency-care-pathways/

We are also taking action to tackle corridor care by introducing new reporting arrangements and committing to publishing data on its prevalence for the first time, improving transparency and driving operational improvement. Where corridor care cannot be avoided, updated guidance has been published to support trusts to deliver it safely, while maintaining patient dignity and privacy. The updated guidance is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/principles-for-providing-patient-care-in-corridors/

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if his Department will publish data on CAMHS outcomes, broken down by therapy type and delivery method.

Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

NHS England publishes data on children and young people’s mental health services through the Mental Health Services Data Set (MHSDS). This includes information on outcomes following treatment, as well as breakdowns by primary reason for referral and service type.

However, published data are not currently broken down by specific therapy type or by delivery method.

In December 2025, 26.6% of closed referrals for children and young people aged between zero and 17 years old has at least two contacts and any perspective paired score. As a result, published outcome statistics are not fully representative of all those receiving care.

NHS England is the data controller for the MHSDS and is responsible for decisions relating to the publication of further breakdowns. The Department will continue to work with NHS England to consider how data transparency can be improved.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what funding has been allocated in the next financial year to assist research into prosopagnosia.

Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department invests over £1.6 billion each year on research through its research delivery arm, the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR).

No funding for the next financial year has allocated specifically to prosopagnosia. However, the NIHR welcomes funding applications for research into any aspect of human health and care, including prosopagnosia. These 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.

https://www.nihr.ac.uk/get-involved/suggest-a-research-topic

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 implications for his policies of regional variations in access to (a) nursing and (b) residential home spaces for patients waiting to be discharged.

Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

Local authorities are best placed to understand and plan for the needs of their population. That is why, under the Care Act 2014, local authorities are tasked with the duty to shape their care market and to commission a range of high-quality, sustainable, and person-centred care and support services to meet the diverse needs of all local people.

In performing that duty, a local authority must have regard to current and likely future demand for such services and consider how providers might meet that demand. This includes ensuring sufficient rehabilitation and recovery capacity to support timely and safe discharge for people with more complex needs, including those who may require a new nursing or residential home placement where appropriate.

The Government is making over £4.6 billion of additional funding available for adult social care in 2028/29 compared to 2025/26, to support the sector in making improvements. Additionally, through the Better Care Fund, over £9 billion is provided for 2025/26 for the National Health Service and local authorities to work jointly towards agreed goals on reducing discharge delays.

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 help increase the number of (a) nursing and (b) residential home placements.

Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

Local authorities are best placed to understand and plan for the needs of their population. That is why, under the Care Act 2014, local authorities are tasked with the duty to shape their care market and to commission a range of high-quality, sustainable, and person-centred care and support services to meet the diverse needs of all local people.

In performing that duty, a local authority must have regard to current and likely future demand for such services and consider how providers might meet that demand. This includes ensuring sufficient rehabilitation and recovery capacity to support timely and safe discharge for people with more complex needs, including those who may require a new nursing or residential home placement where appropriate.

The Government is making over £4.6 billion of additional funding available for adult social care in 2028/29 compared to 2025/26, to support the sector in making improvements. Additionally, through the Better Care Fund, over £9 billion is provided for 2025/26 for the National Health Service and local authorities to work jointly towards agreed goals on reducing discharge delays.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions he has had with NHS England on delays to the supply of Heraeus bone cement.

Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department is working closely with NHS England, professional bodies and industry partners and have implemented a range of measures to resolve the shortage of bone cement.

The National Health Service has secured stock of an alternative bone cement product, which is now in the United Kingdom for onward distribution. There is sufficient supply to confidently resume elective procedures, and further deliveries are planned in the coming weeks.

The NHS also issued immediate guidance to hospitals to ensure that trauma and urgent care could continue safely.

We will keep our horizon-scanning processes under review and work specifically to identify future potential risks and safeguard continuity of future bone cement supplies.

The Department has held regular discussions with NHS England on the supply position, operational impact, and plans to secure alternative products, including through established incident coordination structures.

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 causes of prescription medicine shortages in the UK, including reported shortages of aspirin 75mg dispersible tablets and supply disruption affecting carbamazepine (Tegretol) prolonged-release tablets; and what steps he is taking to improve national medicines supply.

Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

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. There are approximately 14,000 licensed medicines and the overwhelming majority are in good supply.

The Department is currently not aware of any supply issues affecting Tegretol prolonged-release tablets.

The Department is aware of a recent disruption to the supply of aspirin tablets due to manufacturing issues and knock-on increased demand. The issues have been addressed, and we are working with suppliers to aid a return to normal supply as soon as possible with stock regularly being made available for pharmacies to order.

We continue to work with manufacturers and United Kingdom distributors to maximise supply to pharmacies and hospitals across the country. The Department is closely monitoring the situation and expects supplies to return to normal in the coming weeks.

In August 2025, the Department published a policy paper, Managing a robust and resilience supply of medicines, setting out our actions to strengthen supply chain resilience, which is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/managing-a-robust-and-resilient-supply-of-medicines/managing-a-robust-and-resilient-supply-of-medicines#next-steps

The Department has committed to providing a published update on progress in 2026.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has had recent discussions with UK Research and Innovation on increasing funding for research into invasive lobular breast cancer.

Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

Government responsibility for delivering cancer research is shared between the Department for Health and Social Care, with research delivered by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, with research delivered via UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), which includes the Medical Research Council (MRC). The Department for Health and Social Care and UKRI officials meet regularly to discuss a range of research investments to drive the maximum collective research impact on policy, practice, and individual lives.

The MRC and the NIHR are committed to supporting the development of fundable research proposals in lobular breast cancer and continues to encourage researchers to submit high quality funding applications to funding programmes in this area.

To further stimulate research in this area, in November 2025, the NIHR issued a highlight notice encouraging applications for new research into lobular breast cancer, to improve the detection, diagnosis, treatment, and long-term surveillance of patients.

The Government recognises the crucial need for research into all forms of cancer, including lobular breast cancer. It remains committed to the role of research to drive a stronger collective understanding of the biology behind lobular breast cancer and to improve outcomes for women.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport on the role of sport in health outcomes for young people with Down's syndrome in Surrey.

Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

No discussions have taken place between the Department of Health and Social Care and Department for Culture, Media and Sport about young people with Down syndrome in Surrey and the role of sport in health outcomes.

The UK Chief Medical Officers’ physical activity guidelines for disabled young people sets out the benefits of movement and strength activities, which includes helping to support disabled young people’s well-being, mood, development of healthy muscles, balance, and motor skills.

Through our 10-Year Health Plan, Government departments are working together to break down the barriers people face and help get more people moving. This includes development of a national plan for physical activity and a new way to deliver physical education, sport, and physical activity in schools. This work provides us with opportunities to improve ways for disabled young people to enjoy and benefit from sport, play and physical activity, whether in school, through local sports clubs, or in leisure centres and play spaces, making use of parks and nature.

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 help ensure the NHS is not dependent on single suppliers of medical products.

Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

Central procurement processes through NHS Supply Chain include a range of measures to prevent the dependency on single suppliers of medical products.

When designing strategies, at category and sourcing strategy stages, NHS Supply Chain completes a category risk analysis which highlights sole source or supplier dominance risk and is analysed before being accepted or rejected.

Unless there is a requirement for a unique product, NHS Supply Chain tries to avoid sole sourcing. Occasionally, a tender will only produce one response for a product, so market constraints may result in sole source. In this case NHS Supply Chain will review the market and seek new entrants where possible and relevant.

Where the procurement of a product from a sole source is unavoidable, NHS Supply Chain will conduct enhanced due diligence on sole source suppliers which could include:

- business continuity management assurances;

- tailored selection criteria; and

- contingency planning in the event that the sole supplier is unable to supply.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of diagnostic overshadowing on people with Down syndrome; and if he will take steps to include expectations on condition-specific training for relevant professionals within guidance under the Down Syndrome Act 2022.

Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

In 2023, NHS England produced a guide for frontline staff as they support people with a learning disability which asks staff to be aware of diagnostic overshadowing, and which is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/clinical-guide-for-front-line-staff-to-support-the-management-of-patients-with-a-learning-disability-and-autistic-people-relevant-to-all-clinical-specialties/

NHS England does not hold data on the extent of diagnostic overshadowing for people with Down syndrome, nor is the data held centrally.

Through the implementation of the Down Syndrome Act 2022, the Government is striving to improve life outcomes for people with Down syndrome, raise awareness and understanding of their needs, and break down barriers to opportunity that they, and other disabled people, face.

Under the Down Syndrome Act, my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, is required to give guidance to relevant authorities in health, social care, education, and housing services on what they should be doing to support the needs of people with Down syndrome. The draft guidance, which was published for public consultation on 5 November 2025, acknowledges that the care of people with Down syndrome may be affected by diagnostic overshadowing and recognises its impact on the care and treatment that people receive. Once the consultation has closed on 30 March 2026, the Government will consider all consultation responses to inform the final guidance to be published.

Relevant authorities, as defined in the schedule to the act, have a duty to have due regard to the final guidance once it is published. The act does not create any new functions beyond this duty. Rather, it brings together existing statutory requirements and guidance that relevant authorities must and/or should already be complying with to support people with Down syndrome and people with other conditions and/or a learning disability who have similar needs.

Under existing legislation, Care Quality Comision registered providers must ensure that staff receive appropriate professional development which is necessary for them to carry out their duties and must receive specific training on learning disability and autism appropriate to their role, as per Section 20 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008, Section 181(7) of the Health and Care Act 2022 and Regulation 18 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. We expect that providers should be considering whether specific training on Down syndrome is required for their staff, and the draft guidance under the Down Syndrome Act sets out that some staff who work frequently with people with Down syndrome may require additional training on Down syndrome.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people are currently on the NHS Talking Therapy waiting list in the UK.

Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The latest published annual statistics for NHS Talking Therapies services in England for 2024/25 show that the mean average waiting time in days between the date the referral request was received and the date of first appointment, where the referral had a first attended appointment in the year, was 21.5 days.

As of 31 December 2025, there were 118,988 open referrals to NHS Talking Therapies services in England yet to have a first appointment.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what was the average waiting time in 2025 for an NHS Talking Therapy appointment following referral.

Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The latest published annual statistics for NHS Talking Therapies services in England for 2024/25 show that the mean average waiting time in days between the date the referral request was received and the date of first appointment, where the referral had a first attended appointment in the year, was 21.5 days.

As of 31 December 2025, there were 118,988 open referrals to NHS Talking Therapies services in England yet to have a first appointment.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will take steps to ensure that the final guidance under the Down Syndrome Act 2022 provides direction on required provision, including speech and language support and transition to adulthood; and how implementation will be monitored.

Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

Under the Down Syndrome Act 2022, my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, is required to give guidance to relevant authorities in health, social care, education, and housing services on what they should be doing to meet the needs of people with Down syndrome.

We considered a range of evidence from our Call for Evidence and engagement when developing the draft Down syndrome guidance, currently out for public consultation, including research on speech and language therapy (SLT).

The draft guidance highlights that people with Down syndrome are likely to have communication needs and sets out support that can be provided, including that people with Down syndrome should be able to access speech and language assessment and support in a timely manner. The guidance is also clear that NHS commissioners and providers may offer people with Down syndrome, and their families and carers, a range of SLT services and interventions to support their communication, tailored to their specific needs. This should include early intervention services starting from birth, continuing through early years to support a good start in life, and then into primary and secondary school and transition to adulthood, including transitions from child to adult care and support.

Relevant authorities, as defined in the schedule to the act, have a duty to have due regard to the final guidance once it is published. The act does not create any new functions beyond this duty. Rather, it brings together existing statutory requirements and guidance that relevant authorities must and/or should already be complying with to support people with Down Syndrome and people with other conditions and/or a learning disability who have similar needs.

NHS England published statutory guidance on 9 May 2023 which says that every integrated care board (ICB) should identify a member of its board to lead on supporting the ICB to perform its functions effectively in the interest of people with Down syndrome. The statutory guidance sets out NHS England’s expectations about fulfilling executive lead functions and outlines the responsibilities of these roles in more detail at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/executive-lead-roles-within-integrated-care-boards/

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 introducing a national redress scheme for those harmed by valproate and pelvic mesh.

Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government is carefully considering the valuable work done by the Patient Safety Commissioner and the resulting Hughes Report, which sets out options for redress for those harmed by sodium valproate and pelvic mesh. This is a complex issue, and the Government's priority is to ensure that any response is fair, balanced and sensitive to those affected.

The Department is carefully considering the recommendations within the Hughes Report, including the merits of any potential redress scheme, in collaboration with relevant departments, and we aim to provide an update in due course.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans are in the GP IT roadmap to allow for the safe handover of care at the end of each working day to out-of-hours providers.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

As part of the Government’s National Health Service 10‑Year Health Plan commitment to deliver a single patient record, we are supporting healthcare professionals to access important medical information about patients by investing £20 million in the Connecting Care Records programme. This programme ensures authorised health and care professionals in England have safe and secure access to the person-related information that they need to provide care when they need it, where they need it, and how they need it.

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 technologies by hospice and palliative care providers; and what safeguards are in place to ensure that those technologies maintain patient safety, data protection and equitable access to high-quality end of life care.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

No formal assessment has been made of the use of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies by hospices and other palliative care providers. The majority of hospices are independent charitable organisations and so are free to make their own decisions regarding the adoption and deployment of AI tools.

NHS England is dedicated to enabling the safe deployment and adoption of AI technologies, providing clear guidance on approval, implementation, information governance, security, privacy, and controls. NHS England provides guidance on how technologies should be selected, deployed, and scaled to ensure they are safe, effective, and eligible for National Health Service adoption, including accuracy. NHS trusts are expected to ensure that access to the AI tools they employ is safe, ethical, effective, and equitable for all within their remit.

Strict safeguards are in place across the NHS to guarantee patient safety, and data protection. All NHS organisations, including NHS palliative care and end-of-life care services, are expected to comply with Medical Devices Regulations (SI 2002 No 618, as amended) (UK MDR 2002) and digital clinical safety standards.

Providers handling patient data must comply with UK General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018. Each health organisation is required to appoint a Caldicott Guardian, whose role is to advise on the protection and proper use of health and care data, including where AI is involved.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps are being taken by NHS England to improve the performance of integrated care boards that are making inadequate progress in increasing funding for community care.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

Community health services are a fundamental part of the health and care system and an essential building block in developing a neighbourhood health service.

We know people are waiting too long for community services. That is why, for the first time, we have set a clear target for systems to work to reduce long waits in NHS England’s Medium-Term Planning Framework.

The Medium Term Planning Framework outlines how integrated care boards (ICBs) should strengthen community services in line with the left shift ambitions set out in the 10-Year Health Plan. Specifically, it asks that in 2026/27 all ICBs:

- increase community health service capacity to meet growth in demand, expected to be approximately 3% nationally per year;

- actively manage long waits for community health services, reducing the proportion of waits over 18 weeks and developing a plan to eliminate all 52-week waits.

As part of the medium term planning process, ICBs should ensure community health services are adequately funded to meet these targets, and must submit plans which set out how they will implement this ambition. NHS England is currently in the process of assuring these plans and will continue to monitor their implementation.

To support the shift to neighbourhood health, we published in 2025 an overview of the core community health services, called Standardising Community Health Services, that ICBs should consider when planning for their local populations to support improved commissioning and delivery of community health services, a vital part of neighbourhood health. Further guidance was published in February 2026, providing more detailed descriptions of the core components of community health services for ICBs. Codifying community health services will help to better assess demand and capacity. It will also help commissioners make investment choices as they design neighbourhood health provision that shifts care to community-based settings.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what measures they have put in place to enable assessment of the performance of integrated care boards in prioritising community care services.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

Community health services are a fundamental part of the health and care system and an essential building block in developing a neighborhood health service.

We know people are waiting too long for community services. That is why, for the first time, we have set a clear target for systems to work to reduce long waits in NHS England’s Medium-Term Planning Framework.

The Medium Term Planning Framework outlines how integrated care boards (ICBs) should strengthen community services in line with the left shift ambitions set out in the 10-Year Health Plan. Specifically, it asks that in 2026/27 all ICBs:

- increase community health service capacity to meet growth in demand, expected to be approximately 3% nationally per year; and

- actively manage long waits for community health services, reducing the proportion of waits over 18 weeks and developing a plan to eliminate all 52-week waits.

As part of the medium term planning process, and to hold the system to account, ICBs have to submit plans which set out how they will implement this ambition. NHS England is currently in the process of assuring these plans and will continue to monitor their implementation.

To support the shift to neighbourhood health, we published in 2025 an overview of the core community health services, called Standardising Community Health Services, that ICBs should consider when planning for their local populations to support improved commissioning and delivery of community health services, a vital part of neighbourhood health. Further guidance was published in February 2026, providing more detailed descriptions of the core components of community health services for ICBs. Codifying community health services will help to better assess demand and capacity. It will also help commissioners make investment choices as they design neighbourhood health provision that shifts care to community-based settings.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to his Department’s press release entitled Patients to benefit from improved access to dental appointments, published on 21 February 2026, how many additional urgent appointments will be available in (a) Basildon and (b) Thurrock as a result of the broadening of the scope of the target.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government is committed to ensuring people can access urgent dental care when they need it. Over the past year, integrated care boards (ICBs) have been commissioning additional urgent dental appointments and there is now an urgent care safety net available in all areas of the country.

We are broadening the scope of the commitment to deliver additional appointments so that they can be used for more patients, not just those who meet the clinical criteria for “urgent” care. This will allow ICBs to use the extra commissioned capacity more flexibly and deliver more appointments, ensuring resources reach those who genuinely need treatment. Each ICB is responsible for commissioning dental services in their area from local providers.

We will ensure a continued urgent care safety net by requiring, from April 2026, high street dentists to deliver 8.2% of their total contract value as urgent or unscheduled care.

The Mid and South Essex ICB, which includes the South Basildon and East Thurrock constituency, delivered 53,376 additional courses of treatment in the first seven months of this financial year, from April to October 2025, compared to the corresponding months of the year before the general election.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to his Department’s press release entitled Patients to benefit from improved access to dental appointments, published on 21 February 2026, how many additional urgent appointments each high street dentist will be required to provide.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government is committed to ensuring people can access urgent dental care when they need it. Over the past year, integrated care boards (ICBs) have been commissioning additional urgent dental appointments and there is now an urgent care safety net available in all areas of the country.

We are broadening the scope of the commitment to deliver additional appointments so that they can be used for more patients, not just those who meet the clinical criteria for “urgent” care. This will allow ICBs to use the extra commissioned capacity more flexibly and deliver more appointments, ensuring resources reach those who genuinely need treatment. Each ICB is responsible for commissioning dental services in their area from local providers.

We will ensure a continued urgent care safety net by requiring, from April 2026, high street dentists to deliver 8.2% of their total contract value as urgent or unscheduled care.

The Mid and South Essex ICB, which includes the South Basildon and East Thurrock constituency, delivered 53,376 additional courses of treatment in the first seven months of this financial year, from April to October 2025, compared to the corresponding months of the year before the general election.

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 improve access to, and the effectiveness of, palliative and end of life care.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government is developing a Palliative Care and End-of-Life Care Modern Service Framework (MSF) for England. The MSF will drive improvements in the services that patients and their families receive at the end of life and will enable integrated care boards (ICBs) to address challenges in access, quality, and sustainability through the delivery of high-quality, personalised care. This will be aligned with the ambitions set out in last year’s 10-Year Health Plan.

Through our MSF, we will closely monitor the shift towards the strategic commissioning of palliative care and end-of-life care services to ensure that services reduce variation in access and quality.

The MSF will put in place a clear and effective mechanism to deliver a fundamental improvement to the care provided. This will enable the adoption of evidence-based interventions that are proven to make a difference to patients and their families. Examples include earlier identification of need, care delivered closer to home by integrated generalist and specialist teams, and strengthened out-of-hours community health support, including dedicated telephone advice.

Last year’s Strategic Commissioning Framework and Medium-Term Planning Guidance for the National Health Service also make clear the expectations that ICBs should understand current and projected total service utilisation and costs for those at the end of life, creating an overall plan to more effectively meet these needs through neighbourhood health.

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 5 January 2026 to Question 89382 on Social Services: Investment, whether his Department plans to (a) increase public sector funding and (b) incentivise private sector investment in social care in England.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

We are progressing towards a National Care Service based on greater choice and control, joined up services, and higher quality of care, with over £4.6 billion of additional funding available for adult social care by 2028/29 compared to 2025/26. We have no direct plans designed to incentivise private investment.

Under the Care Act 2014, local authorities are tasked with the duty to shape their care markets to meet the diverse needs of all local people and are responsible for deciding how they spend the funding made available to them for adult social care, unless it is ringfenced for a particular purpose.

While private adult social care providers are individual businesses and the Government does not intervene in their operations, we have been clear that the expectation is for adult social care providers to behave responsibly, including through sustainable financial arrangements that support the sector and meet need as required.

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 help ensure those who self-fund their social care have access to appropriate complaints procedures available to them.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

By law, all health and social care services must have a procedure for dealing efficiently with complaints, and anyone who has seen or experienced poor-quality care has the right to complain to the organisation that provided or paid for the care.

If an individual has raised a complaint and is not satisfied with the way a provider has dealt with their complaint, they may escalate it to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) who can investigate individual concerns. The LGSCO is the independent complaints lead for adult social care and investigates complaints from those receiving social care.

The Government has continued discussions with the LGSCO and the Care Quality Commission about how the regulator can most effectively support the signposting of self-funders to the LGSCO by private providers.

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 adequacy of the complaints signposting available to those who self-fund their social care.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

By law, all health and social care services must have a procedure for dealing efficiently with complaints, and anyone who has seen or experienced poor-quality care has the right to complain to the organisation that provided or paid for the care.

If an individual has raised a complaint and is not satisfied with the way a provider has dealt with their complaint, they may escalate it to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) who can investigate individual concerns. The LGSCO is the independent complaints lead for adult social care and investigates complaints from those receiving social care.

The Government has continued discussions with the LGSCO and the Care Quality Commission about how the regulator can most effectively support the signposting of self-funders to the LGSCO by private providers.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what action they are taking to address any failures in cancer care arising from fragmented commissioning arrangements between NHS England, health and wellbeing boards and prison healthcare providers.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

NHS England commissions all services across the prison estate to be equivalent with those expected to be received in the community, including for cancer care.

All people received into prison have an initial health screen on arrival into prison. This assessment focuses on initial risks and key medicines required and any referrals to other services for immediate assessment. Any concerns regarding failures in cancer care for people in prison should be escalated by prison healthcare to the local National Health Service Health and Justice Commissioner.

NHS England expects all providers and healthcare professionals providing any NHS funded or commissioned service to have appropriate and relevant qualifications and work within the scope of their professional registration, including clinicians working to treat people in prison. Any women with a cancer diagnosis who require secondary or tertiary care should have access to these services as they would if they were in the community.

More information regarding assessments in relation to women diagnosed with cancer in prison can be found in the report, The health of people in prison, on probation and in the secure NHS estate in England, published in November 2025 by Professor Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer. A copy of this report is attached.

Through the National Cancer Plan, published on 4 February 2026, we are committed to supporting all people living with or recovering from cancer.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what action they are taking to ensure that women in prison with cancer (1) are treated by appropriately qualified clinicians, and (2) have consistent access to oncology specialists.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

NHS England commissions all services across the prison estate to be equivalent with those expected to be received in the community, including for cancer care.

All people received into prison have an initial health screen on arrival into prison. This assessment focuses on initial risks and key medicines required and any referrals to other services for immediate assessment. Any concerns regarding failures in cancer care for people in prison should be escalated by prison healthcare to the local National Health Service Health and Justice Commissioner.

NHS England expects all providers and healthcare professionals providing any NHS funded or commissioned service to have appropriate and relevant qualifications and work within the scope of their professional registration, including clinicians working to treat people in prison. Any women with a cancer diagnosis who require secondary or tertiary care should have access to these services as they would if they were in the community.

More information regarding assessments in relation to women diagnosed with cancer in prison can be found in the report, The health of people in prison, on probation and in the secure NHS estate in England, published in November 2025 by Professor Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer. A copy of this report is attached.

Through the National Cancer Plan, published on 4 February 2026, we are committed to supporting all people living with or recovering from cancer.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to prevent disruption of cancer treatment for patients following imprisonment.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

NHS England commissions all services across the prison estate to be equivalent with those expected to be received in the community, including for cancer care.

All people received into prison have an initial health screen on arrival into prison. This assessment focuses on initial risks and key medicines required and any referrals to other services for immediate assessment. Any concerns regarding failures in cancer care for people in prison should be escalated by prison healthcare to the local National Health Service Health and Justice Commissioner.

NHS England expects all providers and healthcare professionals providing any NHS funded or commissioned service to have appropriate and relevant qualifications and work within the scope of their professional registration, including clinicians working to treat people in prison. Any women with a cancer diagnosis who require secondary or tertiary care should have access to these services as they would if they were in the community.

More information regarding assessments in relation to women diagnosed with cancer in prison can be found in the report, The health of people in prison, on probation and in the secure NHS estate in England, published in November 2025 by Professor Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer. A copy of this report is attached.

Through the National Cancer Plan, published on 4 February 2026, we are committed to supporting all people living with or recovering from cancer.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to introduce an implementation and accountability plan to monitor progress towards the delivery of 500,000 operations supported by robotics each year by 2035.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

Our 10-Year Health Plan commits to expanding robotic assisted surgery (RAS) adoption over the next decade. We will establish national registries for robotic surgery data from 2029 and telesurgery networks to support geographical equity of access of RAS. The national robotic surgery registry will support evidence generation, and will enable future reporting and decision making. Last year, NHS England published the first national guidance for the implementation of RAS in the National Health Service, offering guidance on procurement, commissioning, implementation, training, and evaluation.

A national steering committee, with representation from across the Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England, the Office for Life Sciences, NHS Supply Chain, and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, is already in place to support the RAS programme to deliver Government commitments. This will help to set the pace and scale in relation to targets of RAS numbers. Decisions to offer RAS are agreed at an integrated care board and trust level, in line with local population need.

The Department and NHS England are working closely with NHS trusts and regions to understand the key barriers and facilitators to adoption. The RAS steering committee is working together to identify provider trusts and regional alliances that are planning further expansion of RAS.

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 improve out-of-hours access to medicines for people at the end of life.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government is committed to ensuring that people at the end of life can access the medicines they need, including outside of normal pharmacy opening hours.

Palliative care services are included in the list of services an integrated care board (ICB) must commission. This promotes a more consistent national approach and supports commissioners in prioritising palliative care and end-of-life care. To support ICBs in this duty, NHS England has published statutory guidance and service specifications.

NHS England’s statutory guidance states that ICBs work with community pharmacies, out-of-hours providers and palliative care teams to ensure timely access to medicines, including through locally commissioned services that make end of life medicines available on a 24/7 basis.

Additionally, those nearing the end of life who are likely to need symptom control can be prescribed anticipatory medicines with written instructions for how to use or administer treatment. These medicines are often called 'just in case' medicines and may be provided in a specially marked container called a 'just in case' box. The medicines are prescribed in advance so that they can be obtained during local pharmacy opening hours and kept safely at home, or at a care home, so that the person or their carer has access to them if they develop symptoms. Providing medicines in advance means that there is no delay in getting medicines that might be needed quickly to help with symptoms. The use of anticipatory prescribing is recommended in the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guideline, Care of dying adults in the last days of life.

Furthermore, the Government will publish a Palliative Care and End-of-Life Care Modern Service Framework (MSF) for England later this year. The MSF will drive improvements in the services that patients and their families receive at the end of life and enable ICBs to address challenges in access, quality and sustainability through the delivery of high-quality, personalised care.

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 make training in palliative and end-of-life care mandatory for health and care professionals.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

There are no current plans to make training in palliative care and end-of-life care mandatory for health and care professionals.

We are committed to training the staff we need to ensure patients are cared for by the right professional, when and where they need it. To ensure the health and social care workforce is equipped and well supported to deliver personalised care to people at the end of life, Health Education England, now part of NHS England, hosts the End of Life Care for All e-learning training programme, which includes nine modules on improving care for people at the end of life.

Independent statutory regulatory bodies such as the General Medical Council (GMC) and the Nursing and Midwifery Council have the general function of promoting high standards of education and coordinating all stages of education to ensure that health and care students and newly qualified healthcare professionals are equipped with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes essential for professional practice.

The training curricula for postgraduate specialty training, including palliative care and end-of-life care, is set by the relevant royal college and have to meet the standards set by the GMC.

For general practitioners (GPs), the Royal College for General Practice has established the GP with Extended Roles (GPwER) in Palliative and End of Life Care Framework. The GpwER framework sets out standards, capabilities, training requirements, supervision and governance for GPs working beyond core practice, including in palliative and end-of-life care.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many NHS dental appointments have been a) delivered and b) cancelled in i) Preston and ii) Lancashire in the last 3 years.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The following table shows the number of National Health Service dental treatments delivered in the first seven months of the 2025/26 financial year, in the Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board, which includes Preston and Lancashire:

Source: Monthly National Dental Activity data – England July 2023 to October 2025, available at the following link:
https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/dental-activity-data-england-july-2023-to-october-2025

In addition, the following table shows the available data for the number of NHS dental treatments delivered in 2023/24 and 2024/25 in the Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board:

Source: Dental statistics for England for 2023/24 and 2024/25, available at the following link:
https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/statistical-collections/dental-england/dental-statistics-england-202425

Data for dentistry is measured in courses of treatment, not appointments. One course of treatment can be more than one appointment. Data on the number of NHS dental appointments cancelled is not held.

The data for 2023/24 and 2024/25 are not directly comparable with the 2025/26 data due to the 2025/26 data being provisional. Final data for 2025/26 will be published in August 2026. Furthermore, the 2025/26 data covers seven months of activity, but the 2023/24 and 2024/25 data covers the full 12-month period.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has taken recent steps to develop a modern service framework for frailty and dementia; and if he will take steps to ensure that it includes national standards for diagnostic pathways.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Modern Service Framework for Frailty and Dementia will reduce unwarranted variation and narrow inequality in diagnosis and care for those living with dementia. It will set national standards and redirect National Health Service priorities to provide the best care and support.

Central to this modern service framework will be improved care and support and access to a timely and accurate diagnosis.

We are still developing plans for the Modern Service Framework for Frailty and Dementia and, in doing so, we are engaging with a wide group of partners to understand what should be included to ensure the best outcomes for people living with dementia.

As part of this exercise, we are considering all options to help reduce variation, including reviewing existing guidance and pathways. This will include the D100: Pathway Assessment Tool and the Dementia Care Pathway, covering all elements of the Well Pathway from Prevention through to Dying Well.

We are working to develop the content as soon as possible and we will keep partners updated on progress and timings as this work unfolds.

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 simplify the navigation of care pathways for patients and general practitioners.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The 10-Year Health Plan sets out that the NHS App will also allow patients to book appointments, communicate with professionals, receive advice, draft or view their care plan, and self-refer to local tests and services. These developments will streamline how patients move through the system and support clearer navigation of their care.

We are also improving digital access in general practices (GPs), including online request routes, modernising triage models, and strengthening care navigations. GPs are responsible for their own clinical knowledge and advising patients on the most appropriate care pathways. To support this, we are delivering the recommendations of the Red Tape Challenge to remove unnecessary administrative burdens between primary and secondary care. The new Advice and Guidance scheme gives GPs specialist advice, reducing unnecessary referrals and helping patients reach the right care first time.

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 publish a national strategy for palliative and end of life care.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government is developing a Palliative Care and End-of-Life Care Modern Service Framework (MSF) for England, for publication later this year.

The MSF will drive improvements in the services that patients and their families receive at the end of life and will enable integrated care boards to address challenges in access, quality, and sustainability through the delivery of high-quality, personalised care. This will be aligned with the ambitions set out in last year’s 10-Year Health Plan.

Further information about the MSF is set out in my Written Statement HCWS1087, made on 24 November 2025.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate his Department has made of the number of additional fully qualified full-time equivalent GPs required in England to restore the GP-to-patient ratio to 2015 levels.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The number of patients per full time equivalent (FTE) fully qualified general practitioner (GP) was 1,938 in September 2015 compared to 2,133 in January 2026, including GPs employed by primary care networks. To reach the same number of patients per fully qualified GP today, we would need an additional 3,012 FTE GPs. However, the GP workforce has changed significantly since 2015 with a wider range of professionals working in GPs. There’s currently an additional 38,265 FTE direct patient care staff working in primary care, including nurses, physiotherapists, and pharmacists.

Thanks to actions taken by the Government, we currently have the highest number of fully qualified GPs since 2015, and steps are being taken to grow the GP workforce further.

As part of the 2026/27 GP Contract, we are increasing the flexibility of the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS) by removing the restriction that ARRS funding can only be used for recently qualified GPs, increasing the maximum reimbursement amount for GP roles to reflect experience, and enabling primary care networks to recruit a broader range of ARRS roles, where agreed with the commissioner.

Following feedback from the 2026/27 GP Contract consultation, we are introducing a practice-level GP reimbursement scheme which ring-fences and repurposes £292 million of funding from the current Capacity and Access Payment. This funding will be available to practices to hire additional GPs or fund additional sessions with existing GPs to improve access in GPs. This aims to strengthen capacity, access, and improve patient satisfaction, whilst also addressing GP unemployment and underemployment.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many NHS dental appointments have been (a) delivered and (b) cancelled in Lincolnshire in each of the last 3 years.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The following table shows the number of National Health Service dental treatments delivered in the first seven months of the 2025/26 financial year, in the Lincolnshire Integrated Care Board:

Source: Monthly National Dental Activity data – England July 2023 to October 2025, available at the following link:
https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/dental-activity-data-england-july-2023-to-october-2025

In addition, the following table shows the available data for the number of NHS dental treatments delivered in 2023/24 and 2024/25, in the Lincolnshire Integrated Care Board:

Source: dental statistics for England 2024/25 and 2023/24, available at the following link:
https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/statistical-collections/dental-england/dental-statistics-england-202425

Data for dentistry is measured in courses of treatment, not appointments. One course of treatment can be more than one appointment. Data on the number of NHS dental appointments cancelled is not held.

The data for 2023/24 and 2024/25 are not directly comparable with the 2025/26 data due to the 2025/26 data being provisional. Final data for 2025/26 will be published in August 2026. Furthermore, the 2025/26 data covers 7 months of activity, but the 2023/24 and 2024/25 data covers the full 12-month period.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made regarding the potential merits of adopting a new National Dementia Care Pathway which includes i) end of life care, and ii) clear minimum service standards.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government wants a society where every person with dementia receives high-quality, compassionate care from diagnosis through to the end of life.

The Government is developing a Palliative Care and End-of-Life Care Modern Service Framework (MSF) for England. The MSF will drive improvements in the services that patients and their families receive at the end of life and enable integrated care boards to address challenges in access, quality, and sustainability through the delivery of high-quality, personalised care.

Under the 10-Year Health Plan, those living with dementia and frailty will benefit from improved care planning and better services.   We will deliver the first ever Frailty and Dementia MSF to deliver rapid and significant improvements in quality of care and productivity.

The Frailty and Dementia MSF will seek to reduce unwarranted variation and narrow inequality for those living with dementia and frailty. It will support this by setting national standards for dementia and frailty care and redirecting NHS and adult social care priorities to provide the best possible care and support. In developing the Frailty and Dementia MSF, we are engaging with a wide group of partners to understand what should be included to ensure the best outcomes for people living with dementia.

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 5 January 2026 to Question 89382 on Social Services: Investment, what assessment his Department has made of the main barriers to (a) public sector funding and (b) private sector capital investment in social care; and what regional variations are there.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government assesses the funding required for adult social care, which considers a wide range of factors. This assessment is considered alongside other Government priorities through the Spending Review process to inform decisions about how available public sector funding is distributed.

Under the Care Act 2014, local authorities are tasked with the duty to shape their care markets to meet the diverse needs of all local people. This includes commissioning a diverse range of care and support services that enable people to access quality care. Conditions in local care markets can vary across the country and local authorities are best placed to understand and respond to these local market conditions. The Department has not carried out a specific assessment on the barriers to private sector capital investment in social care and any regional variations. While private adult social care providers are individual businesses and the Government does not intervene in their operations, we have been clear that the expectation is for adult social care providers to behave responsibly, including through sustainable financial arrangements that support the sector and meet needs as required.

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 increase the number of in person GP appointments.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government has committed to guarantee a face-to-face appointment for all those who want one. The National Health Service is clear that general practices must provide face-to-face appointments, alongside remote consultations, and patients’ input into consultation type should be sought and their preferences for face-to-face care respected unless there are good clinical reasons to the contrary.

We are boosting capacity in general practice so patients can get the appointments they need, including face‑to‑face. We have invested £160 million through the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme to bring over 2,000 extra General Practitioners (GPs) into Primary Care Networks, increasing appointment availability across England.

We are investing a further £485 million in 2026/27, bringing the total spend on the GP contract to over £13.8 billion and introducing a new practice‑level GP reimbursement scheme. The scheme, worth £292 million, will fund additional GPs or more GP sessions with existing GPs, equivalent to around 1,600 full‑time GPs nationally. This will strengthen capacity, improve access to face-to-face appointments and improve patient satisfaction.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of whether women diagnosed with cancer in prisons in England receive healthcare equivalent in quality, timeliness and continuity as that provided in the community.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

NHS England commissions all services across the prison estate to be equivalent with those expected to be received in the community, including for cancer care.

All people received into prison have an initial health screen on arrival into prison. This assessment focuses on initial risks and key medicines required and any referrals to other services for immediate assessment. Any concerns regarding failures in cancer care for people in prison should be escalated by prison healthcare to the local National Health Service Health and Justice Commissioner.

NHS England expects all providers and healthcare professionals providing any NHS funded or commissioned service to have appropriate and relevant qualifications and work within the scope of their professional registration, including clinicians working to treat people in prison. Any women with a cancer diagnosis who require secondary or tertiary care should have access to these services as they would if they were in the community.

More information regarding assessments in relation to women diagnosed with cancer in prison can be found in the report, The health of people in prison, on probation and in the secure NHS estate in England, published in November 2025 by Professor Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer. A copy of this report is attached.

Through the National Cancer Plan, published on 4 February 2026, we are committed to supporting all people living with or recovering from cancer.

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 adequacy of care for people who have received dementia diagnoses, in the context of the contribution of (a) continued activity and (b) social engagement for slowing the progression of dementia.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The provision of dementia health care services is the responsibility of local integrated care boards (ICBs). Therefore no central assessment has been made of the adequacy of care for people who have received dementia diagnoses in the context of the contribution of continued activity and social engagement for slowing the progression of dementia. We expect ICBs to commission services based on local population needs, taking account of National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines, and oversee the quality of the services they commission.

We will deliver the first ever Modern Service Framework for Frailty and Dementia to deliver rapid and significant improvements in quality of care and productivity. The Modern Service Framework for Frailty and Dementia will seek to reduce unwarranted variation and narrow inequality for those living with dementia and will set national standards for dementia care and redirect National Health Service priorities to provide the best possible care and support.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of Dementia Assessment Services in Shropshire.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

No central assessment has been made of the adequacy of Dementia Assessment Services in Shropshire. The provision of dementia health care services is the responsibility of local integrated care boards and ensuring they are responsive to the needs of local communities.

However, NHS England does collect and publish data about people with dementia at each general practice (GP) in England, including those in Shropshire, to enable National Health Service GPs and commissioners to make informed choices about how to plan their dementia services around patients’ needs.

GPs also provide a count of patients up to the end of the reporting period who have received an assessment for dementia and who have received or declined an initial memory assessment, a referral to a memory clinic, a care plan, a care plan review, and/or a medication review.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the press release entitled Patients to benefit from improved access to dental appointments, published on 21 February 2026, how many (a) urgent and (b) additional dental appointments have been provided by the NHS in (i) total and (ii) each month since the General Election; and how many additional urgent dental appointments he expects the NHS to provide by the end of 2026-27 above the baseline he is using to monitor progress against his target.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The following table shows the available data for the number of National Health Service urgent dental treatments and total courses of dental treatments delivered each month from July 2024 to October 2025:

Source: Monthly National Dental Activity data – England July 2023 to October 2025, available at the following link:
https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/dental-activity-data-england-july-2023-to-october-2025

Data for April 2025 to October 2025 should be treated as provisional. Final data for 2025/26 will be published in August 2026. Data for dentistry is measured in courses of treatment, not appointments. One course of treatment can be more than one appointment.

1.8 million additional courses of NHS dental treatment have been delivered in the seven months between April and October 2025, compared to the same period before the general election, nearly half of which were delivered to children.

We are broadening the scope of the commitment to deliver additional appointments so that they can be used for more patients, not just those who meet the clinical criteria for “urgent” care.

We will ensure a continued urgent care safety net by requiring, from April 2026, high street dentists to deliver 8.2% of their total contract value as urgent or unscheduled care.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of doctors completing general practice speciality training remained practising in NHS general practices three years after qualification, in each of the last five years.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

This data is not held by the Department or NHS England.

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 5 January 2026 to Question 89382 on Social Services: Investment, whether his Department plans to consider the (a) previous and (b) forecast (i) levels and (ii) adequacy of (A) private and (B) public sector capital funding in social care in England.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government will consider the capital funding needs of adult social care as part of the next Spending Review. We have recently announced an additional £50 million for the Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG) in 2025/26. This could fund approximately 5,000 home adaptations supporting older and disabled people to live more independently in their homes, and brings the total DFG amount this year to £761 million. We have also confirmed £723 million for the DFG in 2026/27. The DFG budget across 2025/26 and 2026/27 is £150 million more than the total budget across the previous two years, 2023/24 and 2024/25. This represents an 11% increase that exceeds inflation.

Under the Care Act 2014, local authorities are tasked with the duty to shape their care markets to meet the diverse needs of all local people. This includes assessing current and future local provision of adult social care services and working with their local market to ensure that both present and anticipated demand can be met.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what interventions they are undertaking to reduce the incidence of musculoskeletal conditions among NHS staff.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

Employers across the National Health Service have their own arrangements in place in line with their duty of care for supporting their staff, including occupational health provision, employee support programmes, and board level scrutiny through health and wellbeing guardians.

The 10-Year Health Plan committed to the roll out of Staff Treatment Hubs, to provide a high-quality, wellbeing and occupational health service for all NHS staff, including musculoskeletal conditions, one of the main causes of sickness absence in the NHS. Work is underway to develop implementation plans for the Staff Treatments Hubs.

We are also working with Nuffield Health to support NHS staff to access their Joint Pain Programme. The programme is aimed at those staff who are off work due to chronic joint pain or struggling with pain whilst at work and will create up to 4,000 free places annually.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how his Department plans to improve the understanding, identification and management of Type 1 Diabetes and Disordered Eating.

Answered by Sharon Hodgson - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

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 cost implications for the NHS of insulin-related harm arising from inadequate discharge planning and community support.

Answered by Sharon Hodgson - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

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 improve coordination between community mental health teams and specialist diabetes services.

Answered by Sharon Hodgson - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what guidance his Department provides to integrated care boards on supporting vulnerable people, including those with mental health conditions, cognitive impairment or learning disabilities, to safely self-administer insulin.

Answered by Sharon Hodgson - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will publish a national implementation plan on insulin safety for those with mental health conditions.

Answered by Sharon Hodgson - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

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 extending business rates relief o community pharmacies providing NHS services.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

I refer the Rt Hon. Member to the answer I gave to the Hon. Member for Farnham and Bordon on 23 February 2026 to Question 113205.

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 people do not have to wait to access mental health services.

Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The 10-Year Health Plan sets out ambitious plans to boost mental health support across the country. This includes transforming mental health services into community-based mental health centres, improving assertive outreach and access to timely mental health care, expanding talking therapies, and giving patients better access to 24/7 support directly through the NHS App.

The plan will build on the work that has already begun to bring down waiting lists. This includes providing an extra £688 million in Government funding this year to transform mental health services, in order to hire more staff, deliver more early interventions, and get waiting lists down. Almost 8,000 additional mental health workers have been recruited since July 2025, latest data shows.

The latest recruitment milestone means the government has almost reached its target of hiring an additional 8,500 mental health staff, helping get people the care they need so they can get back to work, school and doing what they love.

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 help ensure backup energy generators at hospitals are well maintained.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

It is the responsibility of each National Health Service provider to have resilience plans and procedures in place. Guidance is provided to the NHS within the Health Technical Memorandum 06 series, namely Health Technical Memorandum 06-01: Electrical services supply and distribution, Health Technical Memorandum 06-02: Electrical safety guidance for low voltage systems, and Health Technical Memorandum 06-03: Electrical safety guidance for high voltage systems, which are all respectively available at the following three links:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/electrical-services-supply-and-distribution-htm-06-01/

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/electrical-safety-guidance-for-low-voltage-systems-htm-06-02/

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/electrical-safety-guidance-for-high-voltage-systems-in-healthcare-premises-htm-06-03/

This guidance is for healthcare organisations, defined as organisations that provide or intends to provide healthcare services, and is therefore applicable to primary and secondary care providers.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether data on triple-negative breast cancer is used to identify variation in diagnosis, treatment and outcomes between i) regions and ii) NHS trusts.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The National Cancer Plan was published on 4 February 2026 and sets out how data will be collected and used to transform healthcare productivity, spot delays, and improve outcomes. This will build directly on the 10-Year Health Plan’s mission to make data the backbone of a modern, responsive National Health Service.

The plan commits to improve cancer waiting times by providing trusts and Cancer Alliances with more granular and actionable data including disaggregated data for specific cancer types, real‑time pathway analytics via the Federated Data Platform, and streamlined cancer metrics to expose unwarranted variation. Trust boards will receive regular performance reports, and clearer public reporting, including more transparent league‑table style data, which will strengthen accountability and drive faster improvement.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will list the number of critical incidents declared at hospitals between November and January for each of the last 10 financial years.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

NHS England does not centrally record all actions taken by acute trusts or integrated care boards that exceed the Operational Pressures Escalation Levels (OPEL) 4 threshold, the highest level of pressure, where demand and capacity issues are critically affecting the ability to deliver services. Patient safety could be compromised

Oversight and support are delivered through locally implemented surge and escalation policies, which must be aligned with the OPEL 2024 to 2026 framework. The framework contains a number of actions which should be taken by the organisations involved in the delivery of care.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to his Department's press release entitled Health service to save millions with boost to electrify NHS fleet, published on 27 February 2026, by what date the additional hundreds of EV charging sockets funded by the £4 million boost will be installed across NHS sites in England; and how many of those are in Essex.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

This £4 million in capital funding will be provided via a budget transfer from the Department for Transport to the Department of Health and Social Care in the financial year 2026/27, and capital will only be available for projects in that year. Projects have not yet been selected, and NHS England is leading the selection process, working in collaboration with the Department of Health and Social Care and the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to address regional disparities in NHS mental health support for bereaved parents following pregnancy or baby loss; and if she will issue national standards for Integrated Care Boards to ensure all bereaved parents, including fathers and partners, can access specialist psychological support.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government recognises that the experience of losing a baby or pregnancy loss can be very difficult for parents and families.

Mental health services are available in all areas of England for women who experience mental health difficulties during, or due to, their pregnancy, labour, or birth, including Maternal Mental Health Services that specialise in supporting women who have experienced loss.

Additionally, all NHS England trusts have signed up to the National Bereavement Care Pathway (NBCP), which acts as a set of standard and guidance aimed at ensuring all families, including fathers and partners, receive consistent, individualised, and sensitive care. NHS England is working closely with the baby loss charity Sands to agree what steps are necessary to support a faster and more consistent implementation so that all women and families, no matter where they are, receive the support they need at such a difficult time.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of greater reference to blood cancer diagnosis and treatment pathways in upcoming cancer policy documents.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The National Cancer Plan for England, released on 4 February 2026, sets out a commitment to diagnose cancers earlier and ensure people receive timely, effective treatment. The government is committed to helping the National Health Service to detect cancers, including blood cancers, earlier and provide faster treatment to improve outcomes.

While there has been no separate assessment of the benefits of including blood cancer pathways in future policy documents, the National Cancer Plan for England outlines actions to improve outcomes for all cancer patients, including those diagnosed with blood cancer. These include expanding faster access to diagnostic tests, improving treatment turnaround times, and ensuring patients benefit from the latest innovations and technologies.

The NHS in England now uses non‑specific symptom pathways for people presenting with symptoms such as unexplained weight loss, fatigue or general illness that do not point to a particular cancer type. These pathways are especially important for detecting blood cancers, which often present with vague or non‑specific symptoms.

In addition, ongoing investment in diagnostic capacity, including new magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography scanners, will support the NHS in England to diagnose all cancers, including blood cancers, earlier and ensure patients can begin treatment as quickly as possible.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people have been impacted by strokes in each of the last 5 years by a) age and b) region.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

Information on the number of admissions to hospitals in England with a primary diagnosis of a stroke, disaggregated by region and by age in each year from 2020/21 to 2024/25, is shown in the attached table.

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 support NHS dentists to tackle waiting lists.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

Patients in England are not registered with a National Health Service dental practice, although many NHS dental practices do tend to see patients regularly. There is no geographical restriction on which practice a patient may attend and no national waiting list. Some dental practices may operate local waiting list arrangements.

NHS dentists are required to keep their NHS.UK profiles up to date so that patients can find a dentist more easily. This includes information on whether they are accepting new patients. In circumstances where patients are unable to access an urgent dental appointment directly through an NHS dental practice, they should contact NHS 111.

The Government is committed to ensuring people can access urgent dental care when they need it. Over the past year, integrated care boards have been commissioning additional urgent dental appointments and there is now an urgent care safety net available in all areas of the country. 1.8 million additional courses of NHS dental treatment have been delivered in the seven months between April 2024 to October 2025 compared to the corresponding months prior to the general election.

We are committed to delivering fundamental reform of the dental contract before the end of this Parliament. As a first step, on 16 December, we published the Government’s response to the public consultation on quality and payment reforms to the NHS dental contract. The changes will be introduced from April 2026. These reforms will put patients with greatest need first, incentivising urgent care and complex treatments. More information is available from the following website:

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/nhs-dentistry-contract-quality-and-payment-reforms/outcome/government-response-to-consultation-on-nhs-dentistry-contract-quality-and-payment-reforms

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 improve access to NHS dentistry in South Shropshire constituency.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for commissioning primary care services, including National Health Service dentistry, to meet the needs of the local population. For the South Shropshire constituency, this is the NHS Shropshire, Telford, and Wrekin ICB.

The Government is committed to ensuring people can access urgent dental care when they need it. Over the past year, ICBs have been commissioning additional urgent dental appointments and there is now an urgent care safety net available in all areas of the country. 1.8 million additional courses of NHS dental treatment have been delivered in the seven months between April 2024 to October 2025 compared to the corresponding months prior to the general election.

We are committed to delivering fundamental reform of the dental contract before the end of this Parliament. As a first step, on 16 December, we published the Government’s response to the public consultation on quality and payment reforms to the NHS dental contract. The changes will be introduced from April 2026. These reforms will put patients with greatest need first, incentivising urgent care and complex treatments. More information is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/nhs-dentistry-contract-quality-and-payment-reforms/outcome/government-response-to-consultation-on-nhs-dentistry-contract-quality-and-payment-reforms

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether Integrated Care Boards will be required to designate a named lead for the implementation of statutory guidance issued under the Down Syndrome Act 2022.

Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

Under the Down Syndrome Act 2022, my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, is required to give guidance to relevant authorities in health, social care, education, and housing services on what they should be doing to meet the needs of people with Down syndrome.

Relevant authorities, as defined in the schedule to the act, have a duty to have due regard to the final guidance once it is published. The act does not create any new functions beyond this duty. Rather, it brings together existing statutory requirements and guidance that relevant authorities must and/or should already be complying with to support people with Down syndrome and people with other conditions and/or a learning disability who have similar needs.

NHS England published statutory guidance on 9 May 2023 which says that every integrated care board (ICB) should identify a member of its board to lead on supporting the ICB to perform its functions effectively in the interest of people with Down syndrome. The statutory guidance sets out NHS England’s expectations about fulfilling executive lead functions and outlines the responsibilities of these roles in more detail, and is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/executive-lead-roles-within-integrated-care-boards/

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what mechanisms will be used to monitor compliance by public bodies with statutory guidance issued under the Down Syndrome Act 2022.

Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

Under the Down Syndrome Act 2022, my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, is required to give guidance to relevant authorities in health, social care, education, and housing services on what they should be doing to meet the needs of people with Down syndrome.

Relevant authorities, as defined in the schedule to the act, have a duty to have due regard to the final guidance once it is published. The act does not create any new functions beyond this duty. Rather, it brings together existing statutory requirements and guidance that relevant authorities must and/or should already be complying with to support people with Down syndrome and people with other conditions and/or a learning disability who have similar needs.

NHS England published statutory guidance on 9 May 2023 which says that every integrated care board (ICB) should identify a member of its board to lead on supporting the ICB to perform its functions effectively in the interest of people with Down syndrome. The statutory guidance sets out NHS England’s expectations about fulfilling executive lead functions and outlines the responsibilities of these roles in more detail, and is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/executive-lead-roles-within-integrated-care-boards/

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what his planned timetable is for responding to the Kingdon Review.

Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The timetable for responding to the Kingdon Review has not yet been determined. We are continuing to examine the findings of the review.

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 (a) reduce delays and (b) improve (i) flow and (ii) efficiency in NHS Surgical Theatres.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

As set out in the Elective Reform Plan, we are committed to returning by March 2029 to the National Health Service constitutional standard that 92% of patients wait no longer than 18 weeks from referral to consultant-led treatment, which includes those waiting for surgical procedures.

The productivity and modernisation efforts needed to meet that standard includes the expansion of the number of elective surgical hubs. Hubs, which are protected from urgent and emergency care, improve patient outcomes and reduce hospital pressures by reducing cancellations and improving efficiency. They focus on high-volume, low-complexity procedures, support day-case surgery, and align with the standards of the Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) programme, including a national target of 85% theatre utilisation. NHS England, in partnership with the Royal College of Surgeons of England, runs a surgical hub accreditation programme to ensure hubs meet best practice standards, including theatre utilisation. Currently, 125 hubs are operational, with 63 accredited. Theatre utilisation across all specialties reached 81% in August 2025, up from 79% the previous year.

To support these improvements, the National Theatre Programme, led by GIRFT since 2021, provides national guidance as well as targeted support for trusts to improve theatre productivity. To drive forward further progress, one of the areas of focus for 2025/26 is the establishment of ‘high flow theatre’ lists becoming regular practice across the country. Further national actions include earlier and more robust pre-operative risk-assessment to support earlier identification of patients suitable for treatment at hubs, productivity initiatives focussing on flow, scheduling, utilisation and workforce, and the deployment of data analytics and digital scheduling tools to improve real-time theatre management.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many times the NHS has settled employment disputes and whistleblowing complaints before going to court in the last five years.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department does not hold the information requested. Each National Health Service employer should hold this information for their own organisation. NHS organisations as independent employers who manage their own employment disputes and whether and how to settle claims prior to an Employment Tribunal or court hearing.

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 support medical students' (a) wellbeing and (b) welfare in (i) Nottingham, (ii) Nottinghamshire, (iii) the East Midlands and (iv) England.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The professional regulator the General Medical Council sets guidance for all university medical schools and placement providers, who have a responsibility to routinely monitor and support the health, safety, and wellbeing of students whilst studying and on placement.

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 respond to feedback from frontline GPs to the NHS 10-Year Health Plan consultation; and whether this feedback will result in changes to its policy approach to general practice.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

Participants shared their experiences of using and/or working in or with the National Health Service and their views on what it should look like in the future, which were used to shape the 10-Year Health Plan. A report detailing the views of members of the public and health and care staff as gathered through the Change NHS engagement process that contributed to the development of the 10-Year Health Plan for England is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/engagement-insight-report-10-year-health-plan-for-england

The Department currently has no plans to respond to specific individual feedback from frontline general practitioners (GPs).

The 10-Year Health Plan, shaped by engagement, set out the need for reform within GPs. This includes increasing capacity, delivering on the recommendations of the Red Tape Challenge, and rolling out the technology to enable more appointments and better continuity of care for those with complex needs.

As part of the shift from hospital to community, the plan also sets out more fundamental reform that will see GPs lead new neighbourhood providers that convene teams of skilled professionals to provide personalised care for groups of people with similar needs.

We have now concluded the 2026/27 GP Contract consultation. The final package reflects commitments in the 10-Year Health Plan, including ending the 8:00am scramble, improving timely access to care, tackling GP unemployment, and supporting a shift towards prevention. Overwhelmingly, participants in the public deliberative events identified access to care, and prioritising GP access, as the most immediate priority the 10-Year Health Plan should address.

We are investing an additional £485 million into GPs, taking total contract investment to over £13.8 billion in 2026/27. This builds on last year’s £1.1 billion of investment.

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 time taken to publish guidance on Neighbourhood Health Plans on community health services.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

No specific assessment has been made of the potential impact of the time taken to publish guidance on community health services. We are developing guidance on Neighbourhood Health Plans to provide greater clarity and consistency for systems in developing and scaling neighbourhood health. We expect this to be available soon.

Our upcoming guidance will build on and complement our existing set of publications that set out the actions needed to lay the groundwork for a Neighbourhood Health Service. This suite of guidance, which includes the NHS Medium Term Planning Framework for 2026/27 to 2028/29, the strategic commissioning framework for integrated care boards (ICBs), and the Model Region and ICB blueprints, supports National Health Service operational planning and joined-up partnership work between local government and ICBs.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when his Department plans to publish guidance on Neighbourhood Health Plans.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

No specific assessment has been made of the potential impact of the time taken to publish guidance on community health services. We are developing guidance on Neighbourhood Health Plans to provide greater clarity and consistency for systems in developing and scaling neighbourhood health. We expect this to be available soon.

Our upcoming guidance will build on and complement our existing set of publications that set out the actions needed to lay the groundwork for a Neighbourhood Health Service. This suite of guidance, which includes the NHS Medium Term Planning Framework for 2026/27 to 2028/29, the strategic commissioning framework for integrated care boards (ICBs), and the Model Region and ICB blueprints, supports National Health Service operational planning and joined-up partnership work between local government and ICBs.

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 trend in patients waiting over 4 hours for admission transfer and discharge in emergency departments in the NHS Birmingham And Solihull Integrated Care Board area.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

No such assessment has been made.

NHS England publishes data on the number of patients admitted, transferred, or discharged within four hours in accident and emergency departments on a monthly basis. The information is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/ae-waiting-times-and-activity/ae-attendances-and-emergency-admissions-2025-26/

The following table shows the four-hour performance in each quarter since 2017 for the NHS Birmingham and Solihull Integrated Care Board (ICB):

Note: the provisional data for the financial year 2025/26 is not yet fully available and doesn’t include February and March data.

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 implications for his policies of the pathways used by other Common Travel Area countries to enable qualified medical professionals from outside the EEA to practise medicine; and what steps he is taking to reduce barriers to registration for qualified international medical graduates.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

No assessment has been made by the Department of the potential policy implications of the pathways used by other Common Travel Area countries to enable qualified medical professionals from outside the European Economic Area to practise medicine in the United Kingdom.

The General Medical Council (GMC) is the independent regulator of medical practitioners, or doctors, in the UK. It is responsible for setting standards that must be met by both domestic and international applicants wishing to be added to their registers to ensure registrants are safe to practise.

As the independent regulator, it is for the GMC to determine routes to registration and the qualifications that it will accept for registration.

In 2023, the Department amended the GMC’s legislation to provide greater flexibility to streamline the process for registering overseas-qualified medical professionals. Following these changes, the GMC introduced new specialist registration routes, including the Recognised Specialist Qualification pathway, which was launched on 15 May 2024. This enables the GMC to formally recognise suitable specialist qualifications from overseas for the purposes of UK Specialist and General Practitioner registration.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to his Department's press release entitled Health service to save millions with boost to electrify NHS fleet, by what date he anticipates the electrification of the NHS fleet of ambulances will complete.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The 10-Year Health Plan committed to support the National Health Service’s Net Zero ambitions. This includes NHS England’s Net Zero travel and transport strategy, published in 2023, which set a target date of 2040 for full decarbonisation of the NHS fleet, including ambulances.

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 reduce outpatient waiting times for neurology appointments in North East Hampshire constituency.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

Modernisation of outpatient care is a top priority for the Government so that waits for outpatient appointments are shorter and elective pathways are more productive. The majority of people on the waiting list, including for neurology, are waiting for outpatient care. Through our Elective Reform Plan (ERP), we have expanded the Advice and Guidance (A&G) scheme, which helps ensure patients get care in the right place and only see a specialist if it’s really necessary, freeing up capacity in secondary care for those who need it, including certain patients with neurology conditions or symptoms. The ERP also commits to reducing missed appointments and unnecessary follow ups to further free up capacity. This will benefit patients across England, including in North East Hampshire.

The 10-Year Health Plan builds on the ERP with a more sustainable vision for elective care where, by 2035, most outpatient care will happen outside of hospitals. Patients' access to specialists, including neurologists, will be improved by providing this specialist care in the community where possible and increasing digital access to specialists through the NHS App, where it’s more convenient for patients.

The Medium-Term Planning Framework outlines targets for the National Health Service from 2026/27 to 2028/29 to deliver the 10-Year Health Plan’s ambitions. This includes an ask of systems to transform pathways to give patients more control over their follow up care to reduce unnecessary appointments and expand the use of Advice and Guidance from April so that, by October, all requests/referrals across the 10 specialties providers deemed to have the most potential for this model to be effective go via an elective Single Point of Access. This will mean a more efficient approach to triaging patients, where all appropriate requests and referrals, excluding urgent suspect cancer, will flow through a single ‘front door’ to support clinical triage to the most appropriate service or outcome, meaning timelier, more joined up care for patients.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to review its approach to employment disputes and whistleblowing complaints.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

National Health Service organisations are independent employers and have their own policies and procedures for resolving workplace disputes, including whistleblowing complaints, which should be aligned to current employment law and relevant Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service codes of practice or guidance.

The Department for Business and Trade and the Ministry of Justice have set up the Dispute Resolution System Taskforce to consider longer-term system reform of dispute resolution across all sectors.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of NHS 111 calls resulted in an ambulance dispatch in the East of England in each of the past three years.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government is committed to continuing to improve NHS 111 to ensure patients can access the right care first time, in a timely manner, thereby only visiting accident and emergency when necessary.

The data is not published in the requested format. However, in the East of England in 2022/23, 10.9% of 111 calls were referred to the ambulance service. In 2023/24, 11.9% of 111 calls were referred to the ambulance service. Finally, in 2024/25, 12.7% of 111 calls were referred to the ambulance service.

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 that children can access specialist mental health support in their community.

Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

For children and young people in distress or struggling with their mental health, fast access to early, high-quality support is critical. Mental health support teams play a key role in this, providing early intervention for mental health conditions like anxiety and depression, while also assisting schools to develop a whole-school approach to positive mental health and wellbeing. By spring 2026, up to 900,000 more children and young people will have access to mental health support teams compared to Spring 2025, with full national coverage planned by 2029. This expansion is supported by almost 8,000 additional mental health workers recruited since July 2024.

Alongside this, Early Support Hubs provide drop-in mental health support for 11 to 25‑year‑olds without the need for a referral. The Government recently confirmed an additional £7 million funding boost for early support hubs across England, enabling 10,000 additional mental health and wellbeing interventions over the next 12 months. The Government is also establishing the first of 50 Young Futures Hubs to bring local services together within communities and offer early advice and wellbeing support for young people who may not meet thresholds for specialist National Health Service care.

Together, these initiatives are expanding timely, local support, reducing the need for escalation to specialist services and helping young people receive the right help at the right time, in the right place.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 26 January (HL13928), what consideration have they given to the risks of self-diagnosis of mental health conditions from online quizzes and other resources.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government recognises that information about mental health is increasingly accessed online, including through quizzes and other digital resources. While such tools can play a role in helping people reflect on their wellbeing and can encourage them to seek support, they should not be used as a substitute for professional advice or diagnosis from appropriately trained clinicians.

We continue to signpost the public to trusted sources of information and support. For example, the National Health Service’s Every Mind Matters platform provides evidence-based advice, including a short quiz which offers tailored tips to support mental health and wellbeing.

The Government also recognises the broader risks that can arise from online environments. We have launched a national consultation on children’s online wellbeing to gather views on the next steps to build on the provisions in the Online Safety Act 2023. The three-month consultation will be evidence-led, with input from independent experts, and will explore options including strengthening age assurance, addressing harmful design features, and determining the appropriate minimum age for children to access social media. It will report in the summer.

We are also aware that more children and young people are using generative artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots for mental health advice and support. The Government is clear that AI chatbots must not replace advice and support from trained medical professionals. Publicly available AI applications that are not deployed by the NHS are not regulated as medical technologies, and users should exercise caution when using unregulated applications. The Government’s consultation will also explore the impact that chatbots may have on children’s wellbeing and whether further safeguards are required.

More broadly, we recognise that mental health is complex and that a range of factors may be contributing to rising demand for support. In December 2025, my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, commissioned an independent review into the prevalence and support for mental health conditions, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and autism. The review will examine the evidence on what is driving increased demand for support and diagnosis so that we can ensure people receive the right support, at the right time, and in the right place.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 26 January (HL13928), what assessment they have made of the use of labels for mental health conditions, and whether the independent review into the prevalence and support for mental health conditions will consider this.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

While no such specific assessment has been made, the terms of reference for the independent review into the prevalence and support for mental health conditions, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and autism state that the review will look at evidence on the role of diagnosis for children, young people, and adults, including the value of diagnosis to individuals, and barriers to receiving a diagnosis, and its impact on receiving support. The terms of reference are available on the GOV.UK website.

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 provide funding for the treatment of (a) Hallux valgus and (b) Hallux rigidus in Hampshire.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

Decisions on the funding and provision of treatment for hallux valgus and hallux rigidus in Hampshire are made locally by the NHS Hampshire and Isle of Wight Integrated Care Board (ICB), which is responsible for assessing the health needs of its population and commissioning services accordingly. This includes determining local clinical pathways, access criteria, and the availability of both surgical and non‑surgical interventions, based on the best available clinical evidence and local priorities.

NHS England does not provide condition‑specific national funding for these procedures. Instead, the ICB receives a general allocation to meet the healthcare needs of its local population. Within this, the ICB is expected to ensure that patients with foot and ankle conditions can access appropriate assessment, conservative management, and referral for surgery where clinically necessary.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to provide additional funding for safety measures for NHS staff.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

Everyone working in the National Health Service has a fundamental right to be safe at work. Individual employers are responsible for the health and safety of their staff, and they put in place measures, including security, training, and emotional support for staff affected by violence, abuse, or harassment. There are currently no plans to provide additional funding for safety measures for NHS staff.

At a national level there are several policy measures being implemented and developed to help keep staff safe and to prevent and reduce violence in the workplace. This includes measures to improve data and reporting, strengthen risk assessment, and improve training and support for victims. This will be bolstered by the introduction of a new set of staff standards, as detailed in the 10-Year Health Plan. The standards will be included in the NHS Oversight Framework and act as an early warning signal for the Care Quality Commission.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the (a) prevalence of respiratory disease and (b) number of emergency hospital admissions for respiratory conditions in Melksham and Devizes constituency compared with national averages; and what steps he is taking to ensure respiratory health is prioritised nationally, including through the introduction of a Modern Service Framework for respiratory care.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

Data is available for emergency Finished Admission Episodes (FAEs) where there was a primary diagnosis of 'respiratory conditions’. The following table shows the FAEs where there was a primary diagnosis of 'respiratory conditions’ for Melksham and Devizes, and England, for activity in English National Health Service hospitals and English NHS commissioned activity in the independent sector, for 2024/25 and provisionally for 2025/26:

Source: Hospital Episode Statistics, NHS England.

Available data on trends in respiratory conditions can be found on the Department’s fingertips dataset. Data is not available by parliamentary constituency. Data is available at regional, county, unitary authority, and integrated care board level. Information for Wiltshire can be found at the following link:

https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/search/Respiratory#page/1/gid/1/pat/15/ati/502/are/E06000054/iid/40701/age/163/sex/4/cat/-1/ctp/-1/yrr/1/cid/4/tbm/1

The Government will consider long-term conditions for future waves of modern service frameworks (MSFs), including respiratory conditions. The criteria for determining other conditions for future MSFs will be based on where there is potential for rapid and significant improvements in quality of care and productivity. After the initial wave of MSFs is complete, the National Quality Board will determine the conditions to prioritise for new MSFs as part of its work programme.

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 improve timely access to general practice appointments.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

We are committed to improving timely access to general practice appointments. Last year, we delivered 6.8 million more appointments in general practices. Since October 2024, we have invested £160 million into the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS) to support the recruitment of over 2,000 general practitioners (GPs), exceeding our initial target of 1,000. For the 2026/27 GP Contract, we’re investing an additional £485 million into GPs, removing restrictions to allow primary care networks to hire more GPs via ARRS, and introducing a practice-level reimbursement scheme which will be available to practices to hire additional GPs, or fund additional sessions with existing GPs to improve access in GPs which aims to strengthen capacity, access, and improve patient satisfaction.

NHS England published the Medium‑Term Planning Framework in October, setting a new requirement for all urgent appointments to be delivered on the same day, ensuring that patients needing urgent care are prioritised. Building on this, the 2026/27 GP Contract makes it explicit that any requests identified as clinically urgent, as determined by the GPs, must be dealt with on the same day

Patient satisfaction is already rising after a decade of decline. Office for National Statistics data from January 2026 shows that 76.8% of patients reported it was “easy” to contact their GP, up from 60.9% in July 2024.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has issued guidance to GP practices on the wording of appointment reminder messages to patients; and what assessment he has made of the potential merits of encouraging practices to use confirmation-based reminders rather than cancellation-based reminders to reduce non-attendance rates.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

General practices are independent businesses that hold contracts with the National Health Service, and each sets its own policies on managing missed appointments to best meet the needs of its local population. We know that many practices already use automated reminder systems that include the option for patients to cancel if they no longer need their appointment.

98.9% of practices now use cloud-based telephony systems, which can provide built‑in functionality to support appointment cancellation. It is for individual practices to determine how and if these functionalities are implemented.

The 10-Year Health Plan sets out that the NHS App will be the front door to the NHS, where patients will be able to book, move, and cancel their appointments, and communicate with their health team, with ease, helping reduce no-shows by allowing easier management and notifications.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 30 January (HL14009), what steps they are taking to understand the factors driving the increasing demand for mental health services, and whether increased spending will have any impact on reducing these factors.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government has launched an independent review into mental health conditions, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and autism to understand the rises in the prevalence and demand on services. The review will examine the evidence around what is driving this rising demand, including determining which trends reflect real increases in disorder, which reflect changes in awareness or access, and which are artefacts of measurement or definition. It will also consider wider factors beyond the National Health Service, such as education, employment, housing, and digital culture, to understand how these interact with people’s needs and where intervention may make the greatest difference.

We need a new approach to mental health that goes further than simply more funding, one that reduces waiting times, improves the quality of care, and promotes prevention and early intervention. Patients should have access to alternative models of support within and beyond the NHS, supplemented by clinical care. This will mean people get support earlier, avoid reaching crisis, and experience better mental health outcomes.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to implement a community pharmacist prescribing service.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government is committed to expanding the role of pharmacies and better utilising the skills of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians. This includes our commitment to make prescribing part of the services delivered by community pharmacists. The NHS Medium Term Planning Framework supports this ambition by instructing integrated care boards that they must introduce prescribing based services into community pharmacies during 2026/27 to support primary care access. From September 2026, all newly qualified pharmacists will be independent prescribers upon registration.

The Department is currently in consultation with Community Pharmacy England on the 2026/27 Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework. This consultation will consider any proposed changes to the reimbursement and remuneration of pharmacy contractors in 2026/27, including considering the introduction of prescribing into community pharmacy services. Once this consultation has concluded, the results will be formally announced.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 29 January (HL13929), whether the independent review into the prevalence and support for mental health conditions will include any of the harms which follow from unnecessary diagnosis or treatment.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

As this is an independent review, it is for the chair, Professor Peter Fonagy, alongside the co-chairs, to determine the scope of their work, what conditions are covered, and the outputs and recommendations they choose to make, in line with the terms of reference set by the Government.

The review will examine the impact of clinical practice and explore the role that medicalisation of mental health conditions, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and autism plays, including the associated risks and benefits. The terms of reference are available at the GOV.UK website.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the (a) prevalence of respiratory disease and (b) number of emergency hospital admissions for respiratory conditions in (i) the Wrekin constituency and (ii) Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin compared with national averages.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

Data is available for emergency Finished Admission Episodes (FAEs) where there was a primary diagnosis of 'respiratory conditions’. The following table shows the FAEs where there was a primary diagnosis of 'respiratory conditions’ for the Telford and The Wrekin constituencies, as well as for England, in English National Health Service hospitals and English NHS commissioned activity in the independent sector, for 2024/25 and provisionally for 2025/26:

Source: Hospital Episode Statistics, NHS England.

Available data on trends in respiratory conditions can be found on the Department’s fingertips dataset. Data is not available by parliamentary constituency. Data is available at regional, county, unitary authority, and integrated care board level. Information for Shropshire can be found at the following link:

https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/search/Respiratory#page/1/gid/1/pat/15/ati/502/are/E06000051/iid/40701/age/163/sex/4/cat/-1/ctp/-1/yrr/1/cid/4/tbm/1

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department is taking steps to increase the number of NHS posts available to doctors completing Foundation Year 2 in addition to the measures set out in the Medical Training (Prioritisation) Bill.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

We set out in the 10-Year Health Plan for England that over the next three years we will create 1,000 new specialty training posts, with a focus on specialties where there is greatest need. We will set out next steps in due course.

This Government is committed to training the staff we need, including doctors, to ensure patients are cared for by the right professional, when and where they need it. We will publish a 10 Year Workforce Plan to set out action to create a workforce ready to deliver the transformed services set out in the 10-Year Health Plan.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how dementia care will be reflected in revisions to the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government has been clear that the 2023 Long Term Workforce Plan was undeliverable and based on outdated models of care. We have committed to publishing a new 10 Year Workforce Plan to set out action to create a workforce ready to deliver the transformed service set out in the 10-Year Health Plan. The 10 Year Workforce Plan will ensure the National Health Service has the right people in the right places, with the right skills to care for patients, when they need it. We are working through how the plan will articulate the changes for different service areas.

Found: We have seen no evidence that there has been genuine join up with the Department of Health and Social Care

Found: with digital technology suppliers HC 640 26th Tackling Violence against Women and Girls HC 644 25th DHSC

Found: Finally, Access to Work should be placed on a cross-government footing across DWP, DHSC and DBT, with

Found: The Department of Health & Social Care (DHSC) should engage with manufacturers of the relevant procedural

Found: The Department of Health and Social Care is looking at this in its review of prevalence and what the

Found: You have conversations with the Home Office about radicalisation, and with the Department of Health and Social Care

Found: You have conversations with the Home Office about radicalisation, and with the Department of Health and Social Care

Found: The Department of Health and Social Care has come up with some proposals around primary care.

Found: You have conversations with the Home Office about radicalisation, and with the Department of Health and Social Care

Found: with digital technology suppliers HC 640 26th Tackling Violence against Women and Girls HC 644 25th DHSC

Found: Fragmentation between DfE, DHSC, and local government undermines joined-up services.

Found: At time of writing, the Department of Health and Social Care element of this cross-departmental programme

Found: A defined ring-fenced funding stream (via DHSC, or jointly with DCMS) for creative health provision targeting

Found: London: Department of Health and Social Care and Department for Education.: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk

Found: My Department and I have been working with the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England.

Found: We can see indications Mrs O did not meet the Department of Health and Social Care criteria for the

Found: insurance-based scheme; that money—the immigration health surcharge—goes straight to the Department of Health and Social Care

Found: My Department and I have been working with the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England.

Found: with digital technology suppliers HC 640 26th Tackling Violence against Women and Girls HC 644 25th DHSC

Found: MHCLG, DHSC, DfE, DWP, Home Office) to support consistent Covenant delivery.

Found: , Media & Sport (DCMS) Diploma in Sporting Excellence (8,424) (8,424) Department of Health and Social Care

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what mechanisms are in place to ensure coordination between her Department and the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department of Health and Social Care, and the Department for Education on policies affecting household access to food; and whether responsibility for oversight of such coordination rests with a named Minister.

Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

The Good Food Cycle, published in July 2025, identifies 10 priority outcomes across themes of healthier food, sustainability, food security, affordability and inequality, and good growth. Defra leads on coordination across government on the Good Food Cycle outcomes. Defra officials and Ministers have regular interactions with other Government departments to ensure coordination on policies required to deliver them. This includes regular engagement with the Department for Work and Pensions on ending mass dependence on emergency food parcels, with the Department for Health and Social Care on food related elements of the 10 Year Health Plan, and with the Department for Education on School Food Standards.

Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what progress the Medical Research Council has made on delivering ME/CFS research improvements.

Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)

The Medical Research Council (MRC), which is part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), has prioritised research into Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) for many years, investing over £4.65 million since 2020, and welcomes high quality applications in this area.

MRC is working with the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) and the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) to deliver on agreed actions from the ME/CFS Final Delivery Plan. This includes funding strategic initiatives to increase research capacity and hosting engagement events to bring together research funders, commercial and academic researchers and patient representatives. For example, in November DHSC, NIHR and UKRI, co-hosted a research showcase to discuss and explore the ongoing research in the fields of ME/CFS and long COVID. MRC continues to liaise with the ME/CFS research community to support future applicants.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she can list the (a) Ministerial responsibilities and (b) the responsibilities and reporting arrangements of any relevant cross-departmental units in relation to drugs policy.

Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)

The Joint Combating Drugs Unit (JCDU) is responsible for driving and co-ordinating efforts across Government to tackle drugs, working in close partnership with six departments – the Home Office, the Department of Health and Social Care, the Ministry of Justice, the Department of Work and Pensions, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, and the Department for Education. JCDU comprises full-time civil servants who are seconded from key government departments.

Each department is responsible for delivery of their programmes and projects. Progress is overseen by the lead departmental ministers but also reported to me as the lead drugs Minister, while a lead Permanent Secretary fulfils the role of senior responsible owner at official level.

Illicit drug use affects the whole of society, and this Government is taking a collective response to deliver safer streets, improve health outcomes and contribute to opportunities and growth through reducing crime and saving lives.

Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps she is taking to support the mental health of young people reliant on online communities for emotional and social support.

Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)

The government recognises that for many young people, online communities can play an important role in providing emotional and social support. It is vital that these online spaces are safe. Through the Online Safety Act, in-scope services are required to protect children from illegal and harmful and age-inappropriate content.

On 2 March, the government launched a consultation which will explore options to ensure children’s experiences online are safe and enriching.

The Department of Health and Social Care is working to improve access to mental health support for young people, both online and offline.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department plans to take with (a) the Department for Health and Social Care and (b) local authorities to help ensure that immigration reforms support (i) recruitment to social care vacancies and (ii) the implementation of statutory duties under the Care Act 2014.

Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)

The Government published the Immigration White Paper ‘Restoring Control over the Immigration System last year which announced the intention to end overseas recruitment for social care visas. The new Immigration Rules which prohibit overseas recruitment took effect in July 2025, however transitional arrangements exist for individuals already in the UK to switch into the route. The transitional arrangements are due expire in 2028 but will be subject to regular review.

The Home Office continues to work closely with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) funded Regional Partnerships to support care workers, who have been impacted by exploitative employers. DHSC are funding 15 regional hubs in England, made up of Local Authorities and Directors of Adult Social Services, working together to support displaced workers into new roles within the care sector. These regional hubs have received £12.5 million this financial year to support them to prevent and respond to unethical practices in the sector.

The Government remains committed to supporting Health & Care visa holders who wish to pursue a career in the adult social care sector.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many convictions there have been for offences relating to the termination of pregnancy through the the pills-by-post scheme.

Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)

The Ministry of Justice publishes data on the number of convictions across England and Wales for a wide range of offences in the Outcomes by Offences data tool, that can be downloaded from the Criminal Justice Statistics landing page here: Criminal justice statistics - GOV.UK

The offences that constitute unlawful abortion include procuring an illegal abortion under sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, as well as child destruction under section 1 of the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929.

Information centrally held does not specify how many of these convictions are linked to the use of the pills-by-post scheme.

The Department of Health and Social Care is responsible for the policy relating to the pills-by-post scheme.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her department is taking to ensure children in foster care receive adequate mental support.

Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

The government is committed to ensuring children in foster care receive appropriate emotional and mental health support. Regulations require every looked-after child to have their emotional and mental health assessed by a medical practitioner. Local authorities must ensure this happens. Integrated care boards and NHS England must cooperate with requests for services. Joint statutory guidance sets clear expectations that local authorities and health partners should promote wellbeing, act early on signs of difficulty, and ensure assessors have the right skills. The guidance can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/promoting-the-health-and-wellbeing-of-looked-after-children--2.

We are working with the Department of Health and Social Care to strengthen mental health support for care‑experienced children. Through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, new corporate parenting responsibilities will be placed on government departments and relevant public bodies, ensuring they consider the needs of looked-after children and care leavers when designing and delivering health services. In December 2025, my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and I announced a three year pilot to ensure children in care have access to the support they need sooner. This will build on existing work across the country, bringing social workers and NHS professionals together to provide direct mental health support to children and families when they need it most.

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether her department plans to establish the public health task force recommended by the Independent Water Commission prior to the introduction of the Water Reform Bill.

Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

Through an upcoming Water Bill, we intend to progress an ambitious, coherent reset of the legislative framework.

As we take this forward, we will work in partnership with the Department of Health and Social Care to ensure public health is considered broadly in our new water frameworks and regulations and to consider evidence gaps. Protecting and improving public health is a key consideration of the Government’s once-in-a-generation water reforms.

A new Public Health Water Taskforce, led by the Chief Medical Officer for England, will be a key part of Government’s reforms to the water system. The Taskforce will provide independent and technical advice on public health risks from water and opportunities to improve treatment and protection.

Found: (DHSC), Fit for the future: 10 Year Health Plan for England (PDF), July 2025, p102

Found: a limit to what the Department for Education could achieve alone, and urged the Department of Health and Social Care

Found: agency staff (a reduction of 1.4 billion from 2022/2023).50 In November 2024, the Department of Health and Social Care

Found: The Machinery of Government change regarding DHSC and NHS England affects the ability of DHSC to onboard

Found: DWP, HMT, MoD, NS&I, Royal Mail Pensions, and SIA Gary.Hansman@hmtreasury.gov.uk DfE, DHSC

Found: across systems, both from her current role in the Cabinet Office and her time at the Department of Health and Social Care

Found: DHSC England Combatting anti-Muslim hostility Adopt a non-statutory definition of anti-Muslim hostility

Found: 0.1875 0 0 18 1 0.0555555555555556 0 0 5 0 0 0 0 4 1 0.25 0 0 3 0 0 0 0 6 0 0 0 0 Dept. of Health DHSC

Found: 0.0555555555555556 0 0.0 5 0 0.0 0 0.0 4 1 0.25 0 0.0 3 0 0.0 0 0.0 6 0 0.0 0 0.0 Dept. of Health DHSC

Found: work closely with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), the Department of Health and Social Care

Found: The MHRA is an executive agency of the Department of Health and Social Care.    

Found: Dr Jo Daniels, a UKRI Policy Fellow, worked within the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) Science

Found: information about CPRD, visit: www.cprd.com  The MHRA is an executive agency of the Department of Health and Social Care

Found: The MHRA is an executive agency of the Department of Health and Social Care.   

Found: The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), funded by the Department of Health and Social Care

Found: Framework agreement between DHSC and NHS Counter Fraud Authority: 2026 to 2029

Found: The Review recommended that the Department of Health and Social Care should define the dispensing responsibilities

Found: The exercise, led by the Department of Health and Social Care in partnership with the UK Health Security

Found: The exercise, led by the Department of Health and Social Care in partnership with the UK Health Security