Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
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 adequacy of weight management support on patients required to lose weight to become eligible for joint replacement surgery.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department has made no specific assessment of the potential impact of body mass index (BMI) based restrictions on health inequalities.
It is the responsibility of individual integrated care boards to determine policies for their local area, including that of the BMI threshold criteria for joint replacement surgery. As with all surgery, BMI should be considered as part of a holistic, personalised perioperative evaluation of the risks versus clinical need for joint replacement surgery of an individual patient. However, BMI should not be considered in isolation and in and of itself should not act as a barrier to surgery.
While National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines are not mandatory, they do represent best practice and National Health Service organisations are expected to take them fully into account in ensuring that local services meet the needs of their populations.
The NHS and local government provide a range of services to help people living with overweight and obesity to manage their weight, which may include individuals waiting for joint replacement surgery, where they meet other eligibility criteria. These range from multi-component behavioural programmes, such as the NHS Digital Weight Management Programme, to specialist services for those living with severe obesity and associated co-morbidities.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
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 ensure that ICBs adhere to NICE guidance on the use of BMI thresholds for referral for joint replacement surgery.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department has made no specific assessment of the potential impact of body mass index (BMI) based restrictions on health inequalities.
It is the responsibility of individual integrated care boards to determine policies for their local area, including that of the BMI threshold criteria for joint replacement surgery. As with all surgery, BMI should be considered as part of a holistic, personalised perioperative evaluation of the risks versus clinical need for joint replacement surgery of an individual patient. However, BMI should not be considered in isolation and in and of itself should not act as a barrier to surgery.
While National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines are not mandatory, they do represent best practice and National Health Service organisations are expected to take them fully into account in ensuring that local services meet the needs of their populations.
The NHS and local government provide a range of services to help people living with overweight and obesity to manage their weight, which may include individuals waiting for joint replacement surgery, where they meet other eligibility criteria. These range from multi-component behavioural programmes, such as the NHS Digital Weight Management Programme, to specialist services for those living with severe obesity and associated co-morbidities.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
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 BMI-based restriction on access to joint replacement surgery on health inequalities.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department has made no specific assessment of the potential impact of body mass index (BMI) based restrictions on health inequalities.
It is the responsibility of individual integrated care boards to determine policies for their local area, including that of the BMI threshold criteria for joint replacement surgery. As with all surgery, BMI should be considered as part of a holistic, personalised perioperative evaluation of the risks versus clinical need for joint replacement surgery of an individual patient. However, BMI should not be considered in isolation and in and of itself should not act as a barrier to surgery.
While National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines are not mandatory, they do represent best practice and National Health Service organisations are expected to take them fully into account in ensuring that local services meet the needs of their populations.
The NHS and local government provide a range of services to help people living with overweight and obesity to manage their weight, which may include individuals waiting for joint replacement surgery, where they meet other eligibility criteria. These range from multi-component behavioural programmes, such as the NHS Digital Weight Management Programme, to specialist services for those living with severe obesity and associated co-morbidities.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will publish the ten advice and guidance referral pathways selected by each integrated care board.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Currently there are no plans to publish a national dataset setting out the specialties selected by National Health Service providers at integrated care board level. This position is being kept under review.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, (a) what the current level of the stockpile of MenB vaccine is and (b) whether her Department has assessed whether stockpiles are sufficient for the current meningitis B outbreak, including through modelling.
Answered by Sharon Hodgson - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The risk of infection to the wider population remains low. A targeted vaccination programme has been extended to everyone who has been offered preventative antibiotic treatment as part of this outbreak. A single course of antibiotics is highly effective at reducing transmission. Immediately after the outbreak was identified, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) deployed 50,000 doses of stockpiled antibiotics to the local area to ensure rapid access for those at highest risk.
UKHSA stock levels for a meningitis B vaccine are the equivalent to eleven months of use in the continued national immunisation programme. 26,500 vaccine doses have been delivered specifically in response to the outbreak in Kent and a further 30,000 doses have been released from future deliveries into UKHSA back to GSK for supply through the standard wholesaler market.
UKHSA continues to work with local resilience partners to ensure effective distribution. We currently have limited data, and our understanding of the dynamics is still developing at pace, as this is an unprecedented situation.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many NHS England employees have opted to take the voluntary redundancy scheme commencing in April 2026.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England’s voluntary redundancy scheme opened on 1 December and closed for applications on 16 December. NHS England has approved 3,671 employees to leave under voluntary redundancy prior to March 2027. Currently, 25% of the 1,106 employees identified to leave on 31 March 2026 have confirmed their desire to withdraw from the scheme. Employees can withdraw at any time up to signing their final severance agreement.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
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 regional differences in funding for patients trying to conceive through IVF, in the context of NICE guidelines on offering people under 40 up to three full cycles of IVF.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Funding decisions for health services in England are made by integrated care boards (ICBs) and are based on the clinical needs of their local population.
On 31 March, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) published its updated fertility guideline, which recommends that women under 40 years old who meet the clinical eligibility criteria should be offered up to three full cycles of in vitro fertilisation.
We expect ICBs to consider and reflect the updated NICE fertility guideline in their commissioning decisions, and we are working with NHS England to support greater consistency in provision.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when he will publish the legal text for the UK-US pharmaceuticals deal.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The full text of the UK-US pharmaceutical agreement is available at the following link:
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what criteria were used to determine which providers were included in the Neighbourhood Health Framework.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Neighbourhood Health Framework is designed to provide clarity and consistency to integrated care boards (ICBs), local authorities, and their partners, in developing and scaling neighbourhood health.
The framework outlines the national minimum aims and objectives of neighbourhood health services. It is important that reforms are locally led, as ICBs and local authorities are best placed to design services that make sense for their local populations. Local systems can choose to go further than the minimum aims set out in the framework.
General practice, primary care, pharmacies, mental health providers, community health services, social care services, local authorities, and civil society partners are included, to deliver the ambition to shift care from hospital to communities, improve access, and provide proactive, holistic care for people with complex needs.
This is not an exhaustive list of all possible providers of neighbourhood health services but illustrates the types of providers with whom we are actively working.
No specific criteria were used to determine which providers were included in the framework. The framework does not prevent other providers from being part of neighbourhood health services.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
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 the level of volatility in the prices of petrol and diesel on the budgets of hospital trusts and ambulance trusts.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We will be carefully monitoring the impact of the current volatility in fuel prices on the National Health Service, with a view to managing it as part of usual in-year financial management of risk. The impact on fuel prices will be felt by all organisations who rely on fuel for transport, including the indirect potential impact on the cost of deliveries, and direct costs on the NHS fleet which consists of over 20,000 vehicles travelling over 460 million miles every year. The impact is likely to vary, for example as part of the NHS Net Zero travel and transport strategy, a number of ambulance trusts are trialling zero-emission response vehicles.