Asked by: Gregory Stafford (Conservative - Farnham and Bordon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of capping the cost of care homes.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Under the Care Act 2014, local authorities are tasked with the duty to shape their care market and to commission a range of high-quality, sustainable care support services to meet the diverse needs of all local people. This includes encouraging a wide range of service provision to ensure that people have a choice of appropriate services.
Fee rates are set by providers of adult social care, the majority of which are in the independent sector. The Department does not have powers to set or recommend the level of fees that private care homes can charge. However, all businesses are required to comply with the Consumer Rights Act 2015 by ensuring that they use fair and clear terms in their standard agreements with customers.
The Government is supporting local authorities by making available up to £3.7 billion of additional funding for social care authorities in 2025/26. This includes over £1 billion for the Market Sustainability and Improvement Fund (MSIF), with one of the three target areas local authorities can spend their allocations on being to improve fee rates to providers.
In a letter I sent out to Council Leaders in January 2025, I set out the expectation that in 2025/26, when commissioning services, local authorities should ensure fee levels for care and support services take account of the actual costs of care in their area, including inflationary and all other pressures, such as the rise in National Living Wage and the changes to employers National Insurance Contributions.
As part of our monitoring of the MSIF grant conditions and to understand fee rates more generally, local authorities are required to provide an annual return to the Department including data on the fee rates they pay care providers. The Government publishes this data annually, with the latest being available at the following link:
Asked by: Gregory Stafford (Conservative - Farnham and Bordon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to increase the provision of dentistry services in Farnham and Bordon constituency.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government plans to tackle the challenges for patients trying to access National Health Service dental care with a rescue plan to provide 700,000 more urgent dental appointments and recruit new dentists to the areas that need them most. To rebuild dentistry in the long term, we will reform the dental contract with the sector, with a shift to focus on prevention and the retention of NHS dentists.
The responsibility for commissioning primary care services, including NHS dentistry, to meet the needs of the local population has been delegated to the integrated care boards (ICBs) across England. For the Farnham and Bordon constituency, this is the NHS Frimley ICB. ICBs have been asked to start making extra urgent dental appointments available from April 2025. The NHS Frimley ICB is expected to deliver 6,626 additional urgent dental appointments as part of the scheme.
ICBs have started to advertise posts through the Golden Hello scheme. This recruitment incentive will see up to 240 dentists receiving payments of £20,000 to work in those areas that need them most for three years.
Asked by: Gregory Stafford (Conservative - Farnham and Bordon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the potential impact of changes to Food Standards Agency inspection charges on the financial viability of (a) small abattoirs and (b) private kill services.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Information on the 2025/26 charge rates for official controls (inspections) conducted in meat premises is available on the Food Standards Agency’s (FSA) website.
https://www.food.gov.uk/business-guidance/charges-for-controls-in-meat-premises
As in previous years, the impact of charges will be offset by a taxpayer-funded discount which provides the greatest proportional support to smaller businesses. The impact of the discount on different sized food businesses in England and Wales for 2025/26 is set out in the Cost Data Slides the FSA has published.
The FSA is currently conducting an evaluation of the discount and will assess the impact of any changes it might propose in the light of this evaluation. No decisions have yet been taken.
Asked by: Gregory Stafford (Conservative - Farnham and Bordon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on providing long term, sustainable funding for transforming palliative and end of life care services.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
My Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has regular discussions with my Rt. Hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and colleagues across the Cabinet on a whole host of issues across our brief, including palliative and end of life care services.
However, as part of the work to develop the 10-Year Health Plan, we will be carefully considering policies, including those that impact people with palliative and end of life care needs, with input from the public, patients, health staff, and our partners.
We want a society where every person receives high-quality, compassionate care from diagnosis through to the end of life. The Government is determined to shift more healthcare out of hospitals and into the community, to ensure patients and their families receive personalised care in the most appropriate setting, and palliative and end of life care services will have a big role to play in that shift.
Additionally, in February, I met with key palliative and end of life care and hospice stakeholders, in a roundtable format with a focus on long-term sector sustainability within the context of our 10-Year Health Plan.
Asked by: Gregory Stafford (Conservative - Farnham and Bordon)
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 raise awareness of restless leg syndrome with (a) GPs and (b) neurologists.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence publishes clinical knowledge summaries (CKS) as a source of information mainly for National Health Service staff working in primary care. The CKS on the diagnosis and clinical management of restless leg syndrome (RLS) was updated in February 2025, and is available at the following link:
https://cks.nice.org.uk/topics/restless-legs-syndrome/
General practitioners (GPs) have a generalist’s knowledge of RLS. GPs utilise the RLS Rating Scale to understand the impact on the patient and then to trial treatments. GPs are supported by neurology referral or specialist Advice and Guidance. This includes 27 specialised neurological treatment centres across the NHS in England, which provide access to neurological multidisciplinary teams to ensure that patients with RLS can receive specialised treatment and support, according to their needs.
Asked by: Gregory Stafford (Conservative - Farnham and Bordon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to reinstate a national target for local health systems to improve dementia diagnosis rates in future iterations of the NHS Operational Planning Guidance.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government and NHS England remain committed to recovering the dementia diagnosis rate to the national ambition of 66.7%.
The NHS Operational Planning Guidance is not an exhaustive list of everything the National Health Service does, and the absence of a target does not mean it is not an area of focus. We have yet to take decisions on future iterations of the guidance.
Asked by: Gregory Stafford (Conservative - Farnham and Bordon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that (a) Lecanemab and (b) other new treatments for Alzheimer’s disease are made accessible to eligible patients through the NHS.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) makes recommendations for the National Health Service in England on whether new medicines should be routinely funded based on an assessment of their costs and benefits. The NICE evaluates all new medicines, including medicines for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, and aims to publish guidance for the NHS as close as possible to licensing. The NHS in England is legally required to fund recommended treatments, normally within three months of the publication of final guidance.
The NICE concluded that the evidence presented so far shows that neither donanemab nor lecanemab provide enough benefit to justify the substantial resources the NHS would need to commit to implement access to them. The NICE has not yet published final guidance on either medicine, and its independent Appraisal Committee will meet on 14 May to consider the responses to its recent consultation.
To prepare for the new generation of dementia treatments in development, NHS England is working to ensure the diagnostic and treatment capacity, clinical pathway redesign, and investments are in place to support the adoption of any new licensed and NICE-recommended treatments as soon as possible.
Asked by: Gregory Stafford (Conservative - Farnham and Bordon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the upcoming 10-Year Plan for the NHS will include specific commitments to improve (a) diagnosis, (b) access to treatment and (c) support for research outcomes for people living with dementia.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government wants a society where every person with dementia receives high-quality, compassionate care from diagnosis through to the end of life. The 10-Year Health Plan will address the challenges diagnosed by Lord Darzi and will set the vision for what good joined-up care looks like for people with a combination of complex health and care needs, including people living with dementia. We are carefully considering policies, including those that impact people with dementia, with input from the public, patients, health staff, and our partners, as we develop the plan.
In February, I hosted a roundtable discussion where partners shared how dementia, ageing well, and digital inclusion could be reflected in the 10-Year Health Plan.
Asked by: Gregory Stafford (Conservative - Farnham and Bordon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of the proposed abolition of NHS England on healthcare suppliers; and whether he plans to publish guidance on changes to (a) procurement systems, (b) leadership structures and (c) the NHS supply chain to support business (i) planning and (ii) continuity.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Ministers and senior Department officials will work with the new executive team at the top of NHS England, led by Sir Jim Mackey, to lead the formation of a new joint centre. As we work to bring the two organisations together, we will ensure that we continue to evaluate impacts of all kinds, which includes working with healthcare suppliers and the future organisation and leadership of procurement systems and National Health Service supply chains.
The abolition of NHS England will strip out the unnecessary bureaucracy and cut the duplication that comes from having two organisations doing the same job, and we will empower staff to focus on delivering better care for patients, driving productivity up, and getting waiting times down.
Asked by: Gregory Stafford (Conservative - Farnham and Bordon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions he has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the Transformation Fund announced in the Spring Statement 2025; and whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of using some of this money for the palliative and end of life care sector.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We want a society where every person receives high-quality, compassionate care from diagnosis through to the end of life. The Government is determined to shift more healthcare out of hospitals and into the community, to ensure patients and their families receive personalised care in the most appropriate setting, and palliative and end of life care services will have a big role to play in that shift.
In February, I met with key palliative and end of life care and hospice stakeholders, in a roundtable format with a focus on long-term sector sustainability within the context of our 10-Year Health Plan.
As part of the Spring Statement, Government announced a £3.25 billion Transformation Fund to drive efficiencies across government and save money later in the Parliament, and set out how this would be allocated over the Spending Review process.
The Spending Review is underway, and details will be announced on 11 June 2025.