Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to improve access to women’s health services in the Buckingham and Bletchley constituency under the renewed Women’s Health Strategy for England.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Renewed Women’s Health Strategy was published on 15 April 2026 and women’s access to care is a key theme. We will support integrated care board to introduce a single point of access for all non-urgent referrals to gynaecology and women's health services to speed up access to better treatment
We will redesign clinical pathways for the most common pathways including heavy periods, menopause, and uro-gynaecology. This will standardise care pathways and remove unnecessary procedural delays.
We will fund a specialist centre in each region for group-based approaches to high volume low complexity women’s health pathways. This will improve productivity and empower women in common clinical areas, helping to reduce waiting lists and supporting self-management.
We will accelerate the deployment and spread of innovations that benefit women’s health, launching a FemTech healthcare challenge within two years with a pot of £1.5 million.
Funded by £5.25 million, we will expand access to Musculoskeletal (MSK) Hubs in the community by leveraging the leisure and fitness workforce to deliver evidence-based physical activity for people with MSK conditions.
Buckinghamshire delivers specialist gynaecology care to women through both community and secondary care, or hospital, services, with community services delivered from general practices across the county, including in Aylesbury. To further improve access to women's health services, the Buckinghamshire Healthcare Trust and FedBucks are working together to expand community services, increasing clinic sites and aligning to neighbourhoods including North Bucks, to ensure more women can be seen for specialist gynaecology care more quickly and closer to home in the community service, thereby increasing capacity within the secondary care service to support waiting list reductions.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
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 help improve access to menopause support and services in the Buckingham and Bletchley constituency.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to prioritising women’s health as we reform the National Health Service, and we acknowledge the impact that women suffering from symptoms of menopause has on their lives, relationships, and participation in the workplace.
In Buckinghamshire, a specialist menopause service was launched in August 2025 and was accessible to all Buckinghamshire women via referral from their general practitioner (GP), delivered by telephone as standard to ensure this holistic and patient centred specialist menopause care is delivered close to the patient, in their own home, with face to face provision available where required within GPs across the county.
As announced in October 2025, we will be asking local authorities across the country to include menopause in the NHS Health Check later this year. This will support eligible women across England to access high quality information on the menopause, including advice on managing symptoms, where to seek support, and a diagnosis.
Menopause and menstrual health conditions will be among the priorities for the NHS’s revolutionary new online hospital when it launches next year, providing faster access to specialist care.
On the 15 April 2026, we published the Renewed Women’s Health Strategy which identifies menopause as a core women’s health priority, recognising its impact on women’s health, wellbeing, work, and quality of life.
The strategy shifts menopause care into primary and community settings, including neighbourhood women’s health services and women’s health hubs, making care easier to access and closer to home.
The strategy commits to each region having a specialist centre to support group based approaches to high volume low complexity women’s health pathways such as menopause services, improving access, peer support, and consistency, with early rollout focused on areas of highest need.
The strategy recognises that menopause symptoms are often under recognised and poorly understood, and commits to improving information so women know their symptoms can be effectively managed, including through evidence-based treatments.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of data collection on women’s health outcomes in Buckingham and Bletchley constituency.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
A women's health data dashboard is available on the NHS Futures website and is available to anyone working within health and care sector who requires insight into women's health.
The dashboard is intended to provide national and local insight into the key aims of women's health aligned with the priorities of NHS England’s Women’s Health Programme and highlight potential unmet need, unwarranted variation, and health inequalities.
The Government will make the data dashboard publicly available with the next year, as set out in the Renewed Women’s Health Strategy published on 15 April 2026.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to improve early diagnosis of endometriosis for patients in Buckingham and Bletchley constituency.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government acknowledges the challenges faced by women with endometriosis and the impact it has on their lives, their relationships, and their participation in education and the workforce. We are committed to improving the diagnosis, treatment, and ongoing care for endometriosis. It is unacceptable that women can wait so long for an endometriosis diagnosis and we are taking action to address this.
Nationally, we are establishing an “online hospital”, NHS Online, which will give people across the country, on certain pathways, the choice of getting the specialist care they need from their home. It will connect patients with clinicians across the country through secure, online appointments accessed through the NHS App.
Menstrual problems, which may be a sign of endometriosis, will be among the first nine conditions available for referral to NHS Online from 2027. We’ve chosen some of the conditions with the longest waits and where online consultation works best. NHS Online will help to reduce patient waiting times, delivering the equivalent of up to 8.5 million appointments and assessments in its first three years, four times more than an average trust, while enhancing patient choice and control over their care. This will allow women with menstrual problems which may be a sign of endometriosis across the country to reach a diagnosis and explore treatment options sooner.
Buckinghamshire delivers specialist gynaecology care to women through both community and secondary care, or hospital, services, with community services delivered from general practices across the county, including in Aylesbury. To further improve access to women's health services, the Buckinghamshire Healthcare Trust is working to expand community services, increasing clinic sites, and aligning to neighbourhoods including North Bucks, to ensure more women can be seen for specialist gynaecology care more quickly and closer to home in the community service, thereby increasing capacity within the secondary care service to support waiting list reductions.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of workforce capacity in women’s health services serving the Buckingham and Bletchley constituency.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England publishes monthly information on the composition of the workforce employed by National Health Service trusts and integrated care boards in England. This includes information on the workforce employed by individual bodies and for high-level staffing groups. The information can be found at the following link:
https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/nhs-workforce-statistics
No specific central assessment has been made of the workforce capacity of women’s health services in the region, with decisions on the provision of local services being managed by individual NHS service provider and commissioners.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
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 reduce gynaecology waiting times for patients in the Buckingham and Bletchley constituency.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We are committed to returning by March 2029 to the National Health Service constitutional standard that 92% of patients wait no longer than 18 weeks from referral to consultant-led treatment, including for gynaecology.
Our Elective Reform Plan, published in January 2025, sets out the reforms we are making to improve gynaecology waiting times across England. This includes innovative models of care that offer care closer to home and in the community, piloting gynaecology pathways in community diagnostic centres for patients with post-menopausal bleeding, and increasing the relative funding available to incentivise providers to take on more gynaecology procedures.
Wider elective reforms will help cut waiting times for gynaecology services in Buckinghamshire and across England. These include more consistent clinical triage, tackling missed appointments, delivering new and expanded surgical hubs, and scaling up remote monitoring and use of patient-initiated follow ups.
We also provided new funding for general practice to expand Advice and Guidance (A&G) services. A&G is designed to help general practitioners and hospital specialists to work together and make the best treatment plans for patients, while reducing unnecessary referrals to long waiting lists. This enables patients to be seen more quickly, closer to home, benefiting from earlier specialist input.
We are also introducing an “online hospital”, NHS Online. From 2027, people on certain pathways, including severe menopause symptoms and menstrual problems that may be a sign of endometriosis or fibroids, will have the choice of getting the specialist care they need from their home. NHS Online will help to reduce patient waiting times, delivering the equivalent of up to 8.5 million appointments and assessments in its first three years.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps her Department is taking to mitigate risks to UK economic security arising from financial instability in the Middle East.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
Since the start of the conflict the Government has engaged allies and partners to urge de-escalation and shared efforts towards diplomacy, and has taken action to protect the UK public from the rising cost of living by providing immediate support for vulnerable heating oil customers and bringing energy bills down.
HM Treasury has also been working closely with the financial regulators to monitor potential risks to financial stability, including through its membership of the Bank of England’s Financial Policy Committee (FPC) and the global Financial Stability Board (FSB). The FPC is responsible in the UK for identifying, monitoring and taking action to remove or reduce systemic risks to the UK financial system.
In its April 2026 Record, the FPC assessed that conflict in the Middle East represents a negative supply shock to the global economy. The FPC noted that while the financial system has remained resilient, and the UK banking system has the capacity to support households and businesses even if conditions were to be substantially worse than expected, the conflict has increased global uncertainty following a period of already elevated risks and called for firms to actively manage their risks.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent assessment she has made of the potential effect of developments in the Middle East on global financial stability.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
Since the start of the conflict the Government has engaged allies and partners to urge de-escalation and shared efforts towards diplomacy, and has taken action to protect the UK public from the rising cost of living by providing immediate support for vulnerable heating oil customers and bringing energy bills down.
HM Treasury has also been working closely with the financial regulators to monitor potential risks to financial stability, including through its membership of the Bank of England’s Financial Policy Committee (FPC) and the global Financial Stability Board (FSB). The FPC is responsible in the UK for identifying, monitoring and taking action to remove or reduce systemic risks to the UK financial system.
In its April 2026 Record, the FPC assessed that conflict in the Middle East represents a negative supply shock to the global economy. The FPC noted that while the financial system has remained resilient, and the UK banking system has the capacity to support households and businesses even if conditions were to be substantially worse than expected, the conflict has increased global uncertainty following a period of already elevated risks and called for firms to actively manage their risks.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of discussions at the UK–US Financial Regulatory Working Group on (a) financial stability and (b) cross-border regulatory co-operation.
Answered by Lucy Rigby - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Financial Regulatory Working Group (FRWG) was established in 2018 with a view to deepen bilateral financial regulatory cooperation between the UK and the US, including on issues relating to financial stability and to take stock of economic trends and market conditions. Further details on what was discussed at the most recent FRWG on 25 February 2026 can be found here: U.S. – UK Financial Regulatory Working Group Winter 2026: Joint Statement - GOV.UK.
The UK and US are also working closely together on the Transatlantic Taskforce for Markets of the Future, which was established jointly by HM Treasury and US Treasury on 22 September.
The Taskforce is exploring options to strengthen linkages between UK and US capital markets, supporting growth and competitiveness in both jurisdictions by reducing burdens for UK and US firms raising capital-cross border. It is also exploring opportunities for collaboration on digital assets and other innovative financial activities.
HM Treasury and the US Treasury have conducted joint senior-level industry engagement in both London and Washington DC to ensure the Taskforce’s work is informed by what matters most to industry on both sides of the Atlantic. The Taskforce aims to report back to both finance ministries on its recommendations via the FRWG in summer 2026.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of enhanced UK-US regulatory co-operation on the competitiveness of UK capital markets.
Answered by Lucy Rigby - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Financial Regulatory Working Group (FRWG) was established in 2018 with a view to deepen bilateral financial regulatory cooperation between the UK and the US, including on issues relating to financial stability and to take stock of economic trends and market conditions. Further details on what was discussed at the most recent FRWG on 25 February 2026 can be found here: U.S. – UK Financial Regulatory Working Group Winter 2026: Joint Statement - GOV.UK.
The UK and US are also working closely together on the Transatlantic Taskforce for Markets of the Future, which was established jointly by HM Treasury and US Treasury on 22 September.
The Taskforce is exploring options to strengthen linkages between UK and US capital markets, supporting growth and competitiveness in both jurisdictions by reducing burdens for UK and US firms raising capital-cross border. It is also exploring opportunities for collaboration on digital assets and other innovative financial activities.
HM Treasury and the US Treasury have conducted joint senior-level industry engagement in both London and Washington DC to ensure the Taskforce’s work is informed by what matters most to industry on both sides of the Atlantic. The Taskforce aims to report back to both finance ministries on its recommendations via the FRWG in summer 2026.