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 complex ophthalmology care is provided in a timely fashion.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We have committed to ensuring that 92% of all patients wait no longer than 18 weeks from Referral to Treatment (RTT) by March 2029. Since the Government came into office, the waiting list for routine appointments, operations, and procedures in England has now been cut by 374,083, and RTT performance has improved by 2.6%. This is despite 33.3 million referrals onto the waiting list.
In ophthalmology, the national waiting list stands at 602,163 pathways, with 69.8% of those having waited 18 weeks or less. This marks a 3.7% improvement in RTT performance since the Government came into office.
We are committed to expanding the number of surgical hubs, which provide dedicated and protected elective capacity to drive improvement in six specialities, including ophthalmology. We are reducing missed appointments through enhanced two-way communication between hospitals and patients, supported by artificial intelligence prediction tools. We are also expanding the use of remote monitoring and patient-initiated follow up, where appropriate, to offer patients more flexibility over their care.
Improved IT connectivity between primary and secondary eye care services and the development of single points of access has also shown its ability to improve the referral and triage of patients and support more care being delivered in the community.
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 assaults on staff in NHS A&E departments have been recorded each year since 2019.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The 2025 NHS staff survey showed that 14.47% of staff experienced at least one incidence of violence in the last 12 months from patients and/or service users, their relatives, or other members of the public, compared to 14.38% in 2024, 13.88% in 2023, 14.82% in 2022, 14.57% in 2021, 14.90% in 2020, and 15.08% in 2019. Data taken from the NHS Staff Survey cannot, however, be used to identity whether an incident has occurred in a particular department.
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 his Department is taking to ensure that NICE Guidance to prevent irreversible sight loss is being met for patients with wet age-related macular degeneration.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has issued technology appraisal guidance recommending several medicines for use in the treatment of wet age-related macular generation. The National Health Service in England is legally required to fund medicines in line with NICE’s recommendations, normally within three months of the publication of final guidance.
NICE has also published a clinical guideline that provides comprehensive guidance on best practice in the management of patients with this condition, which is available at the following link:
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng82
NICE clinical guidelines are not mandatory, but NHS commissioners are expected to take them fully into account in ensuring that local services meet the needs of their populations.
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 planned cataract surgeries have been delayed in each of the past 12 months due to integrated care boards not having enough money in their financial-year budget to pay the private providers delivering the procedures.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department does not hold this data.
Integrated care boards have existing contractual powers to manage activity by providers, which were enhanced in 2025/26 with central support for setting and managing activity. Commissioners’ use of these powers support systems to live within their means and deploy better financial discipline than previous years where systems have overspent. As these powers are exercised by local systems, no national assessment has been made.
We expect the use of activity management provisions by local systems to support efforts achieving the goal of at least 65% of patients waiting no longer than 18 weeks for treatment by March 2026 whilst living within financial budgets set for 2025/26.
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, whether any of NHS England's responsibilities or functions have been fully transferred to the Department of Health and Social Care since the announcement of NHS England abolition in March 2025.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.
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, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential impact of the NHS England voluntary redundancy scheme on its ability to deliver its functions.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.
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 much his Department has spent on external consultants for the ongoing reorganisation of the NHS since 2024.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.
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 ambulance station closures on ambulance response times in (a) Shropshire (b) rural areas and (c) England.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
No specific assessment has been made. Responsibility for the delivery, implementation, and funding decisions for services ultimately rests with the appropriate National Health Service commissioner. The West Midlands Ambulance Service have two hubs in Shropshire and no current plans to change that.
Integrated care boards are best placed to work with and consult local health and care organisations, local authorities and local stakeholders to decide how to best deliver and meet their local population care needs and national targets for ambulance response times. The Urgent and Emergency Care Plan for 2025/26 commits to reducing ambulance response times for Category 2 incidents to 30 minutes on average this year.
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 trends in the number of year-on-year changes to hospital handover delays in (a) Shropshire (b) West Midlands and (c) England.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Shropshire is primarily served by the West Midlands Ambulance Service, along with the wider West Midlands region, where in January 2026 average hospital handovers took one hour, 20 minutes and 15 seconds, which is worse than the same period the year before.
For England overall, the most recent National Health Service performance figures show that average ambulance handover delays have improved, falling to 37 minutes 39 seconds from 40 minutes 23 seconds, an improvement of over two and a half minutes from the same period last year.
From 2023, NHS England has published data on hospital handover delays at acute and ambulance trust level. There is no published data on individual hospital handover times publicly available, so the Deptartment is unable to list the longest hospital handover times recorded. However, the 90th centile of handovers times are published monthly. The data can be found at the following two links:
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 list the longest hospital handover time recorded in each ambulance service area of England in each January of the past five years.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Shropshire is primarily served by the West Midlands Ambulance Service, along with the wider West Midlands region, where in January 2026 average hospital handovers took one hour, 20 minutes and 15 seconds, which is worse than the same period the year before.
For England overall, the most recent National Health Service performance figures show that average ambulance handover delays have improved, falling to 37 minutes 39 seconds from 40 minutes 23 seconds, an improvement of over two and a half minutes from the same period last year.
From 2023, NHS England has published data on hospital handover delays at acute and ambulance trust level. There is no published data on individual hospital handover times publicly available, so the Deptartment is unable to list the longest hospital handover times recorded. However, the 90th centile of handovers times are published monthly. The data can be found at the following two links: