Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, on what dates his Department has met with patient groups representing families affected by sodium valproate since January 2024.

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

The current Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women's Health and Mental Health, Baroness Merron, the previous minister with responsibility for sodium valproate and pelvic mesh redress policy, held a roundtable with representatives of the sodium valproate patient groups in December 2024.

Since then, I met with relevant stakeholders at various parliamentary events. I also met with the Patient Safety Commissioner in December 2025, to discuss progress following the Hughes Report and have made clear the Department’s expectation of continued, proactive engagement with the Patient Safety Commissioner and key stakeholders.

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 (HL13777), when they will publish the results of the consultation on proposals to extend the medicines responsibilities of four professions.

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

The consultation for proposals to extend medicines responsibilities for paramedics, physiotherapists, operating department practitioners, and diagnostic radiographers closed on 28 October 2025. Our team is currently analysing the large number of respondents received and a Government response detailing next steps will be published in due course.

Non-medical prescribing remains a keen area of interest since the Government took office in 2024, and we support the expansion of professional groups being able to use legal mechanisms to supply, administer, and prescribe medicines to patients, where it is safe to do so, within their scope of practice.

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 (HL13801), whether they plan to collect data on respiratory syncytial virus related hospital admissions of infants under one year old in weekly surveillance reports; if not, for what reason this data is being omitted.

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

Numbers of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) admissions in infants are reported by a sentinel network of approximately 15 to 20 National Health Service trusts in England to the Severe Acute Respiratory Infections-Watch Surveillance at the UK Health Security Agency. Participation in this surveillance is completely voluntary for NHS trusts. Therefore, the number of participating trusts can vary from week to week, and comparisons based on simple counts may be misleading.

To provide appropriate context for reported weekly data, weekly admission rates are calculated to monitor trends over time. This uses trust catchment populations published by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, which are estimated for under five-year-olds, but which have not been estimated specifically for the under one year old age group, or infants.

Therefore, published rates are based on the available denominator data for the under five-year-olds, and these are publicly available in the national surveillance weekly reports and corresponding datafile at the GOV.UK website.

Further surveillance data and a programme impact assessment will be included in the annual surveillance report on RSV, due to be published in summer 2026. Please refer to the 2024/25 annual surveillance report for a summary of the previous winter season, which is available at the GOV.UK website.

Surveillance reports use hospital admission data and the Office for National Statistics’ mid-year estimates to model catchment populations for hospital trusts. Modelled catchment populations use hospital data, aggregated over three years and resident populations in five-year age bands.

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 assessment they have made of whether increased spending allocation to tacking mental health care results in a reduction in prevalence of mental health conditions.

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

We know that the nation’s mental health has deteriorated over the last decade. The Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey 2023/24 shows that the proportion of 16 to 64 year olds with a common mental health condition increased from 17.6% in 2007 and 18.9% in 2014, to 22.6% in 2023/24.

Total mental health spending for 2025/26 is expected to amount to £15.6 billion, which is a significant increase of £688 million compared to the previous financial year. However, demand has outstripped supply as a result of rising prevalence. That is why we have launched the independent review into prevalence and support for mental health conditions, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and autism. The review will look at prevalence, early intervention and treatment, and the current challenges facing clinical services.

The Government has already taken significant steps to stabilise and improve National Health Service mental health services. This includes NHS Talking Therapies services, which provide evidence-based interventions recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. More than 670,000 people completed a course of treatment last year. We are expanding Talking Therapies services so that 915,000 people can complete a course of treatment by March 2029.

NHS Talking Therapies have a recovery target that at least 50% of people who complete treatment should move to recovery, which is generally met or close to being met. Information released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows that completion of Talking Therapy treatment has a positive impact on pay and employment status. Further details are available on the ONS website.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 27 November 2025 (HL12262), why annual totals of reports they have received via the HSA4 abortion notification form of women who have died within 14 days of taking at-home abortion medication prescribed by the British Pregnancy Advisory Service would risk the identification of individual patients; and how many of those reports they have received in total in the past four years.

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

The Department continues to review the release of abortion statistics, to ensure the trustworthiness, quality, and value of these statistics, and also to mitigate the disclosure of sensitive information. Following the 2023 abortion statistics publication, all data is rounded to the nearest five. This aligns with the Code of Practice for Statistics and enables the Department to release more detailed information to the public.

We apply Statistical Disclosure Control with the aim to prevent the release of data that could identify individuals. This is particularly important when counts are low or zero, as small numbers increase the risk of disclosure. As a result of this change, counts of zero can mean no or a small number of procedures in the given field.

From 2020 to 2023, the number of deaths recorded via the HSA4 form for abortions where either one or both abortion medications were administered at home and had been prescribed by the British Pregnancy Advisory Service was zero, rounded to the nearest multiple of five. Please note that this is the number of cases recorded in the statistical datasets used for publication, which are a snapshot of the data at the time it was compiled, and therefore will not include late submissions or changes.

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 (HL13748), what assessment they have made of the effectiveness of the Every Mind Matters campaign to date; and what plans they have to make an assessment on completion of that campaign.

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

Historic Every Mind Matters (EMM) campaigns have been evaluated according to the process specified by the Government Communications Service’s Evaluation Cycle for all Government paid-for campaigns, following end of each campaign period, the last of which was in 2023.

Data in relation to the EMM campaign was referred to in evidence to the Health and Social Care Committee on 21 February 2023. Text from page 11 of the transcript is as follows:

“The Every Mind Matters campaign includes a health and wellbeing plan – the Mind Plan - that can be personalised, downloaded and followed to enable people to take active steps to look after their wellbeing, and 4.6 million people have done that since October 2019. Every Mind Matters also offers a follow up email programme and two out of three of its users report that it has led to improvements in their health and wellbeing.”

To the current date, 5.4 million Mind Plans have been completed.

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 (HL14010), how much has been spent on the Every Mind Matters campaign to date; and what is the (1) projected, and (2) budgeted spend, over the period of that campaign's operations.

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

As a point of clarification, the Every Mind Matters (EMM) website remains live on the National Health Service digital domain for anyone to access free of charge. Between 2019 and 2023, the EMM website and its digital tools were promoted via intermittent paid for marketing campaigns to encourage the use of the site to enable the public to take simple self-care actions to improve their mental health.

A total of £21.93 million was spent on these campaigns. Since 2024 no funding has been available to promote the site to the public. However, as noted in the response to HL14010, a campaign launched over the new year and is running until the end of March 2026 to encourage people to do the new NHS Healthy Choices Quiz which asks questions about six health topics, including mental health and sleep. People whose answers to the Quiz indicate mental health difficulties will be signposted to appropriate help, including Every Mind Matters, NHS Talking Therapies, or other NHS mental health services.

Any future budget for the Every Mind Matters campaigns is yet to be agreed by the Cabinet Office, which determines the health issues which will be supported by paid marketing campaigns and how much should be spent on them.

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 (HL14010), what assessment they have made of the impact of the NHS Healthy Choices Quiz on improving the mental health of its users.

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

The NHS Healthy Choices Quiz was designed and built at every stage with user research and engagement with policy experts to ensure it is both accurate and effective in supporting people to make healthy changes in six areas: movement; eating; sleep; mental health; smoking; and alcohol consumption. As part of our campaign evaluation, the Quiz will be assessed to explore how many of those who completed the Quiz took action to improve their health, including their mental health.

At the end of the Quiz, people are sign-posted to appropriate help including Better Health - Every Mind Matters, NHS Talking Therapies, or directed to their general practice or 111. The Better Health - Every Mind Matters digital resources offer a range of simple, National Health Service-approved, self-care tips and tools that everyone can use and incorporate into daily routines to help manage common early-stage mental health concerns.

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 (HL13746), what plans they have to ensure that the review of the demand for mental health services has a comprehensive evidence base.

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

The review will be chaired by Professor Peter Fonagy, and supported by Professor Sir Simon Wessely and Professor Gillian Baird as vice‑chairs. A multidisciplinary Advisory Working Group will directly shape the recommendations and scrutinise the evidence comprehensively.

The review will seek to understand the factors behind trends in prevalence, the impact of clinical practice, including social and cultural factors and the risks and benefits of medicalisation, and ways to promote the prevention of mental ill health, create resilience, and improve early intervention. The review will examine evidence on prevalence, trends, and inequalities associated with mental health conditions, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and autism.

Found: Answering member: Baroness Merron | Department of Health and Social Care Legislation requiring large

Found: Letter Baroness Merron to Lord Kamall, Lord Wolfson, Baroness Finlay, Lord Gove and Lord Harper regarding

Found: Letter dated 10/02/2026 from Baroness Merron to Lord Kamall regarding corrected answers to parliamentary