Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, following reports that several NHS organisations have informed hospitals they will only finance procedures after a patient has waited more than three months, what guidance they have issued to NHS organisations regarding the use of minimum waiting times for treatment performed by hospitals.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The NHS Standard Contract 2025/26 Technical Guidance states that commissioners may choose to include minimum waiting times in Activity Planning Assumptions to ensure the delivery of targets within agreed financial allocations. A copy of the NHS Standard Contract 2025/26 Technical Guidance is attached.
We will work closely with all systems to ensure they deliver the expected level of improvement in waiting times as set out in the 2025/26 Planning Guidance, which is the first step in delivering on our commitment that by March 2029, 92% of patients wait no longer than 18 weeks from referral to consultant-led treatment.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - 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 28 June (HL8464), which data areas King's College London was asked to review by NHS England or the Department of Health and Social Care in the unpublished LeDeR report, and the reasons for each request.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England works with Kings College London, the academic partner for LeDeR, to produce the LeDeR annual report. Since they submitted their draft report, NHS England has collaborated with them on further iterations with the aim to finalise as soon as possible.
The Department has provided feedback on later iterations of the report on practical data issues with the aim to ensure findings were accurately presented and could be clearly interpreted by the public. Feedback related to definition of technical language, additional context for demographic statistics, and apparent inconsistencies. A final version of the report addressing feedback was shared with the Department on 25 June 2025.
We are committed to publishing the latest report soon after Parliament returns alongside a Written Ministerial Statement.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government which five integrated care systems have had deficit support funding withheld; and how much funding has been withheld from each.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The £2.2 billion of deficit support funding this year is being provided quarterly, and only to systems that deliver their plans. The five systems that have had deficit support funding withheld for quarter 2 are as follows: Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire Integrated Care System (ICS); North East London ICS; Cheshire and Merseyside ICS; Coventry and Warwickshire ICS; and South Yorkshire ICS. Deficit support funding will be released to these systems once progress has been made and there is confidence in the delivery of their plans, with progress and funding released reported in individual board reports throughout the year.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to address comments made by Ming Tang, Chief Data and Analytics Officer for NHS England, regarding the "poor" and "inefficient" nature of many hospital computer systems; and what steps will they take to address her assertion that US-designed Electronic Patient Records were primarily intended to "maximise revenues rather than productivity or patient outcomes".
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England has supported the National Health Service to invest £2 billion over the past four years to buy or upgrade computer systems to meet the baseline standard, and will continue to support investment in the next Spending Review period. NHS England has a good relationship with US Electronic Patient Record vendors and is working collaboratively with them to ensure that software is optimised for use in the NHS in England, which includes a focus on productivity and outcomes.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government why the LeDeR report, whose final iteration was submitted by King's College London to NHS England on 25 June, remains unpublished.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Learning from lives and deaths – People with a learning disability and autistic people (LeDeR) reports are a crucial source of evidence which help identify key improvements needed to tackle health disparities and prevent avoidable deaths of people with a learning disability and autistic people. Practical data issues have delayed the work to date and were addressed in the final iteration provided on 25 June 2025. We are committed to publishing the latest report soon after Parliament returns alongside a Written Ministerial Statement.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have, if any, to assist local authorities address social care overspends, considering Association of Directors of Adult Social Services' ADASS Spring Survey 2025 finding that “the financial situation is as bad as it has been in recent history”.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
To enable local authorities to deliver key services such as adult social care, the Government has made available up to £3.7 billion of additional funding for social care authorities in 2025/26, which includes an £880 million increase in the Social Care Grant.
In addition, the 2025 Spending Review allows for an increase of over £4 billion of funding for adult social care in 2028/29 compared to 2025/26, to support the sector in making improvements. Funding will be made available each year of the Spending Review through additional grant funding and growth in other sources of income available to support adult social care.
Between 2025/26 and 2028/29, local authority core spending power will increase by an average of 2.6% in real terms.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many posts paying £100,000 or more a year have been advertised or recruited in (1) NHS England, and (2) integrated care boards, since 11 March.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Since 11 March, NHS England has advertised 25 posts and has recruited 16 where the actual pay will be over £100,000. Actual pay is the amount of an individual’s salary that NHS England pays.
We do not hold this information centrally in relation to integrated care boards.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - 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 18 July (HL9450), why no assessment has been made of the impact on patient safety of the wait times for each accident and emergency department in the Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
All patients who attend accident and emergency departments, including in the Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust, are prioritised based on clinical need, which ensures that people are seen by the right service in a timely way.
The Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust has implemented a number of initiatives to improve patient flow and patient waiting times, including introducing a Same Day Emergency Care service which has recently been reviewed by NHS England’s Getting It Right First-Time team.
In June 2025, the Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust’s accident and emergency four-hour performance was 83.5%.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, following the merger of NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care, what steps they will take to ensure that health tech companies who have received first phase funding from the Small Business Research Initiative can receive second phase funding this financial year.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department and NHS England are committed to health and care research, as it is vital to fulfilling the objectives of the Growth and Health Missions. The Department and NHS England will continue to support research and development throughout the transition process and beyond. NHS England’s Innovation, Research and Life Sciences Strategy team has confirmed funding in 2025/26 for innovations already supported through Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) Healthcare competitions in their current phases. NHS England has invested £13.6 million through the SBRI Healthcare programme to support the development of over 50 innovations this year. NHS England is unable to fund future phases within this financial year.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government over what timescale NHS England will move integrated care systems to fair share funding allocation.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Decisions on integrated care board funding allocations and the pace of convergence to fair shares for the next three years have not yet been taken. We expect to set out allocations alongside multi-year planning guidance in the autumn.