Public Service Delivery: Devolved Governments

Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

The vast majority of Scots, and indeed Welsh and Northern Irish people, want their devolved Governments and the UK Government to work together to increase living standards and improve public services. The Prime Minister set out his vision for deeper devolution in Scotland and has underlined the importance of engaging collaboratively with the Scottish Government to make that happen. We are looking forward to seeing the outcome of the meeting between the Prime Minister and the Heads of the devolved Governments at the National Economic Council this Friday.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

My Lords, the NHS app in England and the NHS app in Wales do not communicate. This leads to lots of missed appointments, lost test results, duplication of medical histories and a real cost to the NHS on both sides of the border in respect of Welsh patients being treated in England. I have tabled Amendment 244 to the Health Bill to address this issue. Can I urge the Minister to initiate a discussion about the interoperability of health apps across the four nations in her discussions with the devolved Governments?

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I know that my noble friend Lady Merron looks forward to debating the issue that the noble Baroness raises, and I shall feed it back to those taking part in the discussions later this week. We want things to be interoperable across borders. There are some really good examples of where the UK Government have worked effectively with devolved counterparts, but this can always be improved on. At the heart of how we approach this must be the end user or, in this case, patients who require that cross-border co-operation.