Danny Chambers

The Secretary of State's Standards of Modern Zoo Practice were last updated in 2012. Defra is currently in the process of updating these standards, to ensure all animals in zoos and aquariums are kept in conditions that reflect latest best practice. The draft updated standards were consulted on in 2022, and further discussions have been held with the sector. An updated version of the standards will be published in due course.

The NHS Operational and Planning Guidance for 2024/25 makes clear that integrated care boards are expected to continue to meet the Mental Health Investment Standard by increasing their investment in mental health services in line with their overall increase in funding for the year.

My Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care will set out expectations for mental health funding, including its share of overall National Health Service expenditure in 2025/26, in due course, as required under section 3(2) of the Health and Care Act 2022.

The NHS Operational and Planning Guidance for 2024/25 makes clear that integrated care boards are expected to continue to meet the Mental Health Investment Standard by increasing their investment in mental health services in line with their overall increase in funding for the year.

My Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care will set out expectations for mental health funding, including its share of overall National Health Service expenditure in 2025/26, in due course, as required under section 3(2) of the Health and Care Act 2022.

We have taken necessary decisions to fix the foundations in the public finances at the Autumn Budget, which enabled the Spending Review settlement of a £22.6 billion increase in resource spending for the Department, from 2023/24 outturn to 2025/26. The employer National Insurance rise will be implemented April 2025, and the Department will set out further details on the allocation of funding for next year at the earliest opportunity.

We have taken necessary decisions to fix the foundations in the public finances at the Autumn Budget, which enabled the Spending Review settlement of a £22.6 billion increase in resource spending for the Department, from 2023/24 outturn to 2025/26. The employer National Insurance rise will be implemented April 2025, and the Department will set out further details on the allocation of funding for next year at the earliest opportunity.

We have taken necessary decisions to fix the foundations in the public finances at the Autumn Budget, which enabled the Spending Review settlement of a £22.6 billion increase in resource spending for the Department, from 2023/24 outturn to 2025/26. The employer National Insurance rise will be implemented April 2025, and the Department will set out further details on the allocation of funding for next year at the earliest opportunity.

The United Kingdom has long championed improved global finance to address anti-microbial resistance (AMR). The Department has committed £450 million of Official Development Assistance budget to tackle AMR in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) through improving laboratory capacity and surveillance on resistance. The UK has also funded £106.6 million through the Global AMR Innovation Fund to develop innovative solutions to AMR which focus on the needs of LMICs.

We welcome the adoption of the political declaration on AMR at the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) and its call for the World Bank to work with the Quadripartite to facilitate improved access to existing funding for AMR.

I attended the 4^th Global High-Level Ministerial Conference on Antimicrobial Resistance in Jeddah on 15 and 16 November 2024. At the event I worked with other global leaders to secure progress that is being made to deliver the commitments agreed at the UNGA High Level meeting and build momentum on the actions needed, particularly on sustainable financing to tackle AMR.

The Government is committed to ensuring that families have the support that they need. We want to ensure that people who care for family and friends are better able to look after their own physical and mental health and wellbeing.

Local authorities have duties to support people caring for their family and friends. The Care Act 2014 requires local authorities to deliver a wide range of sustainable, high-quality care and support services, including support such as respite and breaks for carers. The Better Care Fund also includes funding that can be used for unpaid carer support, including for short breaks and respite services for carers.

As part of the Carers Partnership in the Health and Wellbeing Alliance, the Carers Trust has published a Carer Contingency Campaign Pack. This will help support local carer organisations’ work with local partners to deliver carer contingency plans for carers in their area. Further information on the pack is available at the following link:

https://carers.org/resources/all-resources/150-carer-contingency-campaign-pack-supporting-carers-and-strengthening-local-care-systems

We know that people, including unpaid carers, with mental health issues are not getting the support or care they deserve, which is why we will fix the broken system to ensure we give mental health the same attention and focus as physical health. This includes recruiting 8,500 more mental health workers, introducing specialist mental health professionals in every school, rolling out Young Futures hubs in every community, and modernising the Mental Health Act.

The Royal College of General Practitioners has produced an e-learning module, Motor development in children: assessment and red flags. This module is designed to help general practitioners (GPs) assess children’s motor development. It identifies opportunities to perform a brief developmental assessment, describes an approach to assessing children of different ages, and highlights what typical and atypical motor development looks like, including important red flags. It also advises GPs on what steps to take if they do have concerns about a child’s motor development. Further details about the module are available at the following link:

https://elearning.rcgp.org.uk/course/info.php?id=601

The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health has also produced an e-learning module on neuromuscular disorders, which includes guidance to clinicians on how to apply a clear, structured approach to assessing motor development in children aged zero to five years old, and how to use their skills and knowledge to recognise atypical motor development. Further details about the module are available at the following link:

https://www.rcpch.ac.uk/resources/recognising-neuromuscular-disorders-online-learning.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has published guidance on developmental follow-up of children and young people born preterm, which is available at the following link:

https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng72

The NICE guidance recognises that children who are born preterm are at an increased risk of developmental problems, including motor function problems and cerebral palsy.

The NICE has also produced a quality standard on cerebral palsy in children and young people and the guidance, Cerebral palsy in under 25s: assessment and management. The NICE quality standard includes specific reference to referral for children with delayed motor milestones. Further information on the quality standard on cerebral palsy in children and young people and the guidance on cerebral palsy in under 25-year-olds is available, respectively, at the following two links:

https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/qs162

https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng62

The NICE guidance also recommends using the General Movement Assessment during routine neonatal follow-up assessments for children between zero and three months who are at increased risk of developing cerebral palsy. It recommends that all children with delayed motor milestones should be referred to a child development service for further assessment. Additionally, the guidance states that clinicians should recognise that the most common delayed motor milestones in children with cerebral palsy are:

• not sitting by eight months, corrected for gestational age;
• not walking by 18 months, corrected for gestational age; and
• early asymmetry of hand function, hand preference, before one year, corrected for gestational age.

We have not made such an assessment. However, the Government’s new mission-led approach puts health, and children and young people at the heart of our priorities. The Government aims to provide all children, including disabled children and disabled young people, with opportunities to access high-quality sport and physical activity, especially those who are less likely to be active.

The Chief Medical Officer’s physical activity guidelines for disabled children highlights the importance of tailoring activities to meet individual needs, breaking an activity into chunks and making everyday movement enjoyable. Providing these inclusive opportunities for disabled children is a core principle of the Department of Education’s Inclusion 2024 programme, and the Government funded School Games Network, which works with organisations, including Cerebral Palsy Sport, to create inclusive environments in sport and physical activity for children with cerebral palsy.

The Government is committed to ensuring that those with alcohol dependence can access high quality help and specialist clinical support. General practitioners (GP) are responsible for ensuring their own clinical knowledge remains up-to-date and for identifying learning needs as part of their continuing professional development. This activity should include taking account of new research and developments in guidance, such as that produced by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, to ensure that they can continue to provide high quality care to all patients.

All United Kingdom registered doctors are expected to meet the professional standards set out in the General Medical Council’s (GMC) Good Medical Practice. In 2012 the GMC introduced revalidation, which supports doctors in regularly reflecting on how they can develop or improve their practice, gives patients confidence that doctors are up to date with their practice, and promotes improved quality of care by driving improvements in clinical governance.

The training curricula for postgraduate trainee doctors is set by the Royal College of General Practitioners and has to meet the standards set by the GMC. Whilst curricula do not necessarily highlight specific conditions for doctors to be aware of, they instead emphasise the skills and approaches that a doctor must develop in order to ensure accurate and timely diagnoses and treatment plans for their patients.

The Department will soon be publishing the first ever UK clinical guidelines on alcohol treatment. The guidelines include good practice recommendations for GPs and their teams, and for hospital clinicians. The guidelines can be used to inform training for staff working with people with alcohol dependence.

Additionally, the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, and NHS England’s 10-year strategic plan for the drug and alcohol treatment and recovery workforce (2024–2034), outlines actions to be taken over the next decade to improve recruitment, training, skills, and career development and retention of specialist GPs working in the local authority-commissioned drug and alcohol treatment and recovery workforce. The strategic plan is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/10-year-strategic-plan-for-the-drug-and-alcohol-treatment-and-recovery-workforce

The Department is working with partners in the devolved administrations to develop the first ever clinical guidelines on alcohol treatment for the United Kingdom, which will promote and support good practice and improve the quality of service provision, resulting in better outcomes for people experiencing alcohol dependence and alcohol related harms.

Through our Health Mission, the Government has committed to prioritising preventative public health measures to support people to live longer, healthier lives. The Department will continue to work across Government to understand how best to reduce alcohol-related harms.

It is unacceptable that too many children and young people are not receiving the mental health care they need, and we know that waits for mental health services are far too long, which can impact on them receiving a diagnosis. That is why we will recruit 8,500 additional mental health workers across both adult, and children and young people’s mental health services, to help reduce delays and provide faster treatment.

The Department of Health and Social Care is also working with the Department for Education and NHS England to consider how to deliver our commitment of access to a specialist mental health professional in every school.

A vital part of delivering the Health Mission shift to prevention will be action to reduce the harms from excess alcohol consumption. The Department of Health and Social Care is continuing to invest in improvements to local drug and alcohol treatment services. Funding for drug and alcohol treatment services is provided through the public health grant. In addition, local authorities have a further £267 million from the Department of Health and Social Care this year to improve quality and capacity of drug and alcohol treatment and recovery. This is alongside £105 million made available by the Department of Health and Social Care, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to improve housing and employment outcomes for people affected by alcohol and drug use.

The latest provisional data from the National Drug Treatment Monitoring System for the year ending in September 2024 suggests that there were over 97,000 adults in community treatment for alcohol and not any other drug and over 45,000 adults in treatment for problems with both alcohol and non-opiates. The number of people in treatment for alcohol and not any other drug has increased by 34% since the year ending August 2020 and is currently the highest since records began in 2005/6.

Additionally, the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities has published a commissioning quality standard providing guidance for local authorities to support them in commissioning effective alcohol and drug treatment and recovery services in their areas. The Department of Health and Social Care will soon publish the United Kingdom Clinical guidelines on alcohol treatment which will include recommendations on developing effective, accessible, and inclusive services. More information on the commissioning quality standard is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/commissioning-quality-standard-alcohol-and-drug-services

The standard of training for general practitioners and other health care professionals is the responsibility of the independent statutory regulatory bodies, which set the outcome standards expected at undergraduate level and approve courses, and higher education institutions, which write and teach the curricula content that enables their students to meet the regulators’ outcome standards.

Whilst not all curricula may necessarily highlight a specific condition, they all nevertheless emphasize the skills and approaches a Health Care Practitioner must develop to ensure accurate and timely diagnoses and appropriate treatment plans for their patients, including those with bipolar disorder.

Once qualified, health care professionals are responsible for ensuring their own clinical knowledge remains up to date, and for identifying learning needs as part of their continuing professional development. This should include taking account of new research and guidance, such as that produced by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, to ensure that they can continue to provide high-quality care to all patients.

Specialist community perinatal mental health services are established in all parts of England, but we recognise more is needed. Too many people with mental health issues, including mothers in the 12 months postpartum, are not getting the support or care they need, which is why we will fix the broken system to ensure that people can be confident in accessing high quality mental health support when they need it.

As set out in NHS England’s 2024/25 Priorities and Operational Planning Guidance, the National Health Service is working to increase the number of people accessing perinatal mental health services to 66,000. ​In 2023/24, 58,200 ​women ​accessed these services, compared to 30,600 in 2019/20.

The Suicide Prevention Strategy for England was published in September 2023. The strategy highlights pregnant women and new mothers as a priority group who could benefit from targeted support.

The Community Mental Health Framework set out a vision for transforming community mental health services. The vision is a whole person, whole population approach to community health services, with new integrated models between primary and secondary care that can deliver more flexible, personalised, and holistic care for more people with serious mental illness, including for people with a diagnosis of bi-polar disorder. Since April 2021, all areas have received significant additional, ring-fenced funding to develop these new integrated primary and community mental health services, built around Primary Care Networks, in line with the Community Mental Health Framework. Systems have made significant progress in rolling out these integrated models of care, including for people with a diagnosis of bi-polar disorder.

In addition, people of all ages who are in crisis or who are concerned about a family or loved one can now call 111, select the mental health option, and speak to a trained mental health professional. National Health Service staff can guide callers with next steps such as organising face-to-face community support or facilitating access to alternative services, like crisis cafés or safe havens, which provide a place for people to stay as an alternative to accident and emergency or hospital admission.

The proportion of the Department of Health and Social Care budget allocated to the local authority Public Health Grant over the last 5 years is shown in the table:

(i) the Public Health Grant includes the notional amounts for the 10 Greater Manchester Local Authorities who are part of a business rates retention scheme and no longer receive a public health grant; and (ii) the DHSC budget for 2024/25 is the planned budget as set out in the Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses 2024 https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/public-expenditure-statistical-analyses-2024

My Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, has discussed the Department’s settlement for 2025/26 with my Rt Hon. Friend, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, as part of the Spending Review process.

We will confirm 2025/26 local authority public health grant allocations at the earliest opportunity, and will confirm future years’ allocations as part of the forthcoming Spending Review next year.