Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to review the legal framework governing the care of people experiencing a mental health crisis in emergency departments.

Answered by Preet Kaur Gill

People who are acutely unwell and in a mental health crisis often do go to accident and emergency (A&E), and in some cases, a Mental Health Act assessment may be needed. In some cases, often due to distress or delays, the person may try to leave A&E before the assessment can be completed. In these instances, there can be confusion and often a lack of confidence about whether or what legal powers are available to health professionals to hold someone in A&E to keep them safe until the assessment can be completed.

We accept that there may be a need to provide greater clarity on the powers which are available to health professionals to keep people safe in a mental health crisis. We have committed to a consultation exploring the powers available to different professionals in different situations and settings, in particular but not limited to consulting on the operation of sections 135 and 136 powers under the Mental Health Act. The consultation will seek views on powers and joint working approaches to ensure health and social care professionals and police have the appropriate powers to act in order to protect people from harm to themselves and to others when in a mental health crisis.

As part of this, we will look to understand how the current legal framework in emergency departments is applied, and identify solutions to the problems raised. We will seek to provide further guidance on the existing legal framework and the handover protocol between health and police in the next revision of the Code of Practice.

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 convening an emergency taskforce to address current medicine shortages.

Answered by Preet Kaur Gill

There are no plans to convene a taskforce on medicine shortages.

There are around 14,000 licensed medicines and the overwhelming majority are in good supply. Medicine supply chains are complex, global and highly regulated and there are a number of reasons why supply can be disrupted. Many of these are not specific to the United Kingdom and outside of Government control, including manufacturing difficulties, access to raw materials, sudden demand spikes or distribution and regulatory issues.

To help manage these risks, the Department and NHS England are committed to strengthening long term supply chain resilience and continually improving how we prevent, mitigate, and manage supply issues to protect patients from shortages.

The Department, working closely with NHS England, is taking forward a range of actions to further strengthen our ability to anticipate, mitigate, and manage shortages. As part of that work, we continue to engage with industry, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, and other colleagues across the supply chain. However, medicine shortages are a complex and global issue, and improving resilience requires action from all parts of the supply chain through a collaborative approach.

In August 2025, the Department published a policy paper, Managing a robust and resilient supply of medicines, which provides greater transparency of the supply chains we rely on, the actions we take to protect patients from medicines shortages when they occur, and the steps being taken to strengthen resilience. Later this year, we will publish an update on progress against those commitments and set out further actions to strengthen the resilience of our medicines supply chains. The paper is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/managing-a-robust-and-resilient-supply-of-medicines/managing-a-robust-and-resilient-supply-of-medicines

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 taking legislative steps to allow pharmacists to make safe substitutions when a prescribed medicine is unavailable.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Secretary of State for Wales

We consulted on proposals to enable pharmacist flexibilities when dispensing medicines and have considered the responses to this consultation, with further information available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/enabling-pharmacist-flexibilities-when-dispensing-medicines/enabling-pharmacist-flexibilities-when-dispensing-medicines#how-to-respond

We will issue a formal consultation response in the coming months.

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 implications for his policy of ending corridor care of the findings of the Healthcare Services Safety Investigation Body’s report entitled Patient care in temporary care environments, published in January 2026.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government recognises that corridor care is unacceptable and should not become a normal part of National Health Service care. The finding of the Healthcare Services Safety Investigation Body's report Patient care in temporary care environments reinforces the Government’s assessment that reducing overcrowding and improving patient flow across urgent and emergency care services are essential to improving patient safety, patient experience, and staff wellbeing.

The Government and NHS England are therefore taking action through delivery of the Urgent and Emergency Care Plan for 2025/26, backed by over £450 million of investment in urgent and emergency care capacity. This includes investment in Same Day Emergency Care services, urgent treatment centres, mental health crisis assessment centres, and ambulance services, helping more patients receive timely care in the most appropriate setting and reducing avoidable pressure on emergency departments.

NHS England has also published the Model Emergency Department and the Model Acute Pathway standards for the first 72 hours of care, which support earlier assessment, timely senior clinical review, faster clinical decision-making, and improved patient flow through hospitals, addressing many of the operational challenges highlighted in the report.

In addition, NHS England has introduced a national definition of corridor care, begun publishing validated corridor care data, and established targeted improvement support for trusts experiencing the highest levels of corridor care. Expert Getting It Right First Time teams are working with local NHS leaders to improve patient flow, strengthen discharge arrangements, and reduce overcrowding. Together these measures will strengthen oversight, improve transparency, and support local action to reduce corridor care.

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 long-term patient safety impact of the Synnovis ransomware attack on NHS trusts in south-east London.

Answered by Preet Kaur Gill

Cyber security is not just a technology risk. In 2024, a cyber-attack affecting Synnovis, a supplier of pathology services to the National Health Service, caused delays to over 11,000 out-patient and elective procedure appointments and, tragically, contributed to the death of a patient. We must see cyber security and resilience as a patient safety issue. Throughout the Synnovis incident, data was published on the NHS website, including on cancelled or delayed appointments.

Following the incident, the South East London Integrated Care System ran a patient safety investigation, which identified levels of patient harm seen during the Synnovis cyber-attack. Any new cases of patients coming to moderate harm or more as a result of the cyber incident would be reported through the quality reporting governance systems of the integrated care board as per NHS England reporting guidance.

Any national considerations are based on the reporting from affected trusts, which have been used to inform national processes. In addition, as competent authority under the Network and Information Systems Regulations, working on behalf of my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the Department has investigated the impact of the incident to understand the patient safety and service continuity impacts for operators of essential services.

Cyber incidents, including WannaCry in 2017, Advanced in 2022, and Synnovis in 2024, show that it is a matter of when, not if, the next cyber-attack on the NHS will take place. The impact of cyber incidents can be severe, including cancelled appointments, delays, or data breaches. Therefore, preparing for and responding to incidents is an important part of our programme. Following the Synnovis cyber-attack, the Department identified a set of lessons from the incident. These have been actioned and assigned to owners, with a large number completed and long-term improvements integrated into our ambitious Cyber Improvement Programme. The completed actions have included improvements made to the way in which patient harm is identified following a cyber incident. This aligns with other national incident processes.

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