Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when he plans to publish the HIV action plan.

Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government is committed to ending new HIV transmissions in England by 2030 and is developing the new HIV Action Plan which we aim to publish this year.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many foreign national offenders are currently released on license.

Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury

Data about the number of Foreign National Offenders (FNO) on post-release supervision is published regularly as part of the Offender Management Statistics Quarterly bulletin, with figures included under table 6.9 of the Probation chapter. The series, which includes data from the 31 March 2024, can be accessed via https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/offender-management-statistics-quarterly

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what funding has been allocated to Healthy Start for 2026-27.

Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Spending Review on 11 June 2025 set total departmental budgets for day-to-day spending from 2026/27 until 2028/29. Departments must now allocate these budgets to portfolios, programmes, and projects. As such, the budget allocated to Healthy Start for 2026/27 is still to be determined.

Healthy Start is a demand-led, statutory scheme and aims to support those in greatest need. We recently announced in Fit for the Future: 10 Year Health Plan that we will uplift the value of weekly payments by 10%, boosting the ability to buy healthy food for those families who need it most. From April 2026, pregnant women and children aged over one and under four years old will each receive £4.65 per week, up from £4.25, and children under one years old will receive £9.30 per week, up from £8.50.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions he has had with the Leader of the House of Lords on the commencement date for the Committee stage of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill.

Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

Ministers and officials from the Department are regularly in touch with their counterparts across Government. The Tobacco and Vapes Bill has had its Second Reading in the House of Lords, and the Committee stage will take place when parliamentary time allows. We expect the bill to complete its passage within this parliamentary session.

Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps he is taking to ensure that single sex (a) living accommodation, (b) bathroom and (c) changing facilities for service personnel are compliant with the law.

Answered by Al Carns - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence) (Minister for Veterans)

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) welcomes the Supreme Court's ruling and the clarity that it brings for women and service providers. The MOD is undertaking a review of its internal policies to ensure compliance with the ruling; this includes living accommodation, ablutions, changing facilities, and single-sex spaces. We will be guided by the revised Equality and Human Rights Commission Code of Practice when it becomes available.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when he plans to publish the national maternity and neonatal action plan.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

My Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care recently announced an independent investigation into National Health Service maternity and neonatal services, and the establishment of a National Maternity and Neonatal Taskforce.

The investigation will produce, by December 2025, one clear set of national recommendations to achieve high quality, safe care across maternity and neonatal services, and will ensure that women and families are listened to.

The taskforce will then develop a national action plan to drive improvements across maternity and neonatal care. The timing for the publication of the action plan will be announced in due course.

In the meantime, work continues to implement the actions set out in NHS England’s Three Year Delivery Plan for Maternity and Neonatal Services. My Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care also announced some immediate actions to boost accountability and safety as part of the Government’s mission to build an NHS fit for the future. This includes measures to hold the system to account, a system to better identify safety concerns, rolling out a programme to all trusts to tackle discrimination and racism, and new best practice standards in maternal mortality.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many newly qualified nurses there have been in 2025.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Nursing and Midwifery Council publishes information on the number of United Kingdom trained nurses joining their register for the first time, who are resident in England.

The latest data available, from the Nursing and Midwifery Council March 2025 Annual Data Report, shows that 29,210 nurses joined the register in England for the first time, 19,670 of which obtained their nursing qualification in the UK.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the number of (a) operations and (b) outpatients appointments that will be cancelled if resident doctors strike on 25 July 2025.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

No formal assessment has been made of the possible industrial action by resident doctors on 25 July 2025.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what forecast he has made of the cost to the public purse of the planned strike of resident doctors on 25 July 2025.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

Resident doctors have announced strike action between 25 and 30 July 2025. The direct impact on the public purse will depend on the level of participation and service disruption within the National Health Service.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made and estimate of the total cost of providing personalised coaching to each member of NHS staff.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

No estimate has been made. As set out in our 10-Year Health Plan published on 3 July, we will introduce new ‘skills escalators’ for staff. These will give staff a trajectory for clear career progression, with increasing autonomy.

By 2035, every single member of National Health Service staff will have their own personalised career coaching and development plan, to help them acquire new skills and practice at the top of their professional capability.

Further details on this will be set out in our 10 Year Workforce Plan later this year.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to page 12 of his Department's policy paper entitled Fit for the Future: The 10 Year Health Plan for England, published in July 2025, whether it remains his policy to abolish NHS England.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

Yes, as announced on 13 March, NHS England will be brought into the Department to form a new joint centre. The necessary work to formally abolish NHS England is underway.

NHS England will continue to undertake its statutory functions, working with the new executive during the transition, until parliamentary time allows for the necessary legislative changes to be made.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what his target date is for 92% of patients to begin elective treatment within 18 weeks.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

As set out in the Plan for Change, we are committed to delivering the National Health Service constitutional standard that 92% of patients wait no longer than 18 weeks from referral to consultant-led treatment by March 2029.

Planning Guidance for 2025/26 sets a target that 65% of patients wait no longer than 18 weeks by March 2026, with every trust expected to deliver a minimum 5% improvement on current performance over that period.

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 (a) efficiency and (b) productivity of the MHRA.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department and its ministers regularly hold assurance meetings with the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to assess its efficiency and productivity. Under the Government, the MHRA has cleared all backlogs, and statutory performance targets are now being met.

As part of the MHRA’s ongoing commitment to greater transparency in service delivery, the agency began publishing monthly performance data externally on clinical trials and medicines licenses in April 2023 and extended this to reflect reporting of performance against all Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) from March 2025. This enhanced reporting provides detailed insights into progress against KPIs and processing times. It enables stakeholders, customers, and partners to plan with greater certainty by offering clear visibility into the performance of key functions, including licensing and clinical trials applications, inspections, batch release, and safety signals. These improvements support more informed engagement and planning across the sector.

As set out in the 10-Year Health Plan, the MHRA will build on this to develop a more pro-innovation approach to regulation, while maintaining safety, ensuring that the United Kingdom remains one of the best places in the world to develop and launch new products, with an international reputation for safety and quality.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when he expects negotiations on a new dental contract to conclude.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

We are committed to reforming the dental contract, but we need to take the time to get this right. There are no perfect payment models and careful consideration needs to be given to any potential changes to the complex dental system so that we deliver genuine improvements for patients and the profession.

We are continuing to meet the British Dental Association and other representatives of the dental sector to discuss how we can best deliver our shared ambition to improve access for National Health Service dental patients.

As a first step to reforming the dental contract, we are consulting on a package of changes to improve access to, and improve the quality of, NHS dentistry, which will deliver improved care for the diverse oral health needs of people across England. Further information on the consultation is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/nhs-dentistry-contract-quality-and-payment-reforms

The consultation was launched on 8 July and will close on 19 August 2025.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the press release entitled Boost to mental health services from thousands of extra staff, published on 27 June 2025, where the dedicated mental health emergency departments will be located.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The announced expansion of crisis assessment centres, also referred to as mental health emergency departments, builds on a number of early implementer sites that have been established in recent years by local health systems to provide a dedicated therapeutic alternative to emergency departments for individuals in a mental health crisis.

Locations for the new centres are being identified through a capital allocation process, involving expressions of interest from integrated care boards and regionally and nationally coordinated assessments of local need, existing provision, and system readiness.

The new centres will typically serve multiple emergency departments and will be accessible via NHS 111, ambulance conveyance, walk-in, or referral pathways.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many and what proportion of newly qualified GPs recruited were trained in the UK since October 2024.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department does not hold the requested information as workforce and recruitment decisions are made locally by practices and primary care networks. As self-employed contractors to the National Health Service, it is up to general practices to determine how they run their operations.

As set out in the 10-Year Health Plan we published on 3 July, we will work across Government to prioritise United Kingdom medical graduates for foundation training. We will also prioritise UK medical graduates and other doctors who have worked in the National Health Service for a significant period for specialty training.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to page 10 of the 10 Year Health Plan for England: fit for the future, published on 3 July 2025, whether he plans to introduce tie-ins for dentists (a) beginning training after September 2025, (b) already in training and (c) already qualified.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

We believe that working in the National Health Service will give dental graduates the best start to their careers, by giving them the broadest range of experience, great support from strong teams of dental professionals, and the most comprehensive training.

It costs £200,000 of taxpayer’s money to train a dentist. We believe it is right and fair to taxpayers to expect graduate dentists to invest their skills and expertise in the NHS for at least some amount of time.

We will consult with the sector on the detail of introducing this change.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to his Department's publication, Fit for the future: 10 Year Health Plan for England, published on 3 July 2025, how many additional GPs will be trained in each of the next 10 years.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

We have committed to training thousands more general practitioners (GPs) across the country, which will increase capacity, end the 8:00am scramble, and take the pressure off those currently working in the system.

We will publish a 10-Year Workforce Plan to create a workforce ready to deliver a transformed service. They will be more empowered, more flexible, and more fulfilled. The 10-Year Workforce Plan will ensure that the National Health Service has the right people in the right places, with the right skills to deliver the best care for patients, when they need it.

Further details on training places will be confirmed in due course.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to his Department's publication, Fit for the future: 10 Year Health Plan for England, published on 3 July 2025, if he will publish the new employment contracts which will allow GPs to (a) work over a larger geographies and (b) lead new neighbourhood providers.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

On 3 July 2025, we published the 10-Year Health Plan for England, which announced the plan to introduce two new contracts, for neighbourhood providers and multi-neighbourhood providers, which will encourage general practitioners to work over larger geographies. We will begin make these new contracts available in 2026. Further details will be provided in due course.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when he plans to publish the revised NHS Long Term Workforce Plan.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

We will publish our 10 Year Workforce Plan by the end of this year. The approach set out in our 10-Year Health plan means we will need a very different kind of workforce strategy. Instead of asking ‘how many staff do we need to maintain our current care model over the next 10 years?’, our new 10 Year Workforce Plan will ask ‘given our reform plan, what workforce do we need, what should they do, where should they be deployed, and what skills should they have?’

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many and what proportion of emergency departments were co-located with urgent treatment centres in the most recent period for which data is available.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

There are currently 86, which is approximately half, type 1 accident and emergency units with a co-located urgent treatment centre (UTC).

Further co-located UTCs will be built as a result of the capital funding provided as part of our Urgent and Emergency Care Plan for 2025/26.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, on what dates he has met the British Medical Association to discuss resident doctors (a) pay and (b) terms and conditions in 2025.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

My Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has met with the British Medical Association to discuss these issues a number of times. The dates and details of these meetings can be found in Department transparency returns, in the usual way.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to his Department's publication, Fit for the future: 10 Year Health Plan for England, published on 3 July 2025, how the single national formula for medicines will differ from the British national (a) formulary and (b) formulary for children.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The document Fit for the future: 10 Year Health Plan for England, published on 3 July 2025, describes the creation of a Single National Formulary (SNF) for medicines to supersede the current process by which each local area decides which medicines are available to its patients. A SNF is expected to supersede these local processes with a formulary oversight board responsible for sequencing products included in the SNF, based on clinical and cost effectiveness, and supported by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). The intention is to drive rapid and equitable adoption of the most clinically and cost-effective medicines.

Work will now begin on design and delivery planning, and we will work collaboratively with key stakeholders, including NICE and industry, on the plans.

The British National Formulary and the British National Formulary for Children are publications of the British Medical Journal and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, that are available on the NICE website. They provide healthcare professionals with a range of information on the selection, prescribing, administration, and dispensing of medicines.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of prioritising UK trained nurses for nursing posts in the NHS.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

As set out in the recently published 10-Year Health Plan, the Government is committed to reorienting the focus of National Health Service recruitment away from its dependency on international recruitment, and towards its own communities, to ensure sustainability in an era of global healthcare workforce shortages. It is our ambition to reduce international recruitment to less than 10% by 2035.

This includes a commitment to developing homegrown nursing talent, helping to bring economic growth to areas across the nation which are most in need. The 10 Year Workforce Plan will outline strategies for improving retention, productivity, training, and reducing attrition, ultimately enhancing conditions for all staff while gradually reducing reliance on international recruitment, without diminishing the value of their contributions.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will consider making resident doctors subject to legislation preventing strike action.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department has no plans to pursue legislative measures to prevent strike action by any National Health Service workforce group.

Found: Brackenridge (Labour; Wolverhampton North East) Sir James Cleverly (Conservative; Braintree) Dr Caroline Johnson