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, pursuant to the Answer of 9 April 2025 to Question 43516: Maternity Services, and with reference to the Final report of the Ockenden Review, published on 30 March 2022, which (a) Trusts and (b) systems have implemented (i) immediate and (ii) essential actions.
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, pursuant to the Answer of 9 April 2025 to Question 43516: Maternity Services, whether he has set a deadline for (a) outcome and (b) progress measures in the three year delivery plan for maternity and neonatal care.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England’s three year delivery plan for maternity and neonatal care services was published on 31 March 2023 and implementation of the objectives is due to run for three years until March 2026. Progress is monitored through the plan’s technical guidance, which sets out how progress will be tracked at a national level against the four key themes of the plan.
Due to the complexity of maternity and neonatal care and the need for robust validation, some of the outcome data is significantly lagged and will not be fully available within the lifetime of the plan. Much of this data is published by external organisations beyond NHS England.
Although the delivery plan spans three years, its objectives are intended to enable services to deliver improvements in care that will lead to sustained, long-term improvements in outcomes and experiences for women, babies, and families.
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, pursuant to the Answer of 9 April 2025 to Question 43516: Maternity Services, if he will update the three year delivery plan for maternity and neonatal care to include specific numerical targets.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England’s three year delivery plan for maternity and neonatal services, ending in March 2026, will not be updated to include specific numerical targets. The focus remains on delivering actions to drive the necessary improvements on the ground to ensure that all women, babies and families receive the high-quality care that they deserve. This includes both the actions set out in the current plan, as well as the further actions needed to tackle the key issues in maternity and neonatal services. It is essential that any targets set are evidence-based and women and baby-centred.
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 he has issued guidance to hospital trusts on reducing waiting lists for elective care through demand management.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government has committed to returning to the National Health Service constitutional standard that 92% of patients wait no longer than 18 weeks from referral to treatment, a standard which has not been met consistently since September 2015. Our Elective Reform Plan, published in January 2025 and sent to all NHS trusts, details the necessary reform efforts and includes several actions to reduce unnecessary elective referrals. This includes stepping up volumes of Advice and Guidance (A&G) through the introduction of a new £20 payment for general practitioners, per A&G request, and rolling out clinical triage more consistently to ensure patients receive care in the correct setting, including in primary or community services where this is in the patient’s best interests.
The NHS Get it Right First Time (GIRFT) programme also has detailed national guidance for NHS trusts to help reduce their elective waits, including specialty-level guides with specific advice on demand management. GIRFT is proactively supporting trusts to implement this.
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 recent progress each NHS Trust providing maternity services has made on implementing each of the immediate and essential actions set out in the Final report of the Ockenden review, published on 30 March 2022.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
All of the recommendations made by Donna Ockenden in her review into maternity services at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust in 2022 were accepted, including the requests made to the Government, the health system more widely, and the trust. Following publication of the Ockenden review, NHS England wrote to all trusts and systems asking them to deliver the recommendations and report to their public boards.
To support this delivery, the three-year delivery plan for maternity and neonatal services brought together the immediate and essential actions from the Ockenden review with those from other reports and guidance. The National Health Service’s operational planning guidance sets out the expectation that trusts should implement the key actions from the plan. In accordance with the NHS operating framework, it is for integrated care boards to oversee local progress with this. The technical guidance which accompanies the plan sets out how we are monitoring progress at a national level.
The plan aims to grow the maternity workforce, develop a culture of safety, and ensure women receive safe, compassionate care across the country. NHS England is in the second year of delivery, and progress has been made across the four themes to improve outcomes and experiences for women and their babies.
The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust has seen a significant improvement in overall midwifery staffing levels. The trust has enhanced its senior and specialist midwifery teams to provide additional leadership, expert advice, and support for women and families, as well as the clinical teams. The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust now has in place robust training programmes that equip the maternity workforce with up-to-date skills, training, and development, including in the management of emergency scenarios.
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 merits of publishing year-round data on the number of patients treated in temporary care environments.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We continue to keep the data available and published to support improvements to urgent and emergency care services under review.
NHS England has been working with trusts since 2024 to put in place new reporting arrangements related to the use of temporary escalation spaces, to drive improvement. Subject to a review of data quality, this information will be published later this year, and we will consider how this data could be published on a more regular basis.
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 reduce the use of temporary care environments in patient care.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government recognises that long waits in accident and emergency are unacceptable and lead to worse patient outcomes. Patients should expect and receive the highest standards of service, and we are determined to tackle the issue of corridor care.
NHS England published guidance in September 2024 regarding the use of temporary escalation spaces, which is available at the following link:
In January, we published the National Health Service’s mandate and planning guidance for 2025/26, which set out the priorities and actions to be taken to reform and improve urgent and emergency care services. This includes increasing the proportion of patients admitted, discharged, and transferred from an emergency department within 12 hours across 2025/26 compared to 2024/25.
We will shortly set out the further improvements and actions to be taken to support urgent and emergency care services 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, if he will make an estimate of the average cost to the public purse of one band 5 nursing hour supplied by (a) On-framework staffing agencies and (b) Off-framework staffing agencies at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust in each year since 2019.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department does not hold the data requested.
The Government is committed to reducing off-framework agency use, the cost of which is at a premium, above the agreed framework rates. Additionally, staff hired through off-framework agencies are not subject to the same pre-employment checks as those carried out by on-framework agencies. Off-framework use is actively monitored through NHS England’s governance mechanisms, with additional oversight applied to trusts with recurring non-compliance.
The NHS Planning Guidance 2025/26 states that trusts should reduce their agency spend by a minimum of 30%, and the accompanying Revenue Finance and Contracting Guidance sets the ambition that agency spend should be eliminated in the coming years.
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 the average cost to the public purse is of one band 5 nursing hour supplied by (a) On-framework staffing agencies and (b) Off-framework staffing agencies to the NHS in each year since 2019.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department does not hold the data requested.
The Government is committed to reducing off-framework agency use, the cost of which is at a premium, above the agreed framework rates. Additionally, staff hired through off-framework agencies are not subject to the same pre-employment checks as those carried out by on-framework agencies. Off-framework use is actively monitored through NHS England’s governance mechanisms, with additional oversight applied to trusts with recurring non-compliance.
The NHS Planning Guidance 2025/26 states that trusts should reduce their agency spend by a minimum of 30%, and the accompanying Revenue Finance and Contracting Guidance sets the ambition that agency spend should be eliminated in the coming years.
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 ensure that outdoor hospitality areas remain outside the scope of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Tobacco and Vapes Bill, which will put us on track towards a smoke-free UK, was introduced to Parliament on 5 November 2024. On 26 March 2025, MPs voted overwhelmingly in favour of advancing the Bill to the next Parliamentary stage and it has now entered the House of Lords.
The Bill allows us to expand current indoor smoking restrictions to outdoor public places and workplaces. However, we have been very clear that in England, we intend to consult on extending smoke-free places to outside schools, children’s playgrounds and hospitals but not outdoor hospitality settings or wider open spaces like beaches. Private outdoor spaces are out of scope of the powers in the Bill.
We do not intend to extend these powers further than this at this time and recognise that now would not be the right time to consult on making outdoor hospitality settings smoke-free in England.