Asked by: Lewis Cocking (Conservative - Broxbourne)
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 MHRA on the potential impact of regulatory reform on the time taken to develop glioblastoma treatments.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is an executive agency of the Department and regulates medicine, medical devices, and blood components for transfusion in the United Kingdom, with responsibility for ensuring medicines meet appropriate standards of safety, quality, and efficacy.
The impact of the new regulatory reform on the development of glioblastoma is that the new regulations will introduce notifiable trials, including initial and modification trials, which will be approved within 21 days without further assessment if they meet the inclusion criteria. Therefore, these submissions will be approved with a short turnaround time. This approach will free up assessors’ time to provide more support for trials that require closer scrutiny. The trials in glioblastoma are part of the oncology area, which represents almost 30% of all submissions received by the MHRA.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when he expects the drug Vorsidenib (Voranigo) to be made available to treat adults and children aged 12 years and over with grade 2 astrocytoma or oligodendroglioma carrying a susceptible IDH1 or IDH2 mutation.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is the independent body that makes evidence-based recommendations on whether new medicines should be routinely funded by the National Health Service based on an assessment of clinical and cost effectiveness. NICE is currently evaluating vorasidenib for treating astrocytoma or oligodendroglioma with IDH1 or IDH2 mutations after surgery in people 12 years old and over.
NICE published its draft guidance for consultation on 15 October and was unable to recommend it as a clinically and cost-effective use of NHS resources. The appraisal is still ongoing, and NICE will take the comments received fully into account in developing its final recommendations. The committee reviewed the consultation comments at the committee meeting on 20 November 2025. NICE currently expect to publish final guidance in January 2026.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many and what proportion of NHS hospitals have 24 hours pharmacy dispensing for patients being discharged.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department and NHS England do not hold this information. NHS England’s guidance and toolkits embed medicines planning within discharge processes and emphasise arranging discharge prescriptions and take-home medicines in advance, so they can be supplied within standard pharmacy operating hours and do not delay discharge. Implementation of this guidance is the responsibility of local National Health Service organisations.
Asked by: Darren Paffey (Labour - Southampton Itchen)
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 on children and families of local pauses to neurodevelopmental assessments under the NHS Right to Choose pathway; and what steps his Department is taking to ensure that interim support is available to families whose referrals have been affected.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government has recognised that, nationally, demand for assessments for neurodevelopmental conditions such as autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has grown significantly in recent years and that people are experiencing severe delays for accessing such assessments. The Government’s 10-Year Health Plan will make the National Health Service fit for the future and it recognises the need for early intervention and support.
It is the responsibility of integrated care boards (ICBs) to make available appropriate provision to meet the health and care needs of their local population, including access to neurodevelopmental assessments.
Through the medium-term planning framework, published 24 October, NHS England has set clear expectations for local ICBs and trusts to improve access, experience, and outcomes for autism and ADHD services over the next three years, focusing on improving quality and productivity.
Patients’ right to choose is set out in legislation. Patients being referred to a mental health professional, including for neurodevelopmental assessments, have the right to be treated by any clinically appropriate provider who holds a contract for the provision of NHS services.
ICBs are responsible for ensuring that their processes comply with the legal right to choose. This includes any qualifying contract requirements and clinical appropriateness or eligibility criteria. ICBs also have a duty to publicise and promote choice and can provide local referral guidance to support referrers and ensure that referrals into any NHS funded service are appropriate.
There has been no change to the existing legal right patients have to choose the provider and team who will provide their elective care in certain cases. These rights extend to any provider in England who holds a contract with an ICB, or NHS England, for the service/s the patient requires, as per the NHS Choice Framework. This includes independent sector providers who deliver NHS funded care. Neurodivergent services are already in scope of this legislation.
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how often meetings are held to discuss NHS England’s Urgent and Emergency Care Daily Situation Reports.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (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.
Asked by: Helen Whately (Conservative - Faversham and Mid Kent)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to Budget 2025, what assessment he has of the potential impact of the proposed changes to the salary sacrifice policy for employee pension contributions on the number of hours worked by NHS employees.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (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.
Asked by: Esther McVey (Conservative - Tatton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer 1 December 2025 to Question HL12274 on Visual Snow Syndrome: Yellow Card Scheme, if he will confirm whether official UK drug labels or patient information leaflets warn about the possibility of this condition occurring.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Visual snow syndrome (VSS) was officially recognized in 2025 with a unique code in the eleventh edition of the International Classification of Diseases by the World Health Organization. Very few cases of VSS have been reported with 22 individual drugs or vaccines through the Yellow Card scheme.
VSS is a rare disorder and the underlying cause currently unknown. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) keeps all licensed medicines and vaccines under close monitoring and any potential signal of an association between a medicine or vaccine exposure and development of VSS will be rigorously assessed through the MHRA’s multidisciplinary signal review process and added to individual product information when there is data available to support regulatory action.
Asked by: Esther McVey (Conservative - Tatton)
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 4 July 2025 to question 63299, when he plans to publish the report on packaging changes to Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, as discussed at the Commission on Human Medicines Antidepressant Risk Minimisation Expert Working Group on 1 May.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Commission on Human Medicines Antidepressant Risk Minimisation Expert Working Group met in May and July 2025 and their recommendations were subsequently considered by the Commission on Human Medicines in September 2025.
A public assessment report summarising the data considered and the recommendations will be published by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) as soon as the regulatory position is finalised with the 105 marketing authorisation holders of the 28 antidepressants involved in the review. An exact date for publication of the public assessment report cannot be confirmed yet.
The MHRA will issue a Drug Safety Update to inform healthcare professionals in the United Kingdom of the new regulatory position for all antidepressants, not only selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, and publication of the public assessment report.
Asked by: Sarah Pochin (Reform UK - Runcorn and Helsby)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of waiting times for and availability of trauma-informed therapeutic support for child victims of peer-on-peer or child-on-child sexual abuse; and whether she intends to introduce access targets for such support.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We know that timely support is critical for child victims of sexual abuse, and that demand for child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) has risen significantly. The 10-Year Health Plan set out an ambitious reform agenda to transform the National Health Service and make it fit for the future. In line with this, we will go further to ensure that NHS mental health services deliver the care that people deserve, including child victims of sexual abuse.
We are committed to reducing waiting times for specialist CAMHS support, as set out in our Medium-Term Planning Framework. We are also accelerating the rollout of Mental Health Support Teams in schools and colleges to reach full national coverage by 2029. As part of this, we are investing an additional £13 million to pilot enhanced training for staff so that they can offer more effective support to young people with complex needs, such as trauma. By bringing in vital services to schools, we can intervene early, promote wellbeing, and support recovery.
Our action so far has resulted in more young people being supported to access NHS mental health services. In the first 12 months of the Government, nearly 40,000 more children and young people received support compared to the previous 12 months.
There are currently no plans to introduce such an access target. The Darzi Review highlighted that there are too many NHS targets, so we have reduced the number of national priorities for 2025/26, focusing on what matters most to patients.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the Department has assessed the potential benefits of enabling GPs to issue automatic repeat prescriptions for patients on stable, long-term medication.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Responsibility for prescribing, including the issue of repeat prescribing and the duration of prescriptions, rests with the prescriber who has clinical responsibility for that particular aspect of a patient’s care.
Electronic repeat dispensing is already implemented in the National Health Service and allows prescribers to authorise and issue a batch of repeat prescriptions for up to 12 months with just one digital signature. Since April 2019, the GP Contract has stated that electronic repeat dispensing should be used for all patients for whom it is clinically appropriate.
Prescriptions for longer periods of time may be more appropriate and more convenient for some patients with stable long-term conditions. However, for some patients, issuing shorter prescriptions may be appropriate to give the prescriber the opportunity to review the patient’s medicines, which is important for some treatment courses that require greater scrutiny or monitoring to be managed appropriately.