Asked by: Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that those who are unwell can secure an appointment with their general practitioner.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is determined to work with the National Health Service to fix the front door of our health service and ensure that everyone who is unwell can access general practice (GP) appointments and services. Through our 10-Year Health Plan, it will be easier and faster to see a GP. The 8:00am scramble will end, we will train more doctors, and we will guarantee digital consultations within 24 hours.
In October 2024, we invested £82 million into the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme to support the recruitment of 1,900 individual GPs into primary care networks across England, helping to increase appointment availability and improve care for thousands of patients. We have also delivered the biggest boost to GP funding in years, an £889 million uplift, with GPs now receiving a growing share of NHS resources. The new £102 million Primary Care Utilisation and Modernisation Fund will create additional clinical space within over 1,000 practices across England. This investment will deliver more appointments and improve patient care.
Health is a devolved matter in Northern Ireland, and responsibility for GP services lies with the Northern Ireland Executive and at Stormont.
Asked by: Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they will take to protect patients during the planned strike by resident doctors in England in July.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The priority is to keep patients as safe as possible during any industrial action. The National Health Service makes every effort through rigorous contingency planning to minimise disruptions and their impact on patients and the public during industrial action.
The NHS works hard to prioritise resources to protect emergency treatment, critical care, neonatal care, maternity, and trauma, and to ensure that patients who have waited the longest for elective care and cancer surgery are prioritised.
Asked by: Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether there are any serious side effects from taking weight-loss drugs, including Wegovy and Mounjaro; and if so, whether those side effects have been made public.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) continually monitors the safety of all medicines, including weight loss drugs, such as Wegovy (semaglutide) and Mounjaro (tirzepatide), which belong to a group of medicines known as the GLP-1 receptor agonists.
Patient safety is our top priority and no medicine would be approved unless it met our expected standards of safety, quality, and effectiveness. We have robust safety monitoring and surveillance systems in place, and when a safety issue is confirmed, we always act promptly to inform patients and healthcare professionals, and take appropriate steps to mitigate any identified risk.
Importantly, these medicines have been assessed to be safe and effective when used for their licensed indications. This means that if patients have been properly prescribed this by a healthcare professional following a consultation for a medical condition that these medicines are approved to treat, then they should be reassured that the benefits will outweigh risks of taking them.
Like all medicines, GLP-1 receptor agonists can cause side effects. All known side effects for these medicines, including serious side effects, are made publicly available through the Product Information. This is issued at the time of licensing, and is updated as any new side effects are identified. This includes the Summary of Product Characteristics, which is intended for healthcare professionals, and the Patient Information Leaflet, which is provided to patients. These documents are published on the products section of the MHRA website.
In addition, members of the public and healthcare professionals can access anonymised data on suspected side effects reported to the Yellow Card scheme via the interactive Drug Analysis Profiles platform. This ensures full transparency and enables anyone to view the types and numbers of suspected adverse reactions reported for a particular medicine.
Some of the most common side effects are gastrointestinal effects, such as nausea, vomiting, and diarrhoea. These side effects were observed in clinical trials and make up the majority of Yellow Card reports we receive. Most side effects are mild to moderate in severity or short in duration, but in some cases, they may lead to complications, such as severe dehydration resulting in the need to go to hospital for treatment.
Although infrequent, inflammation of the pancreas, known as acute pancreatitis, has also been reported. This can be serious. The main symptom is severe pain in the stomach that radiates to the back and does not go away. Anyone who experiences this should seek immediate medical help and report the reaction to the MHRA’s Yellow Card scheme.
Asked by: Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many nurses have been trained in England in each of the past three years.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Higher Education Statistics Agency publishes data on the number of students qualifying from higher education courses in the United Kingdom, and this includes information on a broad ranges of undergraduate nursing courses. The published data is not detailed enough to allow for the reliable identification of all students completing courses which specifically lead to registered nursing status.
As a proxy for the number of students completing nursing courses each year, the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) publish information on the number of UK trained nurses joining their register for the first time, who are resident in England.
The following table shows the number of UK trained nurses joining the NMC register in England for the first time by financial year:
Financial year | Number of UK qualified registered nurses joining the NMC register for the first time |
2022/23 | 16,420 |
2023/24 | 18,478 |
2024/25 | 19,670 |
Source: Nursing and Midwifery Council, March 2025 Annual Data Report.
Asked by: Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they have plans to increase protections to the lives of unborn children.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Existing criminal offences relating to foetuses are contained in the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 and the Infant Life Preservation Act 1929. The Government has no plans to change these.
Asked by: Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to improve treatments for Lyme disease.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department commissioned four reviews on Lyme disease, published by the Evidence for Policy and Practice Information group in December 2017. These reviews were undertaken alongside reviews conducted by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, who developed definitive advice on the treatment, testing, and diagnosis of Lyme disease in April 2018.
If recognised promptly and treated with a full course of appropriate antibiotics, acute Lyme disease will usually resolve without further complications. Further information on the diagnosis and treatment of Lyme disease is available on the GOV.UK website.
Asked by: Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to reduce rates of suicide.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We have committed to tackling suicide, as one of the biggest killers in this country. As part of this, the 8,500 new mental health staff we will recruit will be specially trained to support people at risk, to reduce the lives lost to suicide.
The Suicide Prevention Strategy for England, published in September 2023, identifies a number of groups for tailored or targeted action at a national level, and we are exploring opportunities to go further.
79 organisations have been allocated funding between 2023 and 2025, through the £10 million Suicide Prevention Grant Fund, and are delivering a broad and diverse range of activities that will prevent suicides and save lives.
Asked by: Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that there will be no cuts to the other parts of the health budget to pay for assisted dying if it is legalised in the UK.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
As per long-standing convention, the Prime Minister has set aside collective responsibility on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life Care) Bill, so the Government will remain neutral on the passage of the bill. As with all bills, there are multiple stages for it to go through before it can become law, and this continues to be a matter for Parliament.
If the will of Parliament is that the law on assisting dying should change, the Government would work to ensure that the law is implemented in the way that Parliament intends and that is legally effective.
Autumn Budget 2024 set budgets for this year and the next financial year. Funding for future years and future decisions across the health budget will be decided through the normal spending review process.
Asked by: Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to protect the services of hospices and private care homes in the light of the increase in National Insurance contributions and other increased costs in the budget.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The biggest investment in a generation for hospices has been announced by the Government, ensuring that hospices can continue to deliver the highest quality end of life care possible for their patients, families, and loved ones.
This was through a £100 million boost for adult and children’s hospices to ensure they have the best physical environment for care, and £26 million of revenue to support children and young people’s hospices. Further details of the funding allocation and dissemination will be set out this year.
To support local authorities to deliver key services such as adult social care, the Government is making available up to £3.7 billion of additional funding for social care authorities in 2025/26, which includes a £880 million increase in the Social Care Grant.
We have taken necessary decisions to fix the foundations in the public finances at the Autumn Budget. The employer National Insurance contribution rise will be implemented April 2025, and the Department will set out further details on the allocation of funding for next year in due course, including through planning guidance.
Asked by: Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the potential impact of the proposed changes to employer national insurance contributions on health and social care providers.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We have taken necessary decisions to fix the foundations in the public finances at Autumn Budget, and this 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 employer National Insurance rise will be implemented in April 2025, and the Department will set out further details on the allocation of funding for next year at the earliest opportunity, including through NHS Planning Guidance, and the usual consultations.