Found: Letter from Baroness Merron, Department of Health and Social Care, regarding Tobacco and Vapes Bill (

Found: Health Minister Baroness Merron recently acknowledged the importance of point of care testing and underlined

Found: Baroness Merron and Stephen Kinnock have met with the big Autism and Learning disability charities none

Found: We have written five letters to Baroness Merron and Stephen Kinnock asking for a meeting to talk about

Found: It was very encouraging to hear Baroness Merron, the current Minister for Mental Health, talk about

Found: Response from Baroness Merron re, Recostructive surgery for FGM survivors, dated October 2025 HC 714

Found: Minister Dalton and Baroness Merron published written statements on 16 September in both Houses, for

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the portfolio of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women's Health and Mental Health includes (a) the mental health of (i) children and (ii) young people and (b) early intervention services.

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

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women's Health and Mental Health (Baroness Merron) has Ministerial responsibility for children and young people’s mental health and early intervention services.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer on by Baroness Merron on 10 September (HL9969), whether the father’s name, NHS number, date of birth and current address will be routinely added to child NHS records so that this information is accessible to medical practitioners for the purposes of child safeguarding and well-being.

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

The national Patient Demographic Service (PDS) holds records of demographic information for each person with a National Health Service number. When a baby’s PDS record is created at birth, the mother’s details are included.

NHS England is currently working to integrate additional data from the General Register Office, which will also add fathers and second parents to a child’s record, after the child has been registered. A health professional will then be able to look up the NHS number of any parent on a child’s record, to access more details about the parent. This work is expected to start delivering in December 2025.

The aim is to improve the existing infrastructure to facilitate better coordination between existing records. This will support health professionals to offer more informed, joined-up care.

NHS England is working on making it easier for parents to digitally manage their children's health. Improvements which will roll out through 2026 include proxy access to book appointments, order prescriptions, and access medical records.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the remarks by Baroness Merron on 18 September (HL Deb cols 2398–2400), whether any DNA samples collected for the Generation Study are (1) tested for conditions that may develop after five years old, and (2) kept for genome sequencing again at five years old.

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

The Generation Study is designed to inform policy around the use of genomics in newborn screening. The study is only testing for treatable conditions where there is robust evidence that the condition is highly likely to develop within the first five years of life. Suspected positive results are reviewed and confirmed through further tests. If genomic testing is used within future screening programmes, informed parental consent will still be required. There are no plans to screen for conditions that appear later in life or remain asymptomatic. If genomic testing becomes part of routine screening, parental consent would be required.

There are currently no plans as part of the study to sequence the genome again at five years old.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 22 September (HL10271), what assurance mechanisms NHS England and the Department for Health and Social Care have in place to monitor (1) the trusts and NHS organisations that are implementing learning disabilities mortality review (LeDeR) report recommendations, and (2) the improvements that are made directly as a result of implementing LeDeR report recommendations.

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

Integrated care boards (ICBs) and National Health Service organisations have a key role to play in reducing the health inequalities and premature mortality experienced by people with a learning disability and autistic people.

ICBs are responsible for ensuring that learning disabilities mortality (LeDeR) reviews are completed in their local area so that NHS organisations can implement the learning from those reviews and improve the quality of services. ICBs are expected to prioritise LeDeR reviews within their delivery plans, and as part of their local governance to learn from deaths. The analysis of findings from local LeDeR reviews should inform which areas organisations prioritise for quality improvement activity. In its Action from Learning Report, NHS England shares improvement initiatives being taken across England and provides guidance on what action needs to be taken by health and care organisations.

The 2025/2026 NHS priorities and operational planning guidance requires that integrated care systems and NHS trusts work together to reduce health inequalities. The NHS England Operating Framework sets out further information on how NHS England operates and works together with ICBs and NHS providers to deliver health and care services and improve health outcomes.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the remarks by Baroness Merron on 18 September (HL Deb cols 2398–2400) about genome screening of newborn infants, how long (1) newborn infants' DNA samples, and (2) genome sequencing data, will be kept.

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

Data and samples are stored for 16 years. At approximately 16 years old, children who participated in the study will be asked to give their own consent to remain in the programme. If they choose not to or if they cannot be contacted, they will be withdrawn from the study, which includes removing their sample. If they consent to remain in the study, then their data and sample would be stored throughout the child’s life, unless consent is withdrawn. Parents are also able to withdraw their children from the study at any time before children reach the age of 16 years old.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 8 August (HL9823), what work NHS England or the Department of Health and Social Care has undertaken with the Professional Records Standards Body on (1) the Core Information Standard, (2) clinical information that is needed for direct care related to person characteristics and definitions for the NHS data model, and (3) the Unified Information Standard for Protected Characteristics.

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

The National Health Service has many longstanding Information Standards and IT systems which already include patient stated gender and gender identity data items, alongside phenotypic sex classification where required. These include the Personal Demographic Service and data sets such as the Mental Health Minimum Data Set and Commissioning Data Sets.

The Professional Records Standards Body (PRSB) has adopted the existing approved NHS Information Standards, rather than the NHS adopting the PRSB standards. Work is currently underway in response to the Sullivan Report and other clinical safety risks, to better define and separate sex and gender data items within the NHS Information Standards and systems area. The PRSB is engaged on this work and will align with such changes to Information Standards.

NHS England previously commissioned the PRSB to support the development of data standards that enable consistent and safe sharing of clinical and demographic information.

On the Core Information Standard, NHS England worked with the PRSB to define a minimum dataset for the exchange of key information between care settings. This standard was published and is available on the PRSB website, although it is not in itself a formal information standard.

On clinical information needed for direct care related to person characteristics and definitions for the NHS data model, the PRSB was commissioned to conduct discovery work with a wide range of clinicians from all specialties. These included Royal Colleges, patient-representative groups, and third sector bodies, which were engaged on the data items required for clinical care which relate to Sex and Gender Reassignment, as well as other provisions within the Equality Act such as ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion and philosophical belief, age, and disability.

NHS England has not engaged with the PRSB on the Unified Information Standard for Protected Characteristics (UISPC). This relates specifically to recording of data related to Protected Characteristics under the Equality Act 2010, to enable the NHS to monitor compliance with the Public Sector Equality Duty and address known health inequalities.

Once the UISPC report recommendations are made to the Department, Ministers will review and consider next steps, including how best to consult more widely.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 8 August (HL9823), whether the NHS uses the definitions of the Professional Records Standards Body for gender and gender identity.

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

The National Health Service has many longstanding Information Standards and IT systems which already include patient stated gender and gender identity data items, alongside phenotypic sex classification where required. These include the Personal Demographic Service and data sets such as the Mental Health Minimum Data Set and Commissioning Data Sets.

The Professional Records Standards Body (PRSB) has adopted the existing approved NHS Information Standards, rather than the NHS adopting the PRSB standards. Work is currently underway in response to the Sullivan Report and other clinical safety risks, to better define and separate sex and gender data items within the NHS Information Standards and systems area. The PRSB is engaged on this work and will align with such changes to Information Standards.

NHS England previously commissioned the PRSB to support the development of data standards that enable consistent and safe sharing of clinical and demographic information.

On the Core Information Standard, NHS England worked with the PRSB to define a minimum dataset for the exchange of key information between care settings. This standard was published and is available on the PRSB website, although it is not in itself a formal information standard.

On clinical information needed for direct care related to person characteristics and definitions for the NHS data model, the PRSB was commissioned to conduct discovery work with a wide range of clinicians from all specialties. These included Royal Colleges, patient-representative groups, and third sector bodies, which were engaged on the data items required for clinical care which relate to Sex and Gender Reassignment, as well as other provisions within the Equality Act such as ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion and philosophical belief, age, and disability.

NHS England has not engaged with the PRSB on the Unified Information Standard for Protected Characteristics (UISPC). This relates specifically to recording of data related to Protected Characteristics under the Equality Act 2010, to enable the NHS to monitor compliance with the Public Sector Equality Duty and address known health inequalities.

Once the UISPC report recommendations are made to the Department, Ministers will review and consider next steps, including how best to consult more widely.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 4 December 2024 (HL1918), what steps they are taking ensure the appropriate use of sex-specific language in the NHS, as set out in the Women's Health Strategy for England, published on 30 August 2022 (CP 736).

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

The Government and the National Health Service know the importance of using accurate and factual language in relation to biological sex as part of health communications. The Department’s longstanding position is that health information should be as clear as possible, and that language should be used that appropriately reflects sex as defined as a protected characteristic in the Equality Act 2010.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has had recent discussions with medical researchers on the development of histotripsy treatments.

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

Histotripsy is a non-invasive ultrasound treatment that destroys tumours without the need for surgery or radiation. HistoSonics developed the Edison System to deliver histotripsy, and this was one of eight transformative technologies supported through the Government’s Innovative Devices Access Pathway pilot. This programme aimed to streamline patient access to medical devices that address an unmet clinical need in the National Health Service.

In August 2024, my Rt. Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, met with clinicians and researchers at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust to discuss their pioneering work in histotripsy research and trials, including the world’s first kidney tumour procedure and the HOPE4LIVER and CAIN studies.

In June 2025, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Baroness Merron) met with clinicians and researchers at Cambridge University Hospitals to announce the conditional use of histotripsy in the NHS for patients with liver tumours. NHS treatments will begin in October 2025 as a first in Europe, strengthening the United Kingdom’s position as a global leader in medical innovation. The Government continues to work closely with clinical and research experts to accelerate evidence generation of this transformative technology.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when he last met with the Patient Safety Commissioner.

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

There has been no formal meeting between my Rt. Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, and the Patient Safety Commissioner. However, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Baroness Merron), in her previous role as the minister with responsibility for patient safety and patient voice, met with the Patient Safety Commissioner in January 2025.