Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what the fair share funding allocation will be for each integrated care board in the next three financial years.
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.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government when they will publish an implementation plan for the NHS 10 Year Health Plan.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Implementation of the 10-Year Health Plan is already underway; waiting lists have already fallen by over 232,000 since July 2024 and is the lowest in two years. Between October 2024 and April 2025, we recruited more than 1,900 extra general practitioners and in June 2025, we published the Urgent and Emergency Care Plan.
Delivery expectations are embedded throughout the plan, which will shift care from hospital to community, analogue to digital, and sickness to prevention. Over the remainder of 2025/26, we will put in place key next steps to deliver the plan, build the foundations for the shifts from hospital to community, analogue to digital and sickness to prevention, and roll out current best practice across the whole country.
Following the Plan’s publication, we have already 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, making Neighbourhood Health the norm, not the exception. Integrated care boards have also been invited to submit their proposals for sites to form the first Neighbourhood Health Teams.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what urgent assessment they have made of patient safety at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary's Accident and Emergency considering reported data showing that only approximately 10 per cent of the sickest patients are being seen within the four-hour waiting time standard.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
No such assessment has been made. The latest available data for June shows that 83.5% of patients in the Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust were discharged, admitted, or transferred within four hours of arrival.
The Government is clear that patients should expect and receive the highest standard of service and care from the National Health Service, and that people should be treated with compassion, dignity, and respect. Patients attending emergency departments will always be prioritised based on clinical need.
We are committed to reducing long waits in accident and emergency. Our urgent and emergency care plan for 2025/26, sets out action across the system to deliver improvements for patients this year, backed by nearly £450 million of capital investment.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what targets have been set for the first year of the NHS 10 Year Health Plan.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The 10-Year Health Plan is a plan to make the National Health Service fit for the future.
It sets out a wide range of commitments to be delivered over both the short and long term, the implementation of which is already underway, supported by the financial framework set out in the recent Spending Review. The plan will deliver the three shifts from hospital to community, from analogue to digital, and from sickness to prevention. The first year will include immediate actions to, for example, develop neighbourhood health services and the app, a workforce plan, and a suite of actions on prevention as well as actions which lay the foundation for future commitments.
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 7 July (HL8984), why Hertfordshire and West Essex integrated care board's planned elective hub at St Albans City Hospital will now only provide extra funding and capacity for two acute trusts, instead of three as originally intended.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Hertfordshire and West Essex Integrated Care System was allocated funding from the national Elective Recovery Fund in 2025/26. Hertfordshire and West Essex’s Surgical Centre Programme Board undertook a full options appraisal to consider how to get the best use out of the new surgical centre facilities within their financial envelope for 2025/26.
The programme board agreed that when it first opens in November, the surgical centre will be used primarily by the West Hertfordshire Teaching Hospitals Trust for treating patients. The Princess Alexandra Hospital Trust is also planning to use the facility to operate over the winter months.
The availability of the surgical centre for patients across Hertfordshire will continue to be reviewed alongside future funding announcements. Subject to future funding, the system will look to accelerate full opening in 2026/27.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, in regard to the collection DHSC: workforce management information, why the total paybill and staffing costs have increased by more than £20 million since July 2024.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department’s total paybill and staffing costs have not risen by £20 million since July 2024; rather, they have risen, but by £2.5 million in that time.
Since the General Election, the Department’s staff numbers have needed to increase to ensure the right skills and capability to deliver several of the Government’s major priorities. These include the 10-Year Health Plan, the Assisted Dying Bill, ending the longest-running pay dispute with resident doctors, publishing an elective reform plan, and publishing a new NHS Mandate, as well as ensuring we can continue to deliver vital services across the health system. During this period, payroll costs have also increased because of annual pay increases.
Given the scale of the challenges facing the health and social care system, as part of the Spending Review, the Department is working on reducing its headcount down to pre-election levels during 2025/26. This is a key step towards a streamlined centre, to support continued prioritisation towards front-line services.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, with regard to Fit for the Future: 10 Year Health Plan for England (CP 1350), how they assessed and evaluated that "By 2035, we anticipate half of all healthcare interactions will be informed by genomic insights and other predictive analytics".
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The 10-Year Health Plan for England sets out how the National Health Service will continue leading the world in genomics as it increasingly becomes part of routine care over the next 10 years. The statement that “by 2035, we anticipate half of all healthcare interactions will be informed by genomic insights and other predictive analytics” is part of Genomics England’s shared vision with the NHS on the potential of genomics in healthcare. Routine use of pharmacogenomics in the NHS could achieve this vision, as over 98% of people carry at least one relevant pharmacogenomic variant, and in a recent study, 80% of patients in an acute setting were exposed to a medicine for which there is pharmacogenetic prescribing guidance available.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what financial spend is planned on posts in the very senior managers category in the NHS in (1) this financial year, and (2) the following three years.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
This information is not held centrally. Spend on very senior managers (VSM) pay is locally determined by individual National Health Service organisations within their local budget positions. VSM pay arrangements are subject to the decisions of local remuneration committees, which are ordinarily based on the provisions in the VSM pay framework and the independent recommendations of the Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB). Future spending on VSM pay will depend on the outcomes of SSRB recommendations, and individual NHS trusts’ decisions are dependent on their financial position at a local level.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how much they will allocate to the NHS Graduate Management Training Scheme (1) next year, and (2) for each year of the Spending Review 2025 (CP 1336).
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The 10-Year Health Plan confirmed that we will expand the Graduate Management Trainee Scheme by 50%, to ensure we attract the best and brightest talent. Alongside that, we will increase its diversity and reform it to focus on the three shifts and system working. National Health Service employers and contractors will be required to facilitate the scheme as part of their core business.
Funding has been allocated for an expansion of the Graduate Management Training Scheme as part of the Spending Review. Further detail will be set out in the forthcoming 10 Year Workforce Plan.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of reports that NHS England has categorised £1.5 billion worth of local trust and commissioner financial plans as “high risk” and what estimate have they made, by NHS trust and integrated care board, of spending which is “high risk” when calculating this total figure.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department is working closely with NHS England to manage financial risk in 2025/26, and to assure the delivery of agreed financial plans. We recognise the aggregate £1.5 billion of risk in plans, which is a top-down estimate. The Department has not made an estimate of that risk by individual trust and integrated care board. Work to manage and mitigate the risk includes derisking efficiency plans, and robust performance management, including a Financial Performance Improvement Programme. We are confident that overall financial balance of the National Health Service budget will be achieved.