Found: I know that your purview is the Commons, but my colleague Baroness Merron has sight of what comes down

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 6 May (HL6997), which organisation holds the information requested regarding speech and language services in prisons in England.

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

This information would be held at a local level by the prison healthcare providers.

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 April (HL6268), how many children were hospitalised as a result of non-therapeutic male circumcision between 2015 and 2025.

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

The data is not available in the format requested. Data is collected on admissions with a primary diagnosis code of routine and ritual circumcision. This data is available for 2023/24, by age group, on the NHS.UK website, in an online only format.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, what further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 27 March (HL5042), what assessment they have made of the impact on individual integrated care board (ICB) areas of the approximately 9 percent reduction in funding for cancer alliances in 2025–26, following the consolidation of Service Development Funding into core allocations; and what is the breakdown of the total cancer alliance allocation for 2025–26 for each ICB area, compared to the allocation for 2024–25.

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

Funding for Cancer Alliances is set nationally by NHS England. The place-based allocation is calculated on a population basis, and is flexible funding that Alliances use to support the delivery of NHS-wide priorities for cancer in ways that reflect local circumstances.

We have set stretching targets for the National Health Service to improve cancer performance next year and taken tough decisions to fix the foundations in the public finances at the Autumn Budget. These decisions have enabled the Spending Review settlement of a £22.6 billion increase in resource spending for the Department from 2023/24 outturn to 2025/26.

The following tables show information from the NHS Cancer Programme about the funding allocated to Cancer Alliances in 2024/25 and 2025/26, across both place based and targeted allocations; these are inclusive of NHS cost uplift factors which adjusts for inflation and other cost increases:

Source: NHS Cancer Programme

Source: NHS Cancer Programme

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 18 March (HL5406), what assessment, if any, they have made of the impact of the 2025–26 Payment Scheme and Standard Contract on (1) the willingness of ophthalmology service providers to build new specialist eye hospitals in England, and (2) the ability and willingness of other independent providers of NHS funded care in England to build new health infrastructure to meet the demands of the NHS.

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

No specific assessment has been made of the impact the 2025/26 Payment Scheme and Standard Contract will have on the willingness of ophthalmology service providers to build new specialist eye hospitals in England, or the ability and willingness of other independent providers of National Health Service funded care in England to build new health infrastructure. It is for independent sector providers to determine the most appropriate investment decisions for their businesses.

However, decisions around the annual Payment Scheme and updates to the Standard Contract are subject to consultation, with a legal duty to consult on the Payment Scheme and Standard Contract every year. This includes consultation with independent providers.

The consultation on the Payment Scheme proposed requiring commissioners to set a payment limit for elective services, and all services paid for on an activity basis, based on the value of planned levels of activity. Providers would not be paid for activity above this limit. Following consideration of consultation feedback, this proposal has not been implemented. As in previous years, providers will be paid prices for all activity delivered, subject to any activity management restrictions contractually applied by commissioners. A consultation on further changes to the Standard Contract closed on 28 April 2025, and NHS England is reflecting on the feedback received before publishing the final contract.