Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he has to address a) low pay, b) a lack of formal training and development pathways, and c) job insecurity and organisational changes, highlighted in the May 2025 Ipsos Drug and Alcohol treatment and recovery workforce survey as key reasons why 54% of those surveyed were either leaving or considering leaving the sector within the next two years.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department and NHS England have been working on a drug and alcohol treatment and recovery workforce transformation programme since 2022. The 10-year strategic plan for the drug and alcohol treatment and recovery workforce, published in 2024, sets out actions for the Government, commissioners, and employers between 2024 and 2034.
This work is informed by three national workforce censuses and an Ipsos staff survey to identify where national and local action is most needed. The latest workforce census showed the workforce increased from 11,270 in 2022 to 13,103 in 2024.
Relevant initiatives have been implemented, including to improve the skills mix, and strengthen clinical supervision and governance, enabling training for currently unregulated roles, and increasing access to regulated professional training.
In March 2025, the Department and NHS England published the Capability framework for the drug and alcohol treatment and recovery workforce, which sets out the skills, knowledge and behaviours required for 15 core roles in the local authority-funded drug and alcohol treatment and recovery sector.
The programme is also supporting workforce planning and pipeline development for regulated professions. This includes work to support psychology training placements in drug and alcohol services, including through a toolkit developed to support Doctorate in Clinical Psychology placements in drug and alcohol services, and the development of an addiction psychiatry credential with the Royal College of Psychiatrists to help increase specialist addiction psychiatry capacity.
The Department has also funded the development of three national training curricula for drug and alcohol workers, children and young people’s drug and alcohol workers, and peer support workers.
The Department has commissioned a detailed scoping exercise, including engaging with relevant stakeholders, to establish if a national Centre for Addiction would be viable and if so, how it could be established and what its remit could be. This work is considering workforce needs, possible functions, delivery models, and risks. The findings will inform a future decision on whether and how to establish a centre.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps he has taken in relation to plans announced in the July 2024 Drug and Alcohol Workforce Plan for a national Centre for Addiction.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department and NHS England have been working on a drug and alcohol treatment and recovery workforce transformation programme since 2022. The 10-year strategic plan for the drug and alcohol treatment and recovery workforce, published in 2024, sets out actions for the Government, commissioners, and employers between 2024 and 2034.
This work is informed by three national workforce censuses and an Ipsos staff survey to identify where national and local action is most needed. The latest workforce census showed the workforce increased from 11,270 in 2022 to 13,103 in 2024.
Relevant initiatives have been implemented, including to improve the skills mix, and strengthen clinical supervision and governance, enabling training for currently unregulated roles, and increasing access to regulated professional training.
In March 2025, the Department and NHS England published the Capability framework for the drug and alcohol treatment and recovery workforce, which sets out the skills, knowledge and behaviours required for 15 core roles in the local authority-funded drug and alcohol treatment and recovery sector.
The programme is also supporting workforce planning and pipeline development for regulated professions. This includes work to support psychology training placements in drug and alcohol services, including through a toolkit developed to support Doctorate in Clinical Psychology placements in drug and alcohol services, and the development of an addiction psychiatry credential with the Royal College of Psychiatrists to help increase specialist addiction psychiatry capacity.
The Department has also funded the development of three national training curricula for drug and alcohol workers, children and young people’s drug and alcohol workers, and peer support workers.
The Department has commissioned a detailed scoping exercise, including engaging with relevant stakeholders, to establish if a national Centre for Addiction would be viable and if so, how it could be established and what its remit could be. This work is considering workforce needs, possible functions, delivery models, and risks. The findings will inform a future decision on whether and how to establish a centre.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps his Department has taken to implement the 2024 Drug and Alcohol Workforce Plan.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department and NHS England have been working on a drug and alcohol treatment and recovery workforce transformation programme since 2022. The 10-year strategic plan for the drug and alcohol treatment and recovery workforce, published in 2024, sets out actions for the Government, commissioners, and employers between 2024 and 2034.
This work is informed by three national workforce censuses and an Ipsos staff survey to identify where national and local action is most needed. The latest workforce census showed the workforce increased from 11,270 in 2022 to 13,103 in 2024.
Relevant initiatives have been implemented, including to improve the skills mix, and strengthen clinical supervision and governance, enabling training for currently unregulated roles, and increasing access to regulated professional training.
In March 2025, the Department and NHS England published the Capability framework for the drug and alcohol treatment and recovery workforce, which sets out the skills, knowledge and behaviours required for 15 core roles in the local authority-funded drug and alcohol treatment and recovery sector.
The programme is also supporting workforce planning and pipeline development for regulated professions. This includes work to support psychology training placements in drug and alcohol services, including through a toolkit developed to support Doctorate in Clinical Psychology placements in drug and alcohol services, and the development of an addiction psychiatry credential with the Royal College of Psychiatrists to help increase specialist addiction psychiatry capacity.
The Department has also funded the development of three national training curricula for drug and alcohol workers, children and young people’s drug and alcohol workers, and peer support workers.
The Department has commissioned a detailed scoping exercise, including engaging with relevant stakeholders, to establish if a national Centre for Addiction would be viable and if so, how it could be established and what its remit could be. This work is considering workforce needs, possible functions, delivery models, and risks. The findings will inform a future decision on whether and how to establish a centre.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he will take to address unmet treatment needs for dependence on a) alcohol and b) other drugs, in the context of a recent report from the Forward Trust that estimates that 750,000 UK citizens are currently addicted to alcohol and 400,000 are addicted to other drugs.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Local authorities are responsible for commissioning alcohol and drug treatment and recovery services as part of their public health responsibilities. As a condition of the Public Health Grant, local authorities are responsible for improving the uptake of, and outcomes from, their drug and alcohol treatment services, based on an assessment of local need and a plan which has been developed with local health and criminal justice partners.
The Government’s estimates of dependence for opioids and crack, and for alcohol, have been used to produce estimates of unmet need, which are added to the Local Outcomes Framework, i.e. national priority outcomes delivered at the local level. Over the next three years, through the Public Health Grant, we will provide local authorities with a minimum of £3.4 billion of ringfenced funding for drug and alcohol prevention, treatment, and recovery.
Key elements of the Addiction Healthcare Goals (AHG) programme are already being rolled out, including the provision of over £10 million for the Addiction Research Leadership Programme to create a UK-wide pipeline of future research leaders, and £20 million for the ‘AHG: Catalysing Innovation Awards’ to accelerate new pharmaceutical, medical technology, and digital solutions. This work will strengthen our evidence base, and generate new treatments and recovery approaches to improve healthcare outcomes.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he has taken to roll out the Addiction Healthcare Goals programme.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Local authorities are responsible for commissioning alcohol and drug treatment and recovery services as part of their public health responsibilities. As a condition of the Public Health Grant, local authorities are responsible for improving the uptake of, and outcomes from, their drug and alcohol treatment services, based on an assessment of local need and a plan which has been developed with local health and criminal justice partners.
The Government’s estimates of dependence for opioids and crack, and for alcohol, have been used to produce estimates of unmet need, which are added to the Local Outcomes Framework, i.e. national priority outcomes delivered at the local level. Over the next three years, through the Public Health Grant, we will provide local authorities with a minimum of £3.4 billion of ringfenced funding for drug and alcohol prevention, treatment, and recovery.
Key elements of the Addiction Healthcare Goals (AHG) programme are already being rolled out, including the provision of over £10 million for the Addiction Research Leadership Programme to create a UK-wide pipeline of future research leaders, and £20 million for the ‘AHG: Catalysing Innovation Awards’ to accelerate new pharmaceutical, medical technology, and digital solutions. This work will strengthen our evidence base, and generate new treatments and recovery approaches to improve healthcare outcomes.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what his Department currently estimates the cost of alcohol harm to be in a) England, b) Wales, c) Scotland and d) Northern Ireland.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
No such recent estimate has been made, and, as a devolved responsibility, it is not the Department’s role to assess the impact of alcohol harm outside England.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what his planned timetable is for appointing a Chair to the statutory public inquiry into Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust.
Answered by Preet Kaur Gill
The Department is fully committed to setting up the Statutory Public Inquiry into the serious harms that have taken place at the Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust.
The Department has begun work to set up the inquiry, the Inquiry Secretary is in post, and we anticipate announcing the Chair soon.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to address the shortage of and the level of prices paid for basic medicines by community pharmacies.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed
We already have two arrangements in place to reduce community pharmacies dispensing at a loss and to ensure that overall, they are paid enough as part of their Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework (CPCF) funding. These are the medicine margin arrangements and concessionary prices.
Regarding the medicine margin arrangements, the medicine margin is the difference between the reimbursement price and the price the pharmacy was charged by the supplier. Community pharmacy reimbursement arrangements include an amount of medicines margin that pharmacies are allowed to retain as part of CPCF funding. The Department assesses the medicine margin through a quarterly medicine margin survey, which ensures that in totality, pharmacies are paid the allowed medicine margin above what it cost them to purchase medicines overall.
For concessionary prices, the Department relies on competition and efficient purchasing by community pharmacies to keep prices of medicines down. This has led to some of the lowest prices in Europe and allows prices to react to the market. In an international market this ensures that when demand is high and supply is low, prices in the United Kingdom can increase to help secure the availability of medicines for UK patients. When the market price of a medicine suddenly increases, concessionary prices can be granted in that month, increasing the reimbursement price above the Drug Tariff price, with the aim of mitigating pharmacy contractors dispensing at a loss. In addition, there is a ‘retrospective top-up payment for concessionary prices’, which provides an additional payment to contractors when the margin survey indicates that despite a concessionary price, there was an under payment for a specific product.
More broadly, medicine supply chains are complex, global, and highly regulated. There are a number of reasons why supply can be disrupted, many of which are not specific to the UK and outside of Government control, including manufacturing difficulties, access to raw materials, sudden demand spikes or distribution issues, and regulatory issues. There are approximately 14,000 licensed medicines and the overwhelming majority are in good supply.
While we can’t always prevent supply issues from occurring, we have a range of well-established processes and tools to manage them when they arise and to mitigate risks to patients. These include close and regular engagement with suppliers, and use of alternative strengths or forms of a medicine to allow patients to remain on the same product and expediting regulatory procedures. In addition, we utilise sourcing unlicensed imports from abroad, adding products to the restricted exports and hoarding list, use of Serious Shortage Protocols, and issuing National Health Service communications to provide management advice and information on the issue to healthcare professionals, including pharmacists, so they can advise and support their patients.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to reform NHS Drug Tariff reimbursement to ensure community pharmacies are not required to dispense medicines at a loss.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed
We already have two arrangements in place to reduce community pharmacies dispensing at a loss and to ensure that overall, they are paid enough as part of their Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework (CPCF) funding. These are the medicine margin arrangements and concessionary prices.
Regarding the medicine margin arrangements, the medicine margin is the difference between the reimbursement price and the price the pharmacy was charged by the supplier. Community pharmacy reimbursement arrangements include an amount of medicines margin that pharmacies are allowed to retain as part of CPCF funding. The Department assesses the medicine margin through a quarterly medicine margin survey, which ensures that in totality, pharmacies are paid the allowed medicine margin above what it cost them to purchase medicines overall.
For concessionary prices, the Department relies on competition and efficient purchasing by community pharmacies to keep prices of medicines down. This has led to some of the lowest prices in Europe and allows prices to react to the market. In an international market this ensures that when demand is high and supply is low, prices in the United Kingdom can increase to help secure the availability of medicines for UK patients. When the market price of a medicine suddenly increases, concessionary prices can be granted in that month, increasing the reimbursement price above the Drug Tariff price, with the aim of mitigating pharmacy contractors dispensing at a loss. In addition, there is a ‘retrospective top-up payment for concessionary prices’, which provides an additional payment to contractors when the margin survey indicates that despite a concessionary price, there was an under payment for a specific product.
More broadly, medicine supply chains are complex, global, and highly regulated. There are a number of reasons why supply can be disrupted, many of which are not specific to the UK and outside of Government control, including manufacturing difficulties, access to raw materials, sudden demand spikes or distribution issues, and regulatory issues. There are approximately 14,000 licensed medicines and the overwhelming majority are in good supply.
While we can’t always prevent supply issues from occurring, we have a range of well-established processes and tools to manage them when they arise and to mitigate risks to patients. These include close and regular engagement with suppliers, and use of alternative strengths or forms of a medicine to allow patients to remain on the same product and expediting regulatory procedures. In addition, we utilise sourcing unlicensed imports from abroad, adding products to the restricted exports and hoarding list, use of Serious Shortage Protocols, and issuing National Health Service communications to provide management advice and information on the issue to healthcare professionals, including pharmacists, so they can advise and support their patients.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to provide additional support to rural community pharmacies to mitigate the potential impact of increases in costs, including for (a) wages, (b) energy, (c) business rates and (d) medicines.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Secretary of State for Wales
In 2025/26 funding for the core community pharmacy contractual framework was increased to £3.1 billion. This represented the largest uplift in funding of any part of the National Health Service at the time, over 19% across 2024/25 and 2025/26. This included funding for the Pharmacy Access Scheme, which provides additional funding to more isolated pharmacies to support patient access.
As part of delivering the Pharmacy First service, pharmacy contractors receive a monthly fixed payment if they meet specific requirements, which include minimum activity levels. From June 2025, pharmacies delivering 20 to 29 consultations receive £500, while those with at least 30 consultations continued to receive £1,000 monthly. The new lower tier of payment supports pharmacies with lower potential for delivery, including rural pharmacies, and has increased the number of pharmacies qualifying for Pharmacy First fixed payments.
The Department is currently consulting with Community Pharmacy England on any proposed changes to reimbursement and remuneration of pharmacy contractors for 2026/27. As part of this we will consider financial pressures on the sector.