Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the publication entitled Working together in 2025/26 to lay the foundations for reform, published on 1 April 2025, if he will extend the time in which ICBs have to respond to the Model ICB once it is published.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Integrated care boards (ICBs) have a critical role to play as strategic commissioners, improving population health, reducing inequalities, and ensuring access to high quality care. NHS England has circulated a draft of The Model ICB - blueprint document to all ICBs, to assist them in shaping their future plans, including which functions they should focus on, as indicated in Sir James Mackey’s letter to the National Health Service trusts, foundation trusts, and ICBs, which is available at the following link:
We expect ICBs to adhere to the timelines set out by NHS England on 1 April 2025, to ensure that ICBs are acting as lead strategic commissioners of health and care services and to ensure that cost savings are directed to frontline NHS health and care services.
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much of the Claimant’s costs paid by the NHS in all clinical negligence claims under £25,000 in 2023-24 were (a) legal costs, (b) disbursements and (c) VAT.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS Resolution (NHSR) manages clinical negligence and other claims against the national Health Service in England. The following table shows the total legal costs paid for claimants due to clinical negligence claims closed in the financial year 2023/24, where damages were paid up to £25,000:
Damages tranche | Claimant legal costs paid by NHSR |
£1 to £1,500 | £2,422,432 |
£1,501 to £25,000 | £94,364,395 |
Total | £96,786,827 |
Claims closed in 2023/24 will often have been settled in previous years, as costs can take some time to finalise after an agreement on damages. NHSR does not record a breakdown of claimant legal costs between profit costs and disbursements in its claims management system. It also does not record a breakdown for expert fees.
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much of the Claimant’s legal costs paid by the NHS in all clinical negligence claims under £25,000 in 2023-24 were expert fees.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS Resolution (NHSR) manages clinical negligence and other claims against the national Health Service in England. The following table shows the total legal costs paid for claimants due to clinical negligence claims closed in the financial year 2023/24, where damages were paid up to £25,000:
Damages tranche | Claimant legal costs paid by NHSR |
£1 to £1,500 | £2,422,432 |
£1,501 to £25,000 | £94,364,395 |
Total | £96,786,827 |
Claims closed in 2023/24 will often have been settled in previous years, as costs can take some time to finalise after an agreement on damages. NHSR does not record a breakdown of claimant legal costs between profit costs and disbursements in its claims management system. It also does not record a breakdown for expert fees.
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what data is held by NHS Resolution on the breakdown of Claimant costs in clinical negligence claims under £25,000.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS Resolution (NHSR) manages clinical negligence and other claims against the national Health Service in England. The following table shows the total legal costs paid for claimants due to clinical negligence claims closed in the financial year 2023/24, where damages were paid up to £25,000:
Damages tranche | Claimant legal costs paid by NHSR |
£1 to £1,500 | £2,422,432 |
£1,501 to £25,000 | £94,364,395 |
Total | £96,786,827 |
Claims closed in 2023/24 will often have been settled in previous years, as costs can take some time to finalise after an agreement on damages. NHSR does not record a breakdown of claimant legal costs between profit costs and disbursements in its claims management system. It also does not record a breakdown for expert fees.
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the adequacy of his Department's implementation of the recommendations on stronger clinical leadership and management roles outlined in the paper entitled High Quality Care For All: NHS Next Stage Review Final Report, published in June 2008.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
There are no current plans to assess implementation of the 2008 High Quality Care for All report.
The Government recognises the importance of ensuring that the National Health Service has strong and effective leadership in place. As Lord Darzi stated in his recent independent report on the NHS in 2024, “the NHS has many strong and capable leaders”, although we know there is more work to do to strengthen NHS leadership. That is why there is a significant programme of work underway to improve NHS management and leadership, including our commitment to establish an NHS College of Executive and Clinical Leadership and to introduce professional standards for, and regulation of, NHS managers. This builds on a wider programme of work being led by NHS England to develop standards, a code of practice, and a curriculum for NHS managers and leaders.
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an estimate of the number of qualified medical professionals unable to progress in their training pathways in the most recent period for which figures are available.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We are committed to training the staff we need to ensure patients are cared for by the right professional, when and where they need it. It is not possible, from the data held, to consistently and accurately identify unique applicants, as many applicants will apply to more than one specialty training pathway
We will ensure that the number of medical specialty training places meets the demands of the National Health Service in the future. NHS England will work with stakeholders to ensure that any growth is sustainable and focused in the service areas where need is greatest.
Post graduate medical training consists of several different phases of training courses, depending on the speciality choices a doctor makes. After graduating, doctors will typically do a two year foundation programme, followed by speciality training. Speciality training can be a single “run through” programme or can be core training followed by competitive entry into higher speciality training. Further information is available at the following link:
https://www.healthcareers.nhs.uk/explore-roles/doctors/training-doctor
In 2024, there were 59,698 total applications across all medical specialty training pathways in the United Kingdom, for the 12,743 speciality training posts that were available. This data covers all round one and round two specialty training pathway programmes. The Department does not hold information on the number of individual, or unique, applicants that this comprises of in order to make and estimate on the specific progression of medical professionals. The timing of progression, from foundation years training to medical specialty training, will depend on a wide variety of factors, including personal preferences for future specialty training programmes, development of current strengths and skills, personal factors influencing the timing of progression, and the NHS’s demand for specialty training roles.
Once medical professionals have entered a training pathway, progress outcomes within that pathway are collected and reported by the General Medical Council in its Annual Review of Competency Progression reports. This information is available at the following link:
https://edt.gmc-uk.org/progression-reports/arcp
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what her timeline is for (a) consultation and (b) implementation of the updated Decent Homes Standard.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The government will consult this year on a reformed Decent Homes Standard for the social and private rented sectors.
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to (a) improve work coach support and (b) provide tailored employment support for jobseekers.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
As set out in the Get Britain Working White Paper, we are reforming Jobcentre Plus and creating a new service across Great Britain that will enable everyone to access support to find good, meaningful work, and support to help them to progress in work. In England, these reforms will include bringing together Jobcentre Plus with the National Careers Service to create a greater awareness and focus on skills and careers as well as better join-up between employability and careers provision.
Our new service will move away from the current one size fits all approach, recognising people are individuals with different support needs and will provide better tailored support. Providing high-quality personalised support that helps people get into work, support training, and get on at work is a central tenet to the new service.
We will provide an update on our plans to Get Britain Working and the steps we are taking in due course.
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
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 impact of introducing fixed recoverable costs in lower-value clinical negligence cases on patients’ access to legal expertise.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Currently, the Government is considering the way forward on a wide range of matters relating to clinical negligence reform, and we will announce our position in due course.
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many urgent repairs were requested for standard family accommodation in the week commencing 5 May 2025.
Answered by Maria Eagle - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
442 urgent repairs were requested for Service Family Accommodation properties as at noon on 9 May 2025.