Found: My colleague, Baroness Merron, is working on the updated women’s health strategy.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the remarks by Baroness Merron on 20 October (HL Deb col 480), in what way is the Mental Health Act "very significant" in supporting people with learning disabilities to access NHS services.

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

The Government’s 10-Year Health Plan sets out to tackle health inequalities and people with disabilities are a priority for care from a neighbourhood team with more holistic, on-going support. Ahead of this, action is underway to improve access and support through staff training, proactive health checks and plans, and the Mental Health Act reforms.

The Government knows that people with a learning disability and autistic people have poorer health outcomes than the general population, including, on average, dying younger. They continue to experience disparities in the quality of care they receive, which may include barriers to accessing the right support.

The Government is rolling out the Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on Learning Disability and Autism to the health and adult social care workforce to ensure staff have the right knowledge and skills to provide safe, informed care. Oliver’s Training is the Government’s preferred package for providers registered with the Care Quality Commission to meet the statutory training requirement under the Health and Care Act 2022. Over three million people have completed the e-learning package, the first part of this training, and more than 2,700 people have been trained to deliver the interactive second part nationwide.

Annual health checks for people with a learning disability are a crucial way to identify undetected conditions early and ensure the appropriateness of ongoing treatments. NHS England is working with people with lived experience, clinical professionals, and commissioners to produce a quality framework to ensure that these vital checks are high-quality. NHS England is also taking forward a range of work to improve the quality of the services accessed by people with a learning disability, including rollout of the Reasonable Adjustment Digital Flag across health and care services which enables health and publicly funded care professionals to record, share, and view details of the reasonable adjustments which individuals need to support their care and treatment.

The number of people with a learning disability and autistic people in mental health hospitals is unacceptable, and there are still too many people being detained who could be supported to live well in their communities. The Mental Health Bill currently before Parliament limits the scope of the ability to detain people with a learning disability and autistic people so that they can only be detained under Part 2, section 3 if they have a co-occurring mental disorder that requires hospital treatment. It also introduces measures to improve community support, including putting Care (Education) and Treatment Reviews and Dynamic Support Registers on a statutory footing, and placing certain duties on integrated care boards and local authorities when exercising existing commissioning duties.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 17 September (HL10436), what steps they are taking to ensure that peripheral arterial disease (PAD) is explicitly included in the upcoming Cardiovascular Diseases Modern Service Framework; and whether they plan to set specific targets for the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of PAD.

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

To accelerate progress towards the Government’s ambition to reduce premature deaths from heart disease and stroke by 25% within a decade, we will publish a new cardiovascular disease (CVD) modern service framework in 2026. The CVD modern service framework will support consistent, high quality, and equitable care whilst fostering innovation across the CVD pathway.

The Department and NHS England are working together to deliver the CVD modern service framework and are engaging widely throughout its development to ensure that we prioritise ambitious, evidence-led, and clinically informed approaches to prevention, treatment, and care. A range of conditions that impact premature mortality will be considered in the development of the CVD modern service framework, including peripheral arterial disease.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 17 September (HL10437), whether they plan to include peripheral arterial disease in the upcoming Cardiovascular Diseases Modern Service Framework.

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

To accelerate progress towards the Government’s ambition to reduce premature deaths from heart disease and stroke by 25% within a decade, we will publish a new cardiovascular disease (CVD) modern service framework in 2026. The CVD modern service framework will support consistent, high quality, and equitable care whilst fostering innovation across the CVD pathway.

The Department and NHS England are working together to deliver the CVD modern service framework and are engaging widely throughout its development to ensure that we prioritise ambitious, evidence-led, and clinically informed approaches to prevention, treatment, and care. A range of conditions that impact premature mortality will be considered in the development of the CVD modern service framework, including peripheral arterial disease.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the remarks by Baroness Merron on 21 October (HL Deb col 125 GC), what is the expected timetable for the reforms to the General Medical Council’s governing legislation.

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

The Government is committed to modernising the regulatory frameworks for all healthcare professionals in the United Kingdom.

As a first step, we aim to consult on secondary legislation to modernise the General Medical Council’s (GMC) regulatory framework in early 2026 and to lay this legislation before Parliament in the same year.

As part of the consultation, we will be consulting on the professional titles which should be protected in law within the GMC’s regulatory framework.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 1 October (HL10420), what databases or financial records they used to conclude that no individuals have yet received redundancy or severance payments as a result of reductions in NHS England or integrated care board staff in this financial year.

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

The written answer for HL10420, stating that no individuals have yet received redundancy or severance payments, relates to the Department and NHS England. The schemes are being managed by the human resource departments of both organisations, who hold the supporting documentation, including the financial offers that will be made to individuals who progress to exit. It remains the case that no individuals have yet left under these schemes, with no costs having therefore been incurred.

In the case of integrated care board staff, the associated records will be held locally. At a national level we continue to work with HM Treasury on how to prioritise funding for redundancy payments ahead of the medium-term planning framework being published.

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Found: Letter dated 29/10/2025 from Baroness Merron to Peers regarding questions raised during the draft Human