Asked by: Lord Bradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 23 July (HL9674), how they determine the allocation of (1) capital and (2) revenue funding to hospices in England.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The £100 million capital funding allocation for eligible adult and children’s hospices in England has been calculated by the Department, informed by Hospice UK, and is based on the care expenditure of each hospice.
Some of the organisations that are eligible for this capital funding for hospices in England are national charities, providing services across the United Kingdom. Therefore, a £5 million cap per organisation, of the total £100 million, was introduced to ensure that the Department was not indirectly funding hospice capital projects elsewhere in the UK, beyond England.
This is deemed the fairest model that can release funding to the hospice sector fastest, helping hospices to fully utilise the allocated funds, and doing so in a way which results in best value for money.
Regarding revenue funding for children’s hospices, the £26 million of revenue funding to support children and young people’s hospices for 2025/26 will be disseminated by integrated care boards on behalf of NHS England. As in previous years, individual allocations of the revenue funding have been determined using a prevalence-based model, enabling allocations to reflect local population need.
This is in line with the NHS devolution and promotes a more consistent national approach, supporting commissioners in prioritising the palliative care and end of life care needs of their local population.
Asked by: Lord Bradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what are the NHS guidelines for the installation of defibrillators in (1) hospitals, and (2) community and primary care buildings.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England does not directly commission installation of defibrillators in hospitals, community care buildings or primary care buildings. ICBs have responsibility for locally commissioned services and estate management. However, NHS England does provide public guidance on installing a defibrillator via the NHS England website.
Asked by: Lord Bradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is the proposed population base for each Neighbourhood Health Service in the 10 Year Health Plan.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The 10-Year Health Plan sets out our vision for a Neighbourhood Health Service that moves care closer to home. The Neighbourhood Health Service will embody our new preventative principle, that care should happen as locally as it can, digitally by default, in a patient’s home if possible, in a neighbourhood health centre when needed, and only in a hospital if necessary.
Neighbourhood Health Services will bring together teams of professionals closer to people’s home, including nurses, doctors, social care workers, pharmacists, health visitors and more, to work together to provide comprehensive care in the community.
We expect neighbourhood teams and services to be designed in a way that meets the needs of local populations. Rather than applying a rigid, one-size fits all model, the population base for Neighbourhood Health Services is intentionally flexible and locally determined. The geography of a ‘neighbourhood’ will be determined locally by integrated care boards in partnership with their strategic partners, particularly local authorities.
The plan introduces two new contracts, including one to create multi-neighbourhood providers covering populations of approximately 250,000 people, that will unlock the advantages and efficiencies possible from greater scale working across all general practices and small neighbourhood providers in their footprint.
In the future, there will also be neighbourhood health plans drawn up by local government, the National Health Service, and its partners. The integrated care board will bring together these plans into a population health improvement plan for their footprint and use it to inform commissioning decisions.
To support the delivery and spread of neighbourhood health, we have launched the National Neighbourhood Health Implementation Programme (NNHIP). The NNHIP will support systems across the country to test new ways of working, share learning, and scale what works.
Asked by: Lord Bradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many palliative care beds are currently provided by (1) the NHS, (2) charities and (3) the private sector, in each region of England.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Palliative care and end of life care are broad, holistic approaches provided through a range of professionals and providers, both generalist and specialist, across the National Health Service, social care, and voluntary sector organisations. Therefore, the number of beds specifically used for palliative care is difficult to measure as relevant consultations and tasks are not always coded as such.
We do not hold central data on the number of palliative care beds provided by the NHS, charities, or the private sector in any region of England. Charitable and private sector palliative care and end of life care providers, including most hospices in England, are independent and autonomous organisations, and as such, they are not legally required to share such information with the Department.
Asked by: Lord Bradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many palliative care beds are provided in (1) hospices, and (2) NHS Hospital Trusts, in each integrated care board area in England.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We do not hold data centrally on the number of palliative care beds provided by hospices and National Health Service hospital trusts in each integrated care board area in England.
Charitable and private sector palliative care and end of life care providers, including most hospices in England, are independent and autonomous organisations, and as such, they are not legally required to share such information with the Department.
Palliative care and end of life care are broad, holistic approaches provided through a range of professionals and providers, both generalist and specialist, across the NHS, social care, and voluntary sector organisations. Therefore, the number of beds specifically used for palliative care within NHS hospital trusts is difficult to measure as the relevant consultations and tasks are not always coded as such.
Asked by: Lord Bradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many integrated care boards currently have a lead non-executive director with specialist mental health experiences, as required in guidance published under the Health and Care Act 2022.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Health and Care Act 2022 requires that one “ordinary” integrated care board (ICB) board member, excluding the Chair or Chief Executive, must have “knowledge and experience in connection with services relating to the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of mental illness”. All ICBs must comply with this legal requirement, but neither the Department nor NHS England collects this information.
Guidance for ICBs is available on the NHS.UK website in an online only format, and states that “the chair must exercise their approval function of the ordinary members with a view to ensuring that at least one of the ordinary members has knowledge and experience in connection with services relating to the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of mental illness”. For the ICB to achieve ongoing compliance with this requirement, the constitution should include a board position that can only be filled by candidates who meet these criteria:
Asked by: Lord Bradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, following the English Devolution White Paper published on 16 December 2024 (CP1218), what guidance they have issued to NHS Trusts about the election of governors to hospital trusts.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government has not published any guidance following the English Devolution White Paper on the election of governors to National Health Service foundation trusts.
The Model Election Rules set out the process by which governors are elected and are included in every NHS foundation trust's constitution. The NHS Foundation Trust Model Core Constitution, a copy of which is attached, published in 2013 by Monitor, now NHS England, requires NHS foundation trusts to comply with these rules.
Asked by: Lord Bradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the annual cost of providing free prescriptions for the population of England.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The most recent estimate of the cost of free prescriptions for the population of England is £10 billion for 2023/24. This is based on the difference between there being no prescription charge for all and requiring all patients to pay the then single charge of £9.65 per item.
These figures do not correspond to the revenue that would be raised if any exemptions were removed, because some people would buy a pre-payment certificate, and some might not follow up to get the medication.
Asked by: Lord Bradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many speech and language therapists are employed in each integrated care board area in England, and how many of these work in criminal justice settings.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department does not hold information on the total number of speech and language therapists employed in each integrated care board area in England. Therapists will be employed by National Health Service trusts, where data is held, but will also be directly employed by other providers, including schools, local authorities, and third sector or charitable organisations, for which data is not held centrally. The following table shows the number of full time equivalent (FTE) speech and language therapists employed by NHS trusts and integrated care boards in England, as of January 2025, by integrated care board area:
Integrated care board area | FTE speech and language therapists |
Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire | 44 |
Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes | 11 |
Birmingham and Solihull | 288 |
Black Country | 126 |
Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire | 70 |
Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West | 155 |
Cambridgeshire and Peterborough | 225 |
Cheshire and Merseyside | 436 |
Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly | 79 |
Coventry and Warwickshire | 157 |
Derby and Derbyshire | 134 |
Devon | 135 |
Dorset | 113 |
Frimley | 93 |
Gloucestershire | 62 |
Greater Manchester | 548 |
Hampshire and Isle of Wight | 160 |
Herefordshire and Worcestershire | 100 |
Hertfordshire and West Essex | 134 |
Humber and North Yorkshire | 174 |
Kent and Medway | 220 |
Lancashire and South Cumbria | 201 |
Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland | 123 |
Lincolnshire | 57 |
Mid and South Essex | 65 |
Norfolk and Waveney | 69 |
North Central London | 548 |
North East and North Cumbria | 516 |
North East London | 438 |
North West London | 304 |
Northamptonshire | 47 |
Nottingham and Nottinghamshire | 164 |
Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin | 46 |
Somerset | 70 |
South East London | 394 |
South West London | 194 |
South Yorkshire | 224 |
Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent | 104 |
Suffolk and North East Essex | 126 |
Surrey Heartlands | 53 |
Sussex | 205 |
West Yorkshire | 328 |
England total | 7,739 |
These staff will provide services in a range of settings, but the Department does not hold information on how many may work in criminal justice settings.
Asked by: Lord Bradley (Labour - Life peer)
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.