Asked by: Bob Blackman (Conservative - Harrow East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the UK and Eire Glaucoma Society 2025 consensus on Minimally Invasive Glaucoma Surgery, what estimate he has made of the number of glaucoma patients who weren't offered a combined procedure to treat the condition at the time of cataract surgery in the last year.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Data on the number of glaucoma patients who weren't offered a combined procedure to treat glaucoma at the time of cataract surgery is not held.
The best treatment options will be decided by the treating clinician, in discussion with the patient, considering an individuals’ clinical circumstances and relevant professional clinical guidance and best available evidence.
The Getting It Right First Time programme is also developing best practice guidance for glaucoma services, to support the consistent adoption of high standards of care from detection onwards.
Asked by: Bob Blackman (Conservative - Harrow East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the UK and Eire Glaucoma Society 2025 consensus on Minimally Invasive Glaucoma Surgery, whether he has made an assessment of the potential impact on secondary care services when patients are not offered a glaucoma intervention at the time of cataract surgery.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Data on the number of glaucoma patients who weren't offered a combined procedure to treat glaucoma at the time of cataract surgery is not held.
The best treatment options will be decided by the treating clinician, in discussion with the patient, considering an individuals’ clinical circumstances and relevant professional clinical guidance and best available evidence.
The Getting It Right First Time programme is also developing best practice guidance for glaucoma services, to support the consistent adoption of high standards of care from detection onwards.
Asked by: Bob Blackman (Conservative - Harrow East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of the expansion of the UK National Screening Committee’s remit to include consideration of targeted screening programmes on the evaluation of a wider range of screening options for conditions associated with lifestyle related risk factors.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Each year, over 15 million people are invited for screening by National Health Service screening programmes, with over 10 million taking up the invitation. Through our NHS screening programmes, we can reduce mortality and morbidity from cancer and other conditions in the population who appear healthy and have no symptoms, by detecting conditions at an earlier, more treatable stage.
The Government is advised on all screening matters by the UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC), an independent scientific advisory committee which is made up of leading medical and screening experts. It is only where there is robust evidence that an offer to screen provides more good than harm that a screening programme is recommended.
Following its expanded remit, in 2022, the UK NSC recommended lung cancer screening to people between the ages of 55 and 74 years old who smoke or have previously smoked, a lifestyle related risk factor. The NHS Lung Cancer Screening Programme is being rolled out across England.
During its three-month open call for topics, the UK NSC welcomes proposals that cover population screening or targeted screening topics. Any individual or organisation can submit a topic to the UK NSC to consider. The UK NSC will consider whether the proposal is within the UK NSC remit and, if so, how the topic should be explored further.
Asked by: Bob Blackman (Conservative - Harrow East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department has taken to increase access to weight loss jabs for long-term conditions.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
I refer the Hon. Member to the answer I gave to the Hon. Member for Rushcliffe on 19 November 2025 to Question 89687.
Asked by: Bob Blackman (Conservative - Harrow East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps are being taken in response to inaccuracies, omissions and loss of NHS medical records relating to historic sodium valproate prescribing.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Affected patients who feel there are inaccuracies or omissions in their medical record can ask for their records to be amended. NHS England’s guidance on amending patient and service user records is available at the following link:
Where patients are not satisfied with the response to their request, they can make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office.
Asked by: Bob Blackman (Conservative - Harrow East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether conditions arising from sodium valproate exposure are consistently recognised and coded within NHS diagnostic systems.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Health Service in England collects data on patients suffering adverse effects of medication and on drug poisoning. While adverse conditions arising from sodium valproate would be captured in this data, the data does not go to the level to identify sodium valproate and is not aligned to coding within NHS diagnostic systems.
Asked by: Bob Blackman (Conservative - Harrow East)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what estimate she made of the cost to her Department of implementing the digital ID scheme since September 2024.
Answered by Josh Simons - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Costs in this Spending Review period will be met within the existing Spending Review settlement.
Asked by: Bob Blackman (Conservative - Harrow East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to provide emergency day-to-day funding to hospices; and whether he will commit to releasing (a) £100 million in emergency funding now and (b) a further £100 million in April 2026 to stabilise hospice services and protect patient care.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Children and young people’s hospices have received £26 million of revenue funding for 2025/26 and we are also providing approximately £80 million of revenue funding for children and young people’s hospices over the next three financial years, 2026/27 to 2028/29, giving them stability to plan ahead and focus on what matters most, caring for their patients.
In December 2024, we announced that we were providing £100 million of capital funding for eligible adult and children’s hospices in England. This was split across two financial years, with hospices receiving £25 million to spend in 2024/25 and £75 million to spend in 2025/26.
We are pleased to say that we can now confirm we are providing a further £25 million in capital funding for hospices to spend in 2025/26.
We are in a challenging fiscal position across the board. At this time, we are not in a position to offer any additional funding beyond that outlined above. However, we are supporting the hospice sector in other ways.
The Government is developing a Palliative Care and End of Life Care Modern Service Framework (MSF) for England. As part of the MSF, we will consider contracting and commissioning arrangements. We recognise that there is currently a mix of contracting models in the hospice sector. By supporting integrated care boards to commission more strategically, we can move away from grant and block contract models. In the long term, this will aid sustainability and help hospices’ ability to plan ahead.
Asked by: Bob Blackman (Conservative - Harrow East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether medicine-induced harm from sodium valproate is systematically captured within NHS patient safety, incident and mortality data.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Health Service in England operates a comprehensive central database, the Learn From Patient Safety Events (LFPSE) service, which is a national NHS system for the recording and analysis of patient safety events that occur in healthcare. It collates all records of patient safety incidents made by healthcare providers. Where local healthcare providers identify and record incidents related to sodium valproate, that information will be collated by the LFPSE.
On mortality data, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) collects and publishes mortality statistics for deaths registered in England and Wales. Deaths in which harm caused by sodium valproate exposure is a contributing factor are not captured as a distinct, searchable category in ONS mortality statistics. Further information on mortality statistics is available on the ONS website, at the following link:
Asked by: Bob Blackman (Conservative - Harrow East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether disabled young carers in families affected by sodium valproate-related harm are being (a) identified and (b) supported within the education system.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
We know that families with children with disabilities, including those affected by sodium valproate harm and where the children may be caring for other family members, are crying out for change.
The department’s upcoming full Schools White Paper will build on the work we have already done to create a system that is rooted in inclusion, where children receive high-quality support early on and can thrive at their local school. This work includes the new standards on inclusion introduced by Ofsted in their new education inspection framework last November, and we are pleased to note that the needs of pupils with disabilities and those who are young carers are fully recognised in the inspection toolkit for the new framework.
Schools are also required to identify and record all pupils who are young carers on the school census regardless of the reason they may be providing care for family members.