Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to assess the clinical safety and cost effectiveness of AI mental health tools funded and used by the NHS.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to ensuring that artificial intelligence (AI) tools used in mental health care within the National Health Service are clinically safe and deliver value for money. We are working with regulators such as the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, and other partners to ensure all AI mental health tools deployed in the NHS meet the requirements of the United Kingdom’s regulatory system, to ensure these technologies are safe for use and cost-effective.
Additionally, NHS England applies the Digital Technology Assessment Criteria to evaluate the safety, security, and usability of digital health tools. Independent clinical evaluations and pilot studies are also undertaken prior to wider implementation of these technologies.
Through the AI in Health and Care Award, which ran from 2020 to 2024, the NHS AI Lab funded the testing and evaluation of two mental health technologies, Limbic Access and Wysa. As set out in the 10-Year Health Plan, the NHS is working towards rolling out digital mental health tools. As part of this process, each technology is assessed not only for clinical safety but also for cost-effectiveness, ensuring that these innovations deliver measurable benefits and represent good value for the NHS and taxpayers.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they have had discussions with commercial users about pricing arrangements for access to datasets through the Health Data Research Service.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
To ensure an appropriate commercial model is developed for the Health Data Research Service (HDRS), discovery work has been undertaken to gain insight into existing commercial models that might be applicable for the HDRS. This discovery work included engagement with 19 commercial organisations representing users of health data, allowing the development of a robust, up to date, and United Kingdom-wide evidence base. Decisions regarding what commercial model and pricing arrangement is used will be within the remit of the incoming HDRS senior leadership team.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of expanding community-based diagnostic and treatment services to reduce pressure on hospital capacity.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The 10-Year Health Plan sets out a transformed vision for elective care by 2035, where the majority of interactions no longer take place in a hospital building, instead happening virtually or via neighbourhood services. Planned care will be more efficient, timely, and effective, and will put control in the hands of patients.
The Elective Reform Plan sets out the productivity and modernisation efforts needed to reach the 92% standard by March 2029. This includes expanding existing community diagnostic centres (CDCs), and building up to five new ones in 2025/26, as well as extending opening hours to 12 hours per day, seven days a week. We will also expand the number of hubs over the next three years. Further details and allocations will be set out in due course.
CDCs are key to delivering on the Government’s ambition to move more planned care from hospitals to the community, reducing pressure on hospitals and delivering more convenient care close to home. Under the Government, CDCs have delivered over 9.4 million tests and scans since July 2024, supporting patients to access vital tests, scans, and checks around their busy working lives.
Dedicated and protected surgical hubs transform the way the National Health Service provides elective care by focusing on providing high volume low complexity surgery, as recommended by the Royal College of Surgeons of England. By separating elective services from urgent and emergency care, hubs improve patient outcomes and reduce hospital pressures. There are currently 123 operational hubs across England, 22 of which have opened since the Government took office.
The 2025 Spending Review confirmed over £6 billion of additional capital investment over five years across new diagnostic, elective, and urgent care capacity. Further details and allocations will be set out in due course.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they are developing to ensure that the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill does not inadvertently encourage assisted dying as a cost-saving measure in the healthcare system.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill that is currently under consideration in Parliament has been brought forward as a Private Members’ Bill. It is not a piece of Government legislation, and the Government has taken a neutral position on assisted dying and the passage of the bill.
Irrespective of any legislation on assisted dying, everyone should have access to high-quality, compassionate care through to the end of their life, and this will remain a priority for the Government.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - 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 use of wearable health device data and artificial intelligence to support early detection of heart damage in NHS patients.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department recognises the potential of wearable health technologies and artificial intelligence to support the earlier detection and better management of conditions such as heart damage. As set out in the 10-Year Health Plan, wearables are one of the “big bets” for the future of the health service, with a vision for these technologies to become a routine part of care by 2035.
A key ambition is for health data, including from wearables, to flow securely and seamlessly through the National Health Service over time. As part of this, by 2028 we aim to make the remote monitoring of cardiovascular disease (CVD) using wearables a standard part of care. Work to integrate wearable data into the NHS App and the single patient record is also underway as part of our broader digital transformation. This supports our broader health mission to shift care from treatment to prevention, from analogue to digital, and from hospital to community settings.
To accelerate progress towards the Government’s ambition to reduce premature deaths from heart disease and stroke by 25% within a decade, we will publish a new cardiovascular disease modern service framework in 2026. The Department and NHS England are engaging widely throughout its development to ensure that we prioritise ambitious, evidence-led, and clinically informed approaches to prevention, treatment, and care.
We are evaluating which devices and use cases are most clinically and cost effective, with the early detection of heart damage a key area of interest. This work aligns with the commitment to modernise CVD services through the development of a new framework that will consider the role of innovation, such as wearables and remote monitoring.
As with all emerging technologies, adoption will be guided by evidence, regulation, and robust data governance. We continue to monitor developments and will update our approach as the evidence base evolves.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to expand training, support and retention initiatives for healthcare professionals delivering palliative and end-of-life care.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to publishing a 10 Year Workforce Plan to set out action to create a workforce ready to deliver the transformed service set out in the 10-Year Health Plan. The 10 Year Workforce Plan will ensure the National Health Service has the right people in the right places, with the right skills to care for patients, when they need it, including in palliative care and end of life care.
NHS staff told us through the 10-Year Health Plan engagement that they are crying out for change. This 10 Year Workforce Plan will set out how we will deliver that change by making sure that staff are better treated, have better training, more fulfilling roles, and hope for the future.
To ensure the health and social care workforce is equipped and well supported to deliver personalised care to people at the end of life, Health Education England, now part of NHS England, host the End of Life Care for All e-learning training programme, which includes nine modules on improving care for people at the end of life.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure the NHS provides sufficient and timely palliative care services for terminally ill patients, including through increasing staff, beds and funding.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Palliative care services are included in the list of services an integrated care board (ICB) must commission. This promotes a more consistent national approach and supports commissioners in prioritising palliative care and end of life care. To support ICBs in this duty, NHS England has published statutory guidance and service specifications.
NHS England has also developed a palliative and end of life care dashboard, which brings together all relevant local data in one place.
Whilst the majority of these services are provided by National Health Service staff, we are supporting the hospice sector with a £100 million capital funding boost for eligible adult and children’s hospices in England to ensure they have the best physical environment for care.
We are also providing £26 million in revenue funding to support children and young people’s hospices for 2025/26. I can also now confirm the continuation of this vital funding for the three years of the next Spending Review period, adjusted for inflation, from 2026/27 to 2028/29 inclusive. This amounts to approximately £80 million over the next three years.
In the long-term, the Government and the NHS will closely monitor the shift towards the strategic commissioning of palliative care and end of life care services to ensure that services reduce variation in access and quality.
We will publish a new workforce plan to deliver the transformed health service we will build over the next decade, and to ensure the NHS has the right people, in the right places, with the right skills to deliver the care patients need when they need it, including at the end of life.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure equitable access to hospice and palliative care services across the regions of England.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Palliative care services are included in the list of services an integrated care board (ICB) must commission. To support ICBs in this duty, NHS England has published statutory guidance and service specifications. The statutory guidance states that ICBs must work to ensure that there is sufficient provision of care services to meet the needs of their local populations.
NHS England has also developed a palliative care and end of life care dashboard. The dashboard helps commissioners to understand the palliative care and end of life care needs of their local population, enabling ICBs to put plans in place to address and track the improvement of health inequalities, and ensure that funding is distributed fairly, based on prevalence.
The Department and NHS England are currently working at pace to develop plans on how best to improve the access, quality, and sustainability of all-age palliative care and end of life care in line with the 10-Year Health Plan.
Additionally, through the National Institute for Health and Care Research, the Department has invested £3 million in a Policy Research Unit in Palliative and End of Life Care. This unit is building the evidence base on palliative care and end of life care, with a specific focus on inequalities.
We are supporting the hospice sector with a £100 million capital funding boost for eligible adult and children’s hospices in England to ensure they have the best physical environment for care.
We are also committing £80 million for children’s and young people’s hospices over the next three financial years, giving them stability to plan ahead and focus on what matters most, caring for their patients.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure hospices are adequately funded.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Palliative care services are included in the list of services an integrated care board (ICB) must commission. To support ICBs in this duty, NHS England has published statutory guidance and service specifications. The statutory guidance states that ICBs must work to ensure that there is sufficient provision of care services to meet the needs of their local populations.
NHS England has also developed a palliative care and end of life care dashboard. The dashboard helps commissioners to understand the palliative care and end of life care needs of their local population, enabling ICBs to put plans in place to address and track the improvement of health inequalities, and ensure that funding is distributed fairly, based on prevalence.
The Department and NHS England are currently working at pace to develop plans on how best to improve the access, quality, and sustainability of all-age palliative care and end of life care in line with the 10-Year Health Plan.
Additionally, through the National Institute for Health and Care Research, the Department has invested £3 million in a Policy Research Unit in Palliative and End of Life Care. This unit is building the evidence base on palliative care and end of life care, with a specific focus on inequalities.
We are supporting the hospice sector with a £100 million capital funding boost for eligible adult and children’s hospices in England to ensure they have the best physical environment for care.
We are also committing £80 million for children’s and young people’s hospices over the next three financial years, giving them stability to plan ahead and focus on what matters most, caring for their patients.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the long-term fiscal implications of the updated NHS commercial framework for new medicines.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The update to the NHS Commercial Framework for New Medicines, published in 2025, provided greater detail about the options for enhanced commercial flexibilities for new medicines, and when such flexibilities can be offered. The update did not seek to expand or change the use of these mechanisms but was a technical update to provide improved clarity and to formalise existing arrangements. As such, NHS England does not consider that the update itself would be cost-inflationary for the National Health Service’s medicines budget. NHS England would expect increased costs if these updates help facilitate patient access to a larger number of medicines, but these costs would be incurred from improving patient health. Any additional costs as a result of better patient access will depend on the drugs brought forward for NHS use in the future.
However, the update also included confirmation of an increase to the Budget Impact Test threshold in England, from £20 million to £40 million. The intention to consult on the move to a £40 million threshold formed part of the 2024 voluntary scheme for branded medicines pricing, access and growth (VPAG). The cost of making this threshold increase was considered as part of the overall VPAG package.