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 the (a) effectiveness and (b) timeliness of patient referrals between organisations in the NHS.

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

We’re improving referral processing by introducing a Single Point of Access model, which will provide consistent clinical triage and use digital solutions to streamline processes and reduce duplication. This will ensure patients are directed to the right care quickly.

To support general practitioners and avoid delays, we’re introducing national standards for response times and guidance to underpin clinical triage and advice quality. These will be monitored locally by integrated care boards and reviewed regularly.

The NHS App also already allows people to book and manage their secondary care referrals in 100% of acute trusts, with 89% allowing patients to manage follow up appointments too, with 100% expected in 2026.

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 (a) palliative and (b) end of life care for patients in Yeovil constituency.

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. I refer the hon. member to the Written Ministerial Statement HCWS1087 I gave to the House on 24 November 2025.

The MSF will drive improvements in the services that patients and their families, including those in Yeovil, 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.

The recently published Strategic Commissioning Framework and Medium-Term Planning Guidance also make clear the expectations that integrated care boards 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.

We are supporting the hospice sector with a £100 million capital funding boost for eligible adult and children’s hospices in England to ensure they have the best physical environment for care. St Margaret’s Hospice Care, which serves patients in the Yeovil constituency, is receiving £816,184 from this funding.

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 (a) eye care services provision and (b) steps taken by Integrated Care Boards to ensure equality of access to eye care services in each region.

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

Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for commissioning primary and secondary eye care services to meet local need. NHS sight tests are widely available across the country. The decision to commission enhanced eye care services will be determined by local ICBs following a local needs assessment.

ICBs are required to work with local authorities to assess the current and future health, care and wellbeing needs of their local populations. They will then set out in joint local health and wellbeing strategies how they will meet those needs, which could include addressing any identified inequalities in accessing services. ICBs will also want to take account of published waiting list information which is broken down by demographics to allow greater visibility of potential health inequalities.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of (a) preparing and (b) publishing a national strategy for (i) palliative and (ii) 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. I refer the hon. member to the Written Ministerial Statement HCWS1087 I gave to the House on 24 November 2025.

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. This will be aligned with the ambitions set out in the recently published 10-Year Health Plan.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the planned timeline is for publishing the next iteration of the taxonomy being developed as part of the ongoing reforms to Drug Tariff Part IX.

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

The final draft, version 1.2, of the Part IX Drug Tariff (Med Tech in the community) Wave 1 categorisation was developed in collaboration with an Expert Reference Group and updated in line with stakeholder feedback over four iterations. The final version was published in October 2025 and can be found on the NHS Business Services Authority Website at the following link:

https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/manufacturers-and-suppliers/drug-tariff-part-ix-information

The Department is currently recruiting Independent Assessment Panels (IAPs) for Wave 1 and has agreed to ask them to review late feedback received from a company on the eye drops category. This is due to take place in February 2026 and will not require further input from industry as it has already been circulated for comment by them.

The Department has also offered to review Drug Tariff Committee feedback regarding the categorisation of medical devices that fall into waves 2 to 4.

The categorisation for waves 2 and 3 is currently being reviewed, and the Department expects to share the updated versions in early 2026 well in advance of the projected launch of waves 2 and 3 in 2027 and 2028 respectively. There are no confirmed plans for reviewing wave 4 at this time. The earliest launch would be in January 2029. All dates are subject to the outcome of the review of wave one.

The Department recognises that the categorisation is not stagnant and may need further amendments as medical devices continue to evolve and the IAPs are stood up. Companies can suggest further amendments when they apply to Part IX of the Drug Tariff or through the Drug Tariff Committee.

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 20 October to Question 77603 on Brain: Tumours, what steps he plans to take to incentivise pharmaceutical companies involved in developing vaccines for brain tumours to approach the NHS Cancer Vaccine Launch Pad for funding and support.

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). In the financial year 2024/25, the NIHR’s reported spend on cancer research was over £141.6 million through its research programmes and infrastructure, reflecting cancer’s high priority.

The Government is taking measures to boost research into brain tumours. In December 2025, the NIHR announced the pioneering Brain Tumour Research Consortium to accelerate research into new brain tumour treatments. NIHR is investing an initial £13.7 million with significant further funding due to be awarded in 2026.

We also support the Rare Cancers Private Members Bill. This bill aims to incentivise research and investment into treatment by introducing measures to streamline clinical trial recruitment, allow patients to be more easily contacted by researchers, and also mandates a review of orphan drug regulations.

The NIHR continues to welcome funding applications for research into any aspect of human health and care, including brain tumours. 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.

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 (a) alter and (b) mitigate the National Institute for Care and Excellence's downgrading of terminal cancer to moderately severe.

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

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has not classified terminal cancer as moderately severe. The NICE is an independent body and is responsible for developing the methods and processes it uses to evaluate whether new medicines should be recommended for routine National Health Service funding.

In developing recommendations on whether medicines represent a clinically and cost effective use of NHS resources, NICE is able to apply a weighting that recognises the additional value that society places on treatments for severe conditions. The weighting that is applied is calculated for each appraisal based on information on the expected shortfall in life expectancy and quality of life of people with the condition taking into account existing treatment options. NICE has concluded for several appraisals of medicines for advanced cancer that a weighting should be applied based on the severity of the condition. The latest data for appraisals published up to September 2025, show that NICE has recommended 84.8% of treatments for advanced cancers since the severity modifier was introduced compared to 69.1% under its previous methods.

NICE is monitoring the impact of the changes made following the methods review and has committed to considering modular updates to its methods and processes in the future. NICE has also commissioned research to gather further evidence on societal preferences that will inform future methods reviews.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many women in the UK have received Allergan breast implants.

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

The Breast and Cosmetic Implant Registry (BCIR), set up in 2016, collects all implant data, and explant data where possible.

Practically, it is always difficult and often impossible to identify a model and product code on an explant. If explanted devices, or patients undergoing explant, cannot be linked to data collected at time of implant, then this often reduces explant data to 'patient, surgeon, location, date'. This in turn makes it impossible to monitor trends in explant/failure.

NHS England is in the process of clarifying and mandating the detail required in the BCIR and other device-related collections.

This will place a greater responsibility on trusts to either identify a device at the point of explant, or to identify the device from internal trust records created during the same patient's implant procedure. This will only be possible if the implant and explant are performed at the same trust. It is then the intention of NHS England to provide the same matching service for implant/explant where the trusts differ.

This solution will, when implemented, give a full, proactive picture of device longevity/risk, for the purposes of research and surveillance, alongside the existing ability to identify patients affected by a device recall notice.

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 implications for his policies of the October 2024 report entitled Key Interventions to Transform Eye Care & Eye Health; and what estimate his Department has made of the potential savings to the public purse of that report’s recommendations for a national-roll out of (a) Community Urgent Eye Service and Minor Eye Conditions Service, (b) the Integrated Glaucoma Pathway and (c) the Integrated Cataract Pathway for pre and post assessments.

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

Integrated care boards are responsible for assessing the health needs of their local population and commissioning primary and secondary eye care services to meet them. This can include the commissioning of enhanced eye care services from high street optical practices, including minor and urgent eye care services and glaucoma referral refinement services.

NHS England’s accelerator pilots have demonstrated that improved IT connectivity and a single point of access can significantly speed up eye care referrals and support more patients to be managed in the community, in line with the ambitions 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, what assessment his Department has made of the efficacy of the (a) Minor Eye Conditions Service and (b) Community Urgent Eyecare Service.

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

Integrated care boards are responsible for assessing the health needs of their local population and commissioning primary and secondary eye care services to meet them. This can include the commissioning of enhanced eye care services from high street optical practices, including minor and urgent eye care services and glaucoma referral refinement services.

NHS England’s accelerator pilots have demonstrated that improved IT connectivity and a single point of access can significantly speed up eye care referrals and support more patients to be managed in the community, in line with the ambitions 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, what assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of the regional provision of Minor Eye Conditions Services.

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

Integrated care boards are responsible for assessing the health needs of their local population and commissioning primary and secondary eye care services to meet them. This can include the commissioning of enhanced eye care services from high street optical practices, including minor and urgent eye care services and glaucoma referral refinement services.

NHS England’s accelerator pilots have demonstrated that improved IT connectivity and a single point of access can significantly speed up eye care referrals and support more patients to be managed in the community, in line with the ambitions 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, what steps his Department is taking to ensure annual statutory reviews for people in care are undertaken.

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

Under the Care Act 2014, local authorities must keep care and support plans under review, respond to reasonable requests for review, and update plans when circumstances change, involving the individual drawing on care and support, and their carer, if applicable, throughout.

Local authorities should establish systems that allow the proportionate monitoring of both care and support plans to ensure that needs are continuing to be met. In the absence of any request of a review, or any indication that circumstances may have changed, the local authority should conduct a periodic review of the plan. It is the expectation that local authorities should conduct a review of the plan no later than every 12 months after the plan is first agreed or last reviewed.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is assessing how local authorities in England are meeting the full range of their duties under Part 1 of the Care Act 2014, including how local authorities assess the needs of individuals who draw on care and support. The assessments identify local authorities’ strengths and areas for improvement, facilitating the sharing of good practice and helping us to target support where it is most needed. If the CQC identifies that a local authority has failed or is failing to discharge its duties under the Care Act to an acceptable standard, my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, has powers to intervene. Reports are made available on the CQC’s website, at the following link:

www.cqc.org.uk/care-services/local-authority-assessment-reports

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of publishing a national strategy for (a) palliative and (b) 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 for England. I refer the hon. member to the Written Ministerial Statement HCWS1087 I gave to the House on 24 November 2025.

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 the recently published 10-Year Health Plan.

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 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 for England. I refer the Hon. Member to the Written Ministerial Statement HCWS1087 I gave to the House on 24 November 2025.

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 the recently published 10-Year Health Plan.

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 professional accreditation of home care workers on levels of recruitment and retention; and what discussions he has had with relevant stakeholders on this issue.

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

There are beneficial effects of accredited qualifications and structured learning on the recruitment and retention of care workers. Skills for Care data shows that turnover rates are approximately 10% lower for staff who hold a relevant qualification compared to those without. Additionally, staff who received more than 30 instances of training evidenced a turnover rate 3.4% lower than those who recorded only one to five instances, with further information available in Skills for Care’s the ‘State of’ report at the following link:

https://www.skillsforcare.org.uk/Adult-Social-Care-Workforce-Data/workforceintelligence/Reports-and-visualisations/National-information/The-State-of-report.aspx

The Department introduced the Care Workforce Pathway, the first universal career structure for adult social care, which sets out clear skills, and progression routes to help retain staff and attract newcomers by recognising care workers as professionals and promoting development opportunities.

Additionally, we launched the Learning and Development Support Scheme, which provides funding support for training, including recognised qualifications like the Level 2 Adult Social Care Certificate, which provides a portable, recognised foundation of skills and knowledge, aiming to reduce duplication of training and increase retention. Furthermore, the Quality Assured Care Learning Service ensures training is high-quality, meets sector needs, and supports career growth.

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 implications for its policies of the Adult Oral Health survey published on 9 December 2025.

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

The Adult Oral Health Survey 2023 provides the first picture of adult oral health in England for more than a decade. It provides further evidence of the need for dental contract reform.

We are taking forward significant changes to the National Health Service dental contract. The reforms will prioritise patients with urgent dental needs and those requiring complex treatments, and will come in from April 2026. We are committed to fundamental reform of the NHS dental contract by the end of this Parliament, with a focus on improving access, promoting prevention, and rewarding dentists fairly.

The Government is also focussed on prevention of poor dental health through our supervised toothbrushing programme to reach up to 600,000 children in the 20% most deprived areas of England, and by expanding community water fluoridation to the North East of England. This intervention will reach an additional 1.6 million people and will reduce tooth decay and inequalities in dental health, particularly in children and vulnerable adults.

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 create capacity in hospital eye services by expanding the use of optometry-led diagnostic and treatment pathways.

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

Integrated care boards are responsible for assessing the health needs of their local population and commissioning primary and secondary eye care services to meet them. This can include the commissioning of enhanced eye care services from high street optical practices, including minor and urgent eye care services and glaucoma referral refinement services.

NHS England’s accelerator pilots have demonstrated that improved IT connectivity and a single point of access can significantly speed up eye care referrals and support more patients to be managed in the community, in line with the ambitions 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, what steps his Department is taking to expand the use of community optometry services.

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

Integrated care boards are responsible for assessing the health needs of their local population and commissioning primary and secondary eye care services to meet them. This can include the commissioning of enhanced eye care services from high street optical practices, including minor and urgent eye care services and glaucoma referral refinement services.

NHS England’s accelerator pilots have demonstrated that improved IT connectivity and a single point of access can significantly speed up eye care referrals and support more patients to be managed in the community, in line with the ambitions 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, with reference to the removal of ring-fenced funding for maternity services at Integrated Care Board level, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that maternity safety improvements are maintained.

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

The Government has instructed the National Health Service to improve maternity services, as part of a drive to improve quality, as a priority in the Medium‑Term Planning Framework.

While the ringfence has been removed, the same level of funding is being delivered to allow local healthcare system leaders more autonomy to meet the needs of their local population. This approach is consistent with our wider approach to give local healthcare leaders, who are best placed to decide how to serve their local community, more flexibility.

Baroness Amos is leading a rapid, independent investigation in NHS Maternity and Neonatal services to help us understand the systemic issues behind why so many women, babies and families experience unacceptable care. The investigation will look into the maternity and neonatal system nationally, bringing together the findings of past reviews into one clear national set of recommendations. This will also include local investigations of maternity and neonatal services in selected trusts.

On 9 December, Baroness Amos published reflections on what she has heard so far as part of the National Maternity and Neonatal Investigation, following engagement with women and families. Baroness Amos’ reflections and initial findings are available at the following link:

https://www.matneoinv.org.uk/

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 trends in the level of consistency of NHS Continuing Healthcare assessments across (a) England, (b) the South East and (c) Surrey Heath constituency.

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

Operational delivery of NHS Continuing Healthcare (CHC) is the responsibility of integrated care boards (ICBs) with oversight from NHS England. The Department’s statutory guidance on CHC supports practitioners to undertake assessments and deliver CHC appropriately. Eligibility can vary across ICBs due to factors including, but not limited to, the age profile of the local population and health need variation between geographical regions.

NHS England’s assurance regime promotes accurate assessment, equal access, and consistency within CHC delivery. Their assurance model is focused on reducing variation in the delivery of CHC services across the country. The NHS Performance and Assessment Framework for 2025/26 includes specific metrics to support NHS England to monitor CHC delivery and support improved patient experience.

The NHS All Age Continuing Care Data Set, which was launched in April 2025, provides NHS England with regional, ICB, and sub-ICB-level data on CHC eligibility, referrals, and assessment outcomes to help monitor and improve CHC delivery.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an assessment of (a) trends in the level of variation in access to NICE-recommended biologic medicines for severe asthma.

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

No assessment has been made. NHS England is working with the health innovation networks and has formed the Respiratory Transformation Partnership. Focusing on improving the outcomes of people living with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), this programme seeks to find scalable ways to decrease premature mortality and bed occupancy from respiratory diseases. Initiatives will seek to improve disease recognition, optimise delivery of National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) approved approaches at neighbourhood level, and uptake of existing and emerging biologic therapies.

The current NHS England severe asthma service specification is being revised by the Specialised Respiratory Clinical Reference Group. The current service specification is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/specialised-respiratory-services-adult-severe-asthma.pdf

The revised specification will support the management of patients who require further investigation and treatments including biological medicines. The specification will also be updated to reference the most recent clinical guidelines such as the British Thoracic Society, NICE, and the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network asthma guideline covering diagnosing, monitoring, and managing asthma in adults, young people, and children, and which is expected to improve outcomes for people with asthma and identify early those who require further investigation and treatments including biologic medicines. This guideline is available at the following link:

https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng245

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 1 December 2025 to Question 93580 on Eating Disorders: Mental Health Services, which external stakeholders his Department is engaging with in the development of the modern service framework for mental health.

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

The Government plans to publish the modern service framework for severe mental illness in the latter half of 2026.

Engagement on the modern service framework will involve a wide range of stakeholders, such as people with lived experience, clinicians, allied professionals, social workers, the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector, commissioners, and National Health Service Leaders. We have recruited a third Co-Chair for the Modern Service Framework, Jo Lomani, who is a national mental health co-production lead and expert by lived and living experience, to support the implementation of our lived-experience involvement and co-production strategy. This aims to ensure that people who use mental health services stay at the centre of everything we do.

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 1 December 2025 to Question 93580 on Eating Disorders: Mental Health Services, when the Government expects to publish the modern service framework for mental health.

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

The Government plans to publish the modern service framework for severe mental illness in the latter half of 2026.

Engagement on the modern service framework will involve a wide range of stakeholders, such as people with lived experience, clinicians, allied professionals, social workers, the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector, commissioners, and National Health Service Leaders. We have recruited a third Co-Chair for the Modern Service Framework, Jo Lomani, who is a national mental health co-production lead and expert by lived and living experience, to support the implementation of our lived-experience involvement and co-production strategy. This aims to ensure that people who use mental health services stay at the centre of everything we do.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent engagement his Department has had with the devolved Administrations in relation to the recommendations of The Hughes Report, published on 7 February 2024; and whether any Ministerial-level discussions are planned with the governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

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

While health is predominantly devolved, the Department holds some reserved functions and working together across the United Kingdom on health and social care is ingrained in the values of our National Health Service and social care sector.

The Patient Safety Commissioner’s report covered England-only, however, any response by the Government to the recommendations of the Hughes Report in England will likely have implications for the devolved administrations and their constituents. Engagement between officials across the UK occurs regularly and during an Inter-Ministerial Group meeting on 11 December 2025, the Hughes report was discussed and ministers across the four nations agreed to meet in January 2026 for further engagement.

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 the introduction of digital and AI tools in mental health care enhances rather than replaces the work of qualified counsellors and psychotherapists, in line with guidance from professional bodies such as the National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society.

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

To deliver the shift from analogue to digital that is set out in the 10-Year Health Plan, we will create a digital front door for mental health care through the NHS App to boost access to early support and empower people to take steps to manage their symptoms.

Digital and artificial intelligence (AI) tools in mental health care can enhance and complement the work of qualified counsellors and psychotherapists, not replace human-delivered care. These tools can help with routine tasks like managing appointments, answering basic queries, updating clinical notes, and booking sessions. This means that clinicians can spend more time providing care to patients and patients have an improved experience across the care pathway, for example through reduced waiting times. Any new tools are introduced within a comprehensive regulatory framework in the National Health Service, underpinned by rigorous standards for safety, effectiveness, ethics, and data protection.

Publicly available AI applications that are not deployed by the NHS, such as ChatGPT and Character.AI, are not regulated as medical technologies and may offer incorrect or harmful information. Users are strongly advised to be careful when using these technologies.

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 patient experience of the NHS App.

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

The NHS App is at the forefront of a major digital transformation and will revolutionise access to healthcare by putting patients at the centre of a modern, personalised, and data-driven service. One of the key aims is to empower individuals with greater choice, transparency, and control over their care.

The NHS App is co-designed with patients from a wide range of background and needs, with 14,000 users involved in user research in 2025 alongside 42,000 survey completions. Our research teams also have a rule of always doing rounds of research with often excluded or disadvantaged groups. This is often facilitated by partners like the Royal National Institute of Blind People and Mencap who help us to involve the appropriate people.

The NHS App is already helping people manage their health more easily, whether that’s viewing records, booking appointments, ordering prescriptions, or accessing test results. In the past year alone, the app has sent over 181 million messages, supported over 32 million vaccination invites, and offered more than 16 million vaccination appointments, many in local pharmacies. These numbers show how the app is not just supporting care but actively shifting it closer to home.

By 2030, patients will be able to manage their care remotely, contribute to their health records, and navigate the system with confidence, driving better outcomes and a more integrated, responsive National Health Service.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many (a) breast implants and (b) PIP breast implants have ruptured and had to be removed in the last 10 years; and how many of those ruptured implants were not listed on the breast and cosmetic implant registry when implanted.

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

The Breast and Cosmetic Implant Registry (BCIR), set up in 2016, collects all implant data, and explant data where possible.

Practically, it is always difficult and often impossible to identify a model and product code on an explant. If explanted devices, or patients undergoing explant, cannot be linked to data collected at time of implant, then this often reduces explant data to 'patient, surgeon, location, date'. This in turn makes it impossible to monitor trends in explant/failure.

NHS England is in the process of clarifying and mandating the detail required in the BCIR and other device-related collections.

This will place a greater responsibility on trusts to either identify a device at the point of explant, or to identify the device from internal trust records created during the same patient's implant procedure. This will only be possible if the implant and explant are performed at the same trust. It is then the intention of NHS England to provide the same matching service for implant/explant where the trusts differ.

This solution will, when implemented, give a full, proactive picture of device longevity/risk, for the purposes of research and surveillance, alongside the existing ability to identify patients affected by a device recall notice.

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 healthcare provision in prisons; and what steps he is taking to ensure that prisoners have timely access to appropriate medical treatment.

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

NHS England commissions prison health care services into every prison in England. Every prison has onsite health care services including, primary care, mental health, dentistry, and substance misuse teams. This includes the care and management of those with long term conditions such as diabetes. All prisons offer a range of appointments to meet the needs of patients, and this includes routine appointments and urgent appointments.

NHS England commissions health care in prison that is the equivalence of community health care. The National Service Specification for primary care defines what this means for patients who require support. Access to health provision is available to every person in prison at any stage of their sentence, and this begins at the point of entry. NHS England also commissions health needs assessments across prisons to determine the needs and requirements of the prison population.

NHS England is reviewing the National Primary Care Service Specification to ensure it continues to meet the needs of the prison population.

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 healthcare provision in prisons for inmates with diabetes; and what steps he is taking to ensure that diabetic prisoners have timely access to appropriate medical treatment.

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

NHS England commissions prison health care services into every prison in England. Every prison has onsite health care services including, primary care, mental health, dentistry, and substance misuse teams. This includes the care and management of those with long term conditions such as diabetes. All prisons offer a range of appointments to meet the needs of patients, and this includes routine appointments and urgent appointments.

NHS England commissions health care in prison that is the equivalence of community health care. The National Service Specification for primary care defines what this means for patients who require support. Access to health provision is available to every person in prison at any stage of their sentence, and this begins at the point of entry. NHS England also commissions health needs assessments across prisons to determine the needs and requirements of the prison population.

NHS England is reviewing the National Primary Care Service Specification to ensure it continues to meet the needs of the prison population.

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 for the potential implications for his policies of the BSL Advisory Board report on Health and Social Care, published on 27 November 2025.

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

Integrated care boards are responsible for commissioning services to meet the health needs of their local population, which includes responsibility for ensuring that there is adequate provision of British Sign Language (BSL) interpreters to support deaf patients in the community.

We welcome the British Sign Language Advisory Board’s report titled Locked out: Exclusion of deaf and deafblind BSL users from health and social care in the UK. We will carefully consider its recommendations, including how, in the context of our work on the 10-Year Health Plan and reform of adult social care, we can improve the experiences of Deaf people when accessing health and care services and experience of Deaf people.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has reviewed the rate of uptake of biologic medicines for severe asthma relative to the eligible population.

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

The Department has not conducted any such review, but this information is available via the NHS England Innovation Scorecard, which is published bi-annually.

Across all disease areas, though the 10-Year Health Plan and the Life Sciences Sector Plan, the Government has commitment to reducing friction in the system to optimise access and uptake of new medicines so the most clinically and cost-effective can reach patients faster. These actions will speed up market access for new medicines and reduce local unwarranted variation in medicine use.

We call on the Government to amend the law to ensure there are at least one non-wholemeal flour option without folic acid fortification, and to exempt organic flour from mandatory folic acid fortification requirement from December 2026.

Reform medicines law so trained dispensers or registered technicians can hand out medication that has already been clinically checked, labelled and sealed when the pharmacist is absent. This will prevent missed doses, reduce patient harm and ease pressure on pharmacy staff.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking in response to the findings of PwC’s Youth Employment Index regarding the role of long-term sickness in driving youth economic inactivity.

Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Long-term sickness continues to be the most common reason for economic inactivity in the working age population. Good work is generally good for health and wellbeing, so we want everyone to get work and get on in work, whoever they are and wherever they live. Backed by £240 million investment, the Get Britain Working White Paper launched in November 2024 is driving forward approaches to tackling economic inactivity.

Young disabled people and young people with health conditions are a diverse group so access to the right work and health support, in the right place, at the right time, is key. We therefore have a range of specialist initiatives to support individuals to stay in work and get back into work, including those that join up employment and health systems. Existing measures include support from Work Coaches and Disability Employment Advisers in Jobcentres and Access to Work grants, as well as joining up health and employment support around the individual through Employment Advisors in NHS Talking Therapies, Individual Placement and Support in Primary Care and WorkWell.

Additionally, the Youth Guarantee and Pathways to Work will guarantee specialist support for young people with long-term health conditions and disabled young people. We have announced an £820 million funding package for the Youth Guarantee to overhaul support and give a generation of young people a brighter future.

We set out our plan for the “Pathways to Work Guarantee” in our Pathways to Work Green Paper and we are building towards our guaranteed offer of personalised work, health and skills support for disabled people and those with health conditions on out of work benefits. The guarantee is backed by £1 billion a year of new, additional funding by the end of the decade. We anticipate the guarantee, once fully rolled out, will include: a support conversation to identify next steps, one-to-one caseworker support, periodic engagement, and an offer of specialist long-term work health and skills support.

In recognition of employers’ vital role in addressing health-related economic activity, we appointed Sir Charlie Mayfield to lead the independent Keep Britain Working Review. The Report was published on 5 November. In partnership with DBT and DHSC, we are immediately launching Vanguards to test new employer-led approaches to support individuals to stay in work and develop a Healthy Workplace Standard, putting Sir Charlie’s key recommendations into action from day one.  Additionally, the JWHD has developed a digital information service for employers, continues to oversee the Disability Confident Scheme, and continues to increase access to Occupational Health.

The NHS 10 Year Health Plan, published in July, stated our intention to break down barriers to opportunity by delivering the holistic support that people need to access and thrive in employment by ensuring a better health service for everyone, regardless of condition or service area. It outlines how the neighbourhood health service will join up support from across the work, health and skills systems to help address the multiple complex challenges that often stop people finding and staying in work.

Additionally, Alan Milburn will author an independent report to tackle the persistently high numbers of young people out of work, education and training. The report will examine why increasing numbers of young people are falling out of work or education before their careers have begun, with a particular focus on the impact of mental health conditions and disability. It will make recommendations for policy response to help young people with health conditions access work, training or education, ensuring they are supported to thrive and are not sidelined. It will complement the Timms Review by focusing specifically on the links between youth mental health, economic inactivity and the benefit system.

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Found: urgent medical treatment in the UK following agreement about such treatment with the Department of Health and Social Care

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

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