Health Bill (Sixth sitting)

Danny Chambers Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 25th June 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Helen Morgan]

Well, I will just move on a little bit. The important question is: can this be achieved this overnight? Clearly not; we need additional clinicians in the service. The Liberal Democrat view is that the extra—I think 1,000 or 1,500—GPs that the Government have recruited so far is a welcome step forward, but that does not go far enough over the course of a Parliament.

As I was saying earlier, when patients cannot access their GP surgery, they end up, more often than not, in accident and emergency departments. That is no good for anybody. It overburdens the A&E department, leaves people who genuinely need urgent care getting a substandard level of care, and costs the NHS far more. We think it is really important that we put the resource in the right place.

[Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)]

Just to reiterate what my hon. Friend is saying, in Winchester we are now putting an urgent treatment centre in front of the A&E, staffed by GPs to do the triage, because so many people who turn up are only there because they cannot get a GP appointment. So we now have hospital trusts paying for GPs to provide same-day GP appointments, and that is coming out of the secondary care budget instead of the primary care budget. That is obviously the most expensive place to treat patients for routine things.

[Helen Morgan]

That is exactly what new clause 2 seeks to drive at.

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful for that clarification. I am conscious that we have to finish at 1 pm, so I will bring my remarks to a conclusion.

We can all see the intent behind new clause 2; we can all feel that intent in correspondence we get from constituents. Having taken legislation through the House, my concern is that often the challenge is in the drafting of such clauses: while the objective may be honourable, the opacity of them, or the lack of some detail, can risk creating an expectation while not actually setting out how that can realistically be met. My worry here is about the practicalities, in an era where expectations are being set and dashed and that is causing challenges for our democracy.

[Dr Chambers]

Even when the right hon. Gentleman criticises, he does so in a charming way.

None of this is moving the discussion to how we keep people healthy and treat them early. He may criticise our funding models and challenge the detail for achieving this measure, but if we flip that round, the previous Government promised 40 new hospitals, which were not hospitals and did not materialise. The entire focus of healthcare has been on treating people once they are sick, while people cannot get GP appointments.

I hope that the right hon. Gentleman would agree that the thrust of the argument is to try to keep people healthy and treat them early, before they end up needing hospital treatment, and that that is what we should all be focusing on. If he wants to help with the details in order to get 8,000 GPs by the end of this Parliament, he can submit his suggestions to the Liberal Democrat website.

[Edward Argar]

The hon. Gentleman makes his point in a typically reasonable way. Of course, he is right to talk about the need to shift, where we can, from acute settings to either community settings or, ideally, a preventive setting or focus. The Minister may well disagree with me, but I think that is a desire or thread that, however well implemented or otherwise, runs consistently through Governments. It ran through the Blair-Brown Government, the previous Liberal Democrat and Conservative coalition, the Conservative Government and into what the previous Secretary of State announced and what the Minister today is seeking to achieve. I do not think that anyone would disagree with that. We will always need those acute settings for particular treatments and cases, as well as for those very specialist pieces of work or for people with significant illnesses.

There has always been a desire to push the care into the local community. GPS are a central part of that, as are—to address the points raised by my hon. Friends earlier—our community pharmacists and other pharmacists. Pharmacies remain an improving but underused resource as part of that preventive picture. I do not disagree with the hon. Member for Winchester in that, but one can agree with the objective, but nonetheless gently push a little on the detail. As we know, the devil is in the detail, and people will want to see a deliverable plan.

That is one of the challenges that I have had in Melton Mowbray, where the ICB says it will do one thing and then says, “Actually, no, we can’t do that anymore.” Expectations go up and down and people are understandably frustrated. When we put such proposals forward we need to be robust in how we are going to achieve them and in their practicalities. The Minister may wish to make further observations.

Health Bill (Fourth sitting)

Danny Chambers Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 23rd June 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Sir Jeremy.

The hon. Member for Isle of Wight East highlighted extremely well the difficulties of accessing hospital services on an island, but it can be a problem anywhere, including in rural constituencies. Winchester is about 60% rural. Since I was elected, an issue that I have had a great deal of correspondence about—even protests and petitions—has been the cancellation by Hampshire county council of bus services, particularly from rural villages such as Colden Common. People need buses for a variety of reasons—obviously to get to work and school—but the No. 1 issue concerning people is that of mainly elderly people using the bus to access hospital and GP services. They are really worried. It is causing a huge amount of stress that they will not be able to access hospital and GP services and not be able to remain living independently in the village that they have lived in for years.

One of the new hospitals in Hampshire is due to be built in south Basingstoke. Extraordinarily, the consultation on the location of the new hospital did not include consultation with the South Central ambulance service. When moving an A&E department and maternity service to another location, it seems blindingly obvious that the ambulance service should be heavily involved in deciding where a new hospital may be located, given that it is primarily responsible for ensuring that people can get there in a timely manner. Although there is obviously a need for local councils to ensure their constituents can get to a local hospital, it is important that we have some kind of obligation. I assume it would have been an obligation that when setting up the location of new hospital services, the ambulance services must be consulted and engaged with to get their input.

[Sureena Brackenridge (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)]

On amendment 13, the shadow Minister asked why my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South felt the need to table amendment 13. One can only assume it is because health inequalities have continued to widen for far too long. In a 20 or 30-minute drive across my Wolverhampton North East constituency, life expectancy drops by seven years. I accept that tackling health inequalities is not just about health; it is about a wider web of societal issues, including educational, employment and housing inequalities. That very long list is beyond the responsibility of the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.

Amendment 13 will put the tackling of preventable ill health and health inequalities at the centre of national decision making by ensuring that the Secretary of State must consider not just NHS treatment but wider social and economic factors. Will the Minister assure the Committee that future Secretaries of State will not overlook the wider social and economic factors that drive ill health and unequal life expectancy, and that there will be a responsibility to work across Departments to tackle that wider and growing inequality?

Health Bill (Third sitting)

Danny Chambers Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 18th June 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Edward Argar (Melton and Syston) (Con)]

I approach this with a sense of déjà vu—standing in a Committee Room in the Palace to debate a Health Bill opposite the Minister for Secondary Care, the only difference being that our sides and places have swapped over in the interim. It is a pleasure to be on this Committee opposite the now Minister.

I will focus my remarks largely on clause 1. My hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham raised a number of questions about clauses 2 and 3 and their breadth, but I consider them to be necessary and consequential on clause 1, so I will focus on the points made in that clause, which sits behind them. One thing I want to address is the Minister’s question about why, in the Health and Care Act 2022, the Conservatives did not abolish NHS England. I have to say that arguments were made on both the pros and the cons, but the simplest answer is the context of that legislation. At the time, we were just emerging from a pandemic, and I wanted that legislation to retain a clear focus on my vision for the NHS: a linking of ICBs at the local level with the upper-tier local authorities, so that we could deliver social care through a permissive model, rather than a prescriptive one, allowing that local co-operation. I was also conscious that, emerging from the pandemic, there was only so much that the system could realistically bear while it was still grappling with its immediate aftermath, hence the approach we took.

In reality, it cannot be disputed that, inevitably, this is a top-down, centralising reorganisation, and it was not in the manifesto. As Sarah Woolnough said in her evidence on Tuesday:

“These arguments were very well rehearsed by the previous Secretary of State. He undertook personally that he would not follow this course of action, exactly because these things take longer and cost more, and because the benefit realisation case is not always clear.”––[Official Report, Health Public Bill Committee, 16 June 2026; c. 10, Q23.]

On that point about centralisation, Jon Restell in his evidence said:

“Obviously, some functions of NHS England moving into the Department, with powers going to the Secretary of State, feels like a centralising measure… On the whole, it is probably more of a centralising measure.”––[Official Report, Health Public Bill Committee, 16 June 2026; c. 79, Q122.]

We have to recognise that this is a centralising measure, rather than any sort of devolution that provides local areas with greater autonomy.

For me, there is a worrying lack of clarity at this stage in the process—around 15 months later—on the actual plan and approach. The hon. Member for Lichfield gave a very good speech that not only highlighted the local issues but drew a national read-through from those local examples, and he rightly highlighted that he did not want a protracted reorganisation. However, 15 months on—with the hare having been set running by the Prime Minister’s announcement back in March 2025— we still have protracted uncertainty on what will happen. That is having a very real impact on not only staff but the opportunity cost, through its impact on how services are actually being delivered and what the NHS is focused on.

On that lack of clarity, when asked how this measure will work and whether it can save money, Sarah Woolnough of the King’s Fund said:

“I think, on the basis of the question, we do not know. Our worry has been about the opportunity cost. The Government, when in opposition, said that they would not launch wholescale reorganisation, because they understood the potential opportunity cost on time and other resources. As this has played out, taking longer than anticipated, we have had multiple examples of teams left in limbo about where they will end up in the target operating model.”––[Official Report, Health Public Bill Committee, 16 June 2026; c. 10, Q12.]

Jon Restell also highlighted the impact on staff when he said,

“this is becoming psychologically very difficult. You have a change programme that started in March last year with the announcement by the Prime Minister of the abolition of NHS England and the halving of the staff of NHS England and ICBs. For 18 months, that process has dragged on, with lots of design decisions still to be taken about how the organisation will look, what functions it will have, what will be going to the Department and what might be going elsewhere”.––[Official Report, Health Public Bill Committee, 16 June 2026; c. 80, Q125.]

[Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)]

I too think the hon. Member for Lichfield gave an excellent speech on the need for clarity, but there is another factor to consider. Not only is NHS England being abolished, and ICBs are having their budgets halved, but in Hampshire and other areas we also have local government reorganisation. We are going from having district councils and county councils to unitary authorities, and a mayor will be coming in next year. This is another level of reorganisation in the delivery of healthcare and social care, so there is a huge amount of change. However, there seems to be no clarity, at any level, on how this will affect services on the ground, because there are so many moving parts coming in at once.

[Edward Argar]

The hon. Gentleman makes his point very clearly and he is absolutely right. Not only is there a lack of clarity in the legislation and in the plans for how the NHS will look, but, as was alluded to during evidence, the missing bit from the Bill, which is highly relevant, is social care. It will be deeply concerning if, when the implications of local government reorganisation emerge from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government in a few weeks’ time, the two are not properly meshed together, because we will risk, yet again, a widening disconnect between the two vital parts of our health and social care system, both of which have to work well in tandem for the whole system to function. The hon. Gentleman makes a pertinent point. He also highlights ICB budgets. I suspect hon. and right hon. Members around the country are already seeing the genuine impact of those changes to the budgets, which are actually pulling through into the frontline services that our constituents receive.

I know that the Minister cares deeply about our health and social care services, and has a wealth of experience from in this place and outside it. Given the comments from our witnesses and the impact assessment, which has page after page listing the risks associated with this approach, I ask her how she will mitigate that loss of focus and that distraction, which is an inevitable human reaction when there is uncertainty. When she comes forward with the plan to merge NHS England into the Department, how will she ensure that she retains the best, most experienced staff? In any organisation where there is a change, it is often the most able and experienced who find it easiest to go to another role, by virtue of their skillset. How will she ensure that there is not a loss or drain of that expertise and knowledge?

I turn to a deeply concerning element that links to the lack of clarity. The impact assessment on the abolition of NHS England is pretty much silent on the monetised costs and benefits and specific figures. The first two pages with the boxes and the summary just say “N/A” in pretty much every box on assessing the costs. If I flick through to the section headed “Monetised and non-monetised costs and benefits of each option”, I see page after page. There are lots of words but virtually no figures, and where there are figures, there is no breakdown of how they were reached, and no explanation of the degree or range of confidence in the few figures that are there.

I ask the Minister whether a detailed spreadsheet of all the statistics, costs and benefits, risks, confidence levels associated with the numbers, and the phasing over years of savings and costs will be published during the Commons passage of the Bill so that Members of the House can consider it. If not in Committee, could it be published at least before Report so that we can have an informed debate? More broadly, once the Bill in whatever form is passed—I expect, given the Government’s majority, that it will be—what mechanisms will the Government put in place to ensure that when a target operating model and all the other details are available, Parliament will have an opportunity to not only debate them, but have a meaningful say, potentially with a vote, be it through delegated legislation or in the House?

Mental Health: Parity of Esteem

Danny Chambers Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)]

On wraparound care, we have a fantastic initiative in Winchester where Citizens Advice spends time with patients at Melbury Lodge, the in-patient unit, to help them deal with all their life admin, such as debt issues and money issues. It has been shown that those who receive that service have a shorter stay in hospital, are significantly less likely to be readmitted and are more likely to engage with social services once they have been discharged. Is the Minister willing to meet me and the team to discuss that initiative? For every £1 spent on it, £14.08 is saved in cost avoidance for the NHS.

[Preet Kaur Gill]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for mentioning the wraparound care in Winchester citizens advice bureau. We need the local health ecosystem to partner with initiatives in the voluntary or charity sector such as that one, and acknowledge their impact, fund and support them. Some may think that things such as debt are basic, but their impact on mental health cannot be overestimated. I am sure that officials will want to meet the hon. Gentleman and others to look at the landscape across the country, because there are some fantastic initiatives that we need to recognise, partner with and support.

The Government are taking action to elevate the status of mental health. For 2026-27, NHS mental health spending is forecast to increase to a record £16.1 billion, representing a real-terms increase of around £140 million compared with the previous year. Alongside that, the mental health investment standard remains in place. Integrated care boards are required to protect mental health spending in real terms over the next three years, ensuring that mental health continues to receive the investment needed to improve services and outcomes.

Investment alone is not enough. We must transform how care is delivered. That is why the 10-year health plan sets out our vision for a neighbourhood health service, which my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon and Consett mentioned. That is about bringing care closer to people’s homes, communities creating genuinely patient-centred services, and moving away from a fragmented system that often leaves people navigating multiple services without the support they need. I hope the ICBs are engaging hon. Members in all parts of the House to feed into the design of the neighbourhood health centre model and asking about the unmet needs and service gaps in their constituencies and regions.

Community Pharmacies

Danny Chambers Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)]

It is an absolute honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Minehead (Rachel Gilmour) for securing this fantastic and timely debate. I also note the expertise of my friend the hon. Member for North Somerset (Sadik Al-Hassan). Not only did he provide some really good insights—I thought his point about the importance of a single patient record all the way from pharmacy to hospital was especially meaningful—but I love how enthusiastically he agrees with everyone else’s points.

[Sadik Al-Hassan]

Only the good ones.

[Dr Chambers]

Yes, the good ones.

There has been a general consensus that pharmacies are often overlooked as a source of care for those in the community. I have visited many pharmacies in my Winchester constituency: there is Eric, who runs Springvale pharmacy up in Kings Worthy; there is Colden Common pharmacy in Colden Common; and there is the Wellbeing pharmacy on Winchester High Street, which gives me my flu jab every year. The people there actually make having a flu jab a lot of fun; we always have a great laugh. I never thought having a vaccine would be something I would look forward to, but I love going in and seeing them.

We know about the 8 am rush for GP appointments, so the fact that a high street service exists where one can drop in for advice and consultations is absolutely brilliant. Pharmacies allow us to siphon off some of the pressures on GP services, but—as pharmacists have been telling me repeatedly since well before I was elected—pharmacies are currently under immense pressure.

Adding to that pressure is the increase in national insurance contributions, which has saddled pharmacies and GP surgeries with additional costs. As a consequence, many local pharmacies have had to limit opening times and staff numbers. In Alresford in my constituency, the hard-working staff at Wessex Pharmacies have had to close shop on Saturday afternoons. That service will be sorely missed, particularly by those who are in full-time education or work during the week and who relied on being able to pick up their prescriptions at the weekend.

In addition, shorter opening times mean that if a patient sees their GP later in the day, the required prescription is delayed by a day if the paperwork is not registered in time. For a patient with an urgent need for medication, that extra day can be extremely frustrating and worrying.

Although we really do welcome the recent 10% increase in Government funding to community pharmacies, it is worth pointing out that that is giving with one hand and taking with the other. In the wake of rising costs for energy, staff and medicines, this funding increase was the first in 10 years, so it was sorely needed, but unfortunately, it did little to alleviate the extreme pressures heaped on community pharmacies in the Budget.

That point comes into focus when we consider the rise in drug costs: a 20% to 30% rise for things like paracetamol and hay fever medications, and an elevenfold rise in the cost of cancer drugs since February, while the funding provided to community pharmacies has dropped by more than 20% in real terms since 2015. That is why we are calling on the Government to invest in pharmacies in smaller towns, particularly in villages and rural areas such as mine in the Meon valley. In places such as Bishop’s Waltham and Colden Common, people need access to a community pharmacy, and not only for convenience: Conservative-run Hampshire county council has cut vital bus services to the nearest big towns, which means that people without a vehicle, especially older people, absolutely rely on local pharmacies for their medication.

We are also calling for a new, long-term, sustainable model for pharmacies and an expansion of Pharmacy First to give patients more accessible routine services so that we can free up GPs’ time. We want an exemption for pharmacies from the national insurance contributions increase so that funds can be spent on patients and vital medications.

I come to my final, key point. I have spoken to many pharmacists since I was elected and before that, and I have had very long, in-depth conversations with them. I have also attended events in Parliament organised by the Royal College of Pharmacy and the National Pharmacy Association and I have discussed their issues with the NHS pharmacy contract. Given my professional background, I am used to sourcing, dispensing and prescribing drugs. However, the contract is so complicated that, despite my extensive conversations with those organisations, I do not fully understand it. The key message that comes out is that it costs pharmacists to dispense NHS medication in many cases, and that NHS medication is sometimes being subsidised by other sales in shops. I even met two pharmacists who said that their personal finances are subsidising some NHS dispensation. That is clearly not tenable in the long run.

[Lee Pitcher]

Standardisation and consistency in services are really important. A person in my constituency of Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme is living with poor mental health. His pharmacy has stopped doing nomads, and it is too far for them to travel to the next pharmacy, where those are not paid for. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that consistency in how we support pharmacies is massively important to help people such as my resident?

[Dr Chambers]

I completely agree. All businesses need predictability and stability. It appears that, week to week, pharmacists are trying to work out how to source drugs with changing prices, and there is an NHS contract that is not meeting their needs.

When we talk about community healthcare and provision, it is important to remember that having good, well-run pharmacies means that people are being kept out of GP practices and that they are less likely to turn up at A&E. That is even better value for money for the NHS and, ultimately, for the taxpayer. There is no downside from a Government point of view to investing and heavily supporting community pharmacy, because the savings made upstream will be hugely significant. At the moment, we are treating people with conditions that should be treated in the community with the most expensive part of the NHS, in A&E and hospital, when they could quite possibly have avoided going there in the first place.

[Monica Harding]

Accessibility is paramount. The costs that are pushed on to pharmacists mean that they cannot remain sustainable and that they resist opening pharmacies in smaller places, because it will take away business from them. Therefore, those pressures take away accessibility, which is needed.

[Dr Chambers]

That is another legitimate point, and it was made in my second to last words, so I thank my hon. Friend for contributing. I thank the Minister for listening to our concerns.

Junior Doctors’ Foundation Programme

Danny Chambers Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd April 2026 Westminster Hall

[Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley) for another insightful speech; this time I will avoid comparing the anatomy of human and dog ear canals—we have covered that already.

We always rightly start these speeches by paying tribute to NHS staff, doctors, nurses and everyone involved in patient care, especially given the pressures on them as a result of sheer patient numbers and working in systems that can make the job even more stressful and pressurised than it already is. They are caring for severely injured or very ill people at the toughest moments of their lives. The emotional burden of caring for people who could be dying is difficult in itself, but resident doctors work in a system that adds extra pressures and conditions that can add stress alongside that. We cannot pay enough tribute to them for even surviving in those areas.

One of the best books highlighting the plight of resident doctors that I have read is Adam Kay’s “This is Going to Hurt”. It did a lot to help the public to understand just how difficult it is for a doctor to not know where their training place is going to be. It is where they are going to be forced to live and work for several years—a place where they may not have any friends or family; they might be taken away from family and spouses. They might have dependants and children. It is really difficult to plan a career, especially such a difficult and challenging career, when working with that level of uncertainty. I lived with medical students when I was a student at Liverpool University and have followed their careers since. The challenges that the hon. Member set out have been reflected in their lives and careers.

I support the Government’s ambition to increase medical school placements. That is important. We have a recognised workforce shortage in the NHS, so that is an obvious thing to do, but we must ensure that we do not carry on falling into the same trap. The previous Government, under Boris Johnson, said that they would increase medical school placements—and they did, but without providing the infrastructure for training resident doctors who want to go on to specialised training. That obvious bottleneck was going to filter through. No mechanism was put in place to ensure that the NHS would have the capacity to train those extra medical students when they finished their F1 and F2.

In Winchester I speak to many resident doctors, and even to their parents. Those resident doctors have gone through university, sometimes getting themselves in a fair amount of student loan debt, and are working hard on their F1 and F2. The stress of not knowing whether they will get a training placement is overwhelming, frustrating and for us, as a society, ridiculous because we are short of doctors. How have we ended up in a situation where we are training students and resident doctors, but cannot give them the further training places to continue? I urge the Government to ensure that any training places will filter all the way through for the rest of that person’s career.

We know that the last Government not only thought it sounded good for winning votes to say that they would increase medical school placements, but said that they would build 40 new hospitals, though there was absolutely no funding—putting votes before a genuine long-term plan for the NHS. We then come up against a brick wall of reality. People working in the NHS end up suffering and the people who rely on the NHS—everyone—end up not getting the service that they voted for.

The Liberal Democrats welcome the Minister’s statement about increasing training numbers, especially for people from more disadvantaged backgrounds. It is important that we look at the diversity of the professions. Certainly within the veterinary profession, socioeconomic diversity is not what it should be; it does not reflect society. A profession—whether the medical profession or another—offers a better service to society if it better reflects it. I once heard someone say that talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not. It is the job of all professions to ensure that we get the people with the talent enrolled on courses so that they can have fulfilling careers and offer much back to society.

The statement is a really good first step, but it is a bit vague. The Minister writes about underserved parts of the UK seeing new medical spaces; how many will there be, and how will that be delivered? Will current medical schools increase their capacity? Will new teaching hospitals open to support it? The target is to place

“up to 25% of students at participating medical schools…to local foundation training places”.

How many medical schools have indicated that they want to participate? That will be fundamental to how this policy gets delivered.

To reiterate what the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket said, we need to treat medical students and resident doctors like people; they are not just numbers. Working conditions are as important as pay, and to improve working conditions we need to double down on improving social care to avoid delayed discharge and corridor care. The doctors delivering treatment will feel that they are doing a better job, and will not feel under pressure as a result of being unable to deliver the care that they want and that patients deserve.

We also need to ensure that we have a happy, resilient, passionate and excited workforce going forward. The Minister has been asked constructive questions. I ask him not to repeat the previous Government’s mistakes of talking about increasing hospital numbers and medical students, while creating a whole generation of doctors who cannot go on to serve their communities and have a fulfilling career.

Women’s Health Strategy

Danny Chambers Excerpts

Thursday 16th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)]

The Liberal Democrats welcome the strategy, and its specific recognition of the socioeconomic and racial disparities in women’s healthcare, which it is important to put front and centre. We also appreciate the specific recognition of endometriosis and similar conditions. My partner, Emma, suffers from endometriosis, and on many occasions I have seen her unable to stand up or barely get off the sofa, having been told for years that her symptoms are completely normal and that there is nothing wrong with her. Given that at least one in 10 women suffer from endometriosis and there are over 500,000 people on gynaecology waiting lists, clearly her experience is not unique.

The picture around maternity safety is deeply troubling. Maternal mortality has increased by over 20% in the past 15 years, and there have recently been some high-profile media discussions about women and babies being let down, sometimes with devastating consequences. That is why the Liberal Democrats have been calling for one-to-one midwifery care and specialist doctors on every unit.

I welcome the Government’s specific commitment on treatments for morning sickness. My hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (James MacCleary) has campaigned on that issue for a long time, and it is right that we end the postcode lottery for these medicines. The condition can be debilitating for some people, and it is not fair that women have different experiences simply because of where they live.

Given that this is not the first women’s health strategy to be brought to this place—the previous Government brought one through in 2022—and the fact that many women we speak to do not feel that there has been any meaningful change, a lot of people are saying that we cannot just keep announcing strategies while women are waiting for basic care. Given the failure of the last Government to deliver meaningful change, can we have reassurances that this will not simply be another strategy announcement and that women will feel a difference in the care that they receive?

[Karin Smyth]

I thank the Liberal Democrat representative for his comments—frankly, that is the way it is done.

Let me turn to some of the issues that the hon. Gentleman raised. May I take the opportunity to mention endometriosis in particular? There have long been campaigns on that issue in this place from many women and men such as him talking not on behalf of their partners, but for them about the suffering. That is all very welcome.

I commend the work of Sir David Amess, a former Member of the House whose plaque is behind us, and of my right hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Anna Turley) in chairing the all-party parliamentary group on endometriosis. When in opposition in 2017 or 2018, I had a member of staff—I hope she does not mind my saying so—who opened my eyes to this issue. Persistence works. We have got to where we are by supporting women’s voices across the country, and that is front and centre in this strategy.

On the hon. Gentleman’s wider point, I am sure that when he gets all the way through the strategy, he will see that there is a list of 102 actions—if I remember rightly—with dates aligned to them. I am sure that all hon. Members will look at that. I notice that my friend Baroness Merron is in the Gallery; she will be keeping everybody’s feet to the fire, including the Secretary of State’s, to deliver on this work. That list is in the strategy, and we wanted to set it out very clearly. We are waiting for the roll-out of NHS Online during the summer, and seeing how that works will be a litmus test for us, so I very much welcome the hon. Gentleman’s challenging us on that.

NHS Federated Data Platform

Danny Chambers Excerpts

Thursday 16th April 2026 Westminster Hall

[Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairpersonship, Dame Siobhain. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) for his tenacity and expertise in this subject. He has done a huge amount of research, and made an absolutely excellent speech.

At a moment of rising global instability, it is extraordinary that we are prepared to trust the health of our citizens and the functioning of our NHS to a US corporation that does not share our values or interests. Outsourcing the storage, handling and analysis of NHS data to a foreign company, rather than securing the national and economic benefits of this work being done by a British or UK-led organisation, is yet another example of our unnecessary reliance on others to keep our vital infrastructure running. Doctors and the public have made it clear that they do not trust this company. Fewer than half of NHS trusts have begun using this technology, in large part because of the concern from patients and clinicians. If, as the Health Secretary says, the federated data platform is

“absolutely critical to the future of the NHS”,

placing it in the hands of a company that staff and patients do not trust risks undermining that future from the outset.

This is the central issue: we hold doctors and nurses to the highest ethical standards, and rightly so. We expect them to protect confidentiality, to act with integrity and to put patients first. So why are we asking them to use a system they do not trust and stake their professional reputations on it?

Palantir is not a neutral contractor. It is a company that is deeply embedded within the political ecosystem of Donald Trump, a convicted felon whose Administration has repeatedly undermined the international rule of law. It is a company that has worked hand in glove with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, whose behaviour is morally and legally outrageous and whose agents have operated like masked vigilantes in the deportation of individuals. We are all aware of the tragedies that that rogue Trump organisation has left in its wake. Why are we allowing a Trump-aligned company to sit at the heart of Britain’s most precious public service? Why are we comfortable placing NHS data in the hands of a company whose values are so clearly at odds with those of the British public?

This is not a technical decision—this is a political choice. The NHS is not only one of our most important public services but one of the largest areas of public spending. Therefore, it is deeply concerning that Palantir’s contract for the federated data platform is so heavily redacted that it makes scrutiny almost impossible.

[Iqbal Mohamed]

Health inequality in the NHS for people of ethnic minorities is a challenge that we need to address. The New Orleans police department and the Los Angeles police department both terminated Palantir-powered predictive policing due to the system’s reinforcing racial bias and creating feedback loops to overpoliced communities that were affected. Does the hon. Member agree not only that the company and its leaders are unethical but that the systems it supplies are unethical and racist?

[Dr Chambers]

That is an important point. Amnesty International, whose representatives I believe are present, and others including voices within the NHS have been raising serious concerns about the potential misuse or inappropriate sharing of sensitive data. The Government must come clean about how the contract was awarded in the first place and what steps they will be taking to bring it to an end.

We should be building NHS data processing capacity here in the United Kingdom, strengthening our resilience, backing our own expertise and building sovereignty in a more dangerous world. Instead, we are exporting control of one of our most valuable national assets. I ask the Government today to use the break clause, stand with NHS staff, protect patient trust and keep Donald Trump and his allies out of our NHS.

[Dame Siobhain McDonagh (in the Chair)]

I call the Government spokesperson—[Interruption.] I call the Opposition spokesperson.

Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and Craniocervical Instability

Danny Chambers Excerpts

Thursday 26th March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Furniss. I thank the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury) for securing this important debate. Many people have to come watch in the Public Gallery, and I do not underestimate how much effort that will have taken some of them. We really do appreciate them being here today. We have heard from everyone the frustration of having a relatively rare disease with non-specific clinical signs, meaning that so many patients have been waiting years and years, in awful situations, even to get a diagnosis. What we are equally upset about is that once they have a diagnosis, the support is not available to ensure that they live the most fulfilled life possible or even, in many cases, get the most basic care that they require. On that note, I commend the hard work of EDS UK in supporting and providing training for clinicians and healthcare professionals and campaigning for standardised guidance, improved NHS services and clinical pathways to meet the needs of EDS patients.

The lack of national policy has left a postcode lottery for EDS patients across the country. This is another NHS area suffering the frustratingly long diagnostic delays and lack of joined-up, multidisciplinary care that we see for certain conditions. That means that people are battling with the unexplained symptoms and pain of EDS all through childhood, and that those patients have often been told repeatedly that their tests are normal and their symptoms must be psychosomatic. It means waiting decades for an overarching diagnosis for multiple complaints and being stuck in a system that incorrectly believes that EDS is a very rare condition rather than a realistic possibility. I was interested to hear my friend the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley) acknowledge that he probably has treated patients with this disease, having not recognised it, which is something that we are all guilty of sometimes with rarer diseases.

Diagnosis is only the first step. Care is too often fragmented or non-existent, and patients struggle to get a GP appointment in the usual 8 am scramble. As a result of fragmented care, those with EDS are left to manage their own symptoms, unable to access a holistic and collaborative point of care. For many, a huge part of the burden of living with EDS comes from the lack of awareness of the condition. Unlike the situation for more visible disabilities, employers, schools and even friends and family are too often unaware of the debilitating and changing nature of this condition. Negotiating accommodations or seeking disability benefits for a condition that is little understood and largely invisible presents a huge challenge.

People with EDS and those around them need clear guidance on the nature of the condition. A constituent of mine in Winchester, Dr Emma Reinhold, worked as a GP in the local community, where she became increasingly aware of EDS, with its commonly associated conditions, and how they were overlooked. That led to her development of the EDS toolkit, written in conjunction with the Royal College of General Practitioners and funded by EDS UK. That toolkit is incredible and has been shared all over the world. I first heard about it when I was knocking on doors and she popped her head out of her upstairs window to say hello. We spoke about the toolkit for about 20 minutes—me on the street and her up in her bedroom. She had been a GP in Winchester for many years and then she became seriously unwell with EDS, which was why she was at home. That was at the age of just 42. Like so many others, she had to stop working; eventually, she had no option but to take ill health retirement, so the NHS lost another GP far too soon.

One patient who Dr Reinhold told me about—I think it was through that window conversation—was a woman who was in her 70s when she finally got the diagnosis that she had been looking for over many years to explain her symptoms. This is a genetic condition that she had had since birth, but it took 70 years to ensure that she got the answers that she deserved and appropriate support for her many symptoms.

Emma’s open access toolkit on EDS—for anyone who is interested, it is worth googling—ought to be promoted enthusiastically by the Government as a means of promoting greater awareness on the part of all medical professionals, as well as better understanding and sensitivity on the part of everyone, so that we can ensure that all those with EDS and other hidden disabilities remain welcomed and cared for in education, the workplace and their day-to-day lives. Dr Reinhold explains that we need a co-ordinated, holistic approach to multisystem conditions such as EDS, rather than the current disjointed care that facilitates diagnosis falling into gaps between specialists, who do not always have the collective training to spot connections between apparently unrelated symptoms.

Patients need national leadership, so we urge the Government to address the policy gap by working towards joined-up, multidisciplinary care across primary and secondary services, as well as supporting and promoting the existing training for staff, to ensure that those with EDS can access the care that they deserve. EDS and HSD must be integrated into NHS service specifications and long-term condition strategies as a matter of urgency.

The Liberal Democrats want everyone with a chronic illness, including EDS, to have a named GP. That would improve their quality of care and allow better join-up between the range of services that they can access. We must champion the work of the Overlapping Illness Alliance and EDS UK to raise awareness of these often hidden conditions so that those in need of support are able to access it.

Before the last general election, Ministers from the former Government offered to meet EDS UK, and then the election was called so the meeting never happened. Will the Minister commit to meeting EDS UK and patients, including Dr Reinhold, to better understand what would be helpful to improve their outcomes?

Endometriosis Services

Danny Chambers Excerpts

Tuesday 24th March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Liz Jarvis (Eastleigh) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Ipswich (Jack Abbott) for securing this important debate. I welcome to the House all the women in the Public Gallery.

I have also heard from many women in my constituency who have lived with the devastating impact of endometriosis. It is shocking that so many have had to endure years of pain, uncertainty, dismissal and a lack of access to timely diagnosis and specialist endometriosis services. According to the charity Endometriosis UK, it takes on average nine years and four months to receive a diagnosis of endometriosis in the UK—nearly a decade of a woman’s life blighted by debilitating pain, missed employment and educational opportunities, declining mental health, difficulties with fertility, and being told far too often that what they are experiencing is normal.

We know that one in 10 women are affected, yet awareness remains far too low among the public and healthcare professionals. The economic cost alone is estimated at £11 billion a year. Behind the statistics, however, are real people, real families and real suffering. My constituent Lucy, who is a teacher, told me that she has been suffering tremendously every month, unable to work on the first day of her cycle due to the pain and side effects. Every single month she has been left unable to stand, doubled over in pain, and with dizziness and vomiting. After nine years of debilitating pain, fertility issues, being refused treatment and being told that some people just suffer, she has finally had a laparoscopy, which revealed that she has endometriosis. She is hoping that she can now grow her family, but it should never have taken so long for a diagnosis.

[Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)]

I can reiterate that point; my partner Emma has severe endometriosis. She is regularly crippled—barely able to get off the sofa and in absolute agony. She has been told for years that this is normal and that there is nothing wrong. She had to fight repeatedly to get the diagnostic surgery that she needed, which confirmed that she has endometriosis. It is a very common story, and it is completely outrageous that people are told that crippling pain, meaning that they cannot get off the sofa, is just a normal cycle.

[Liz Jarvis]

I thank my hon. Friend for his important point. Women should not have to fight to get the treatment they need. I have also heard from Kelly, who told me:

“Every month I am in debilitating pain and it is soul destroying. I cannot take days off work every month and there is nothing I can do but suffer. It affects my work, relationships and is ruining my life.”

Then there is Lucy, who has worked in the NHS for 20 years and is now a clinical nurse specialist for endometriosis. She told me:

“I grew up during a time when endometriosis was never mentioned. I was told that periods are painful, so the monthly debilitating pain and heavy periods I experienced were normalised.”

She was finally diagnosed with endometriosis in her mid-30s.

Women should not have to put up with the pain of this debilitating disease, and I urge the Government to take urgent action to tackle the postcode lottery for endometriosis care, address gynaecological waiting lists, improve training and awareness among healthcare professionals, and ensure full implementation of NICE guidelines, with clear referral pathways, so that no woman has to suffer for years without answers or support.

I am sure the Minister agrees that addressing delays in diagnosis, gaps in care and inequalities in access are of the utmost importance. More broadly, this debate highlights a wider crisis in women’s healthcare—from the scandal of unsafe maternity units to the nearly 750,000 women currently on gynaecology waiting lists, over 30% of whom have waited for more than a year from referral to treatment. It must be addressed, because women are being failed and society suffers as a result.

I hope the Minister also agrees that access to mental healthcare should be expanded for women with endometriosis. Dismissed symptoms and diagnosis delays left 98% of respondents to an Endometriosis UK survey reporting an impact on their mental health, and 63% of respondents describing that impact as significant. I hope that the Minister will consider expanding mental healthcare provision to give the countless women dealing with the psychological toll of endometriosis the support that they need. We need a system that is fit for purpose, which validates women, takes their symptoms seriously and provides timely, compassionate and effective care. I do not think that that is too much to ask.

Alongside investment in the workforce, improved access to GPs, continuity of care and a step change in research to address painful conditions that women have suffered from for far too long without remedy, are all absolutely essential.

Ultimately, this debate is about delivering better outcomes and proper support for those affected by endometriosis. I hope that the Government will tackle this issue, showing clear leadership and transparency, to ensure that every woman with endometriosis has access to the right care at the right time.