Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
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 improve patient safety in hospitals.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government’s commitment to advancing patient safety in the National Health Service is demonstrated by various measures.
This includes delivery of the NHS Patient Safety Strategy, which is overseen by NHS England. The strategy is now achieving its aims of saving an extra 1,000 lives per year. By April 2025, the strategy’s patient safety improvement programmes had led to over 1,500 neonatal lives saved, over 500 fewer cerebral palsy cases in premature babies, and more than 1,900 deaths prevented overall through medicine safety improvements, including work to reduce long term opioid use. Further information on the NHS Patient Safety Strategy is available at the following link:
The strategy includes other key programmes, such as the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework, the Learn From Patient Safety Events service, the NHS Patient Safety Syllabus, and the Framework for Involving Patients in Patient Safety, that are focussed on improving the NHS’ systems, capability, and capacity to improve safety. Further information on the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework, the Learn From Patient Safety Events service, the NHS Patient Safety Syllabus, and the Framework for Involving Patients in Patient Safety is available, respectively, at the following four links:
https://www.hee.nhs.uk/our-work/patient-safety
Other measures include implementing Martha’s Rule in 143 hospital sites, which has led to hundreds of life-saving interventions and changes to care that have avoided harm, and implementation of scrutiny by medical examiners of all deaths that are not investigated by a coroner, in order to facilitate learning and improvement at a local level.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
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 the National Cancer Plan prioritises improving patient (a) experience and (b) quality of life.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Cancer Plan will have patients at its heart and will cover the entirety of the cancer pathway, from referral and diagnosis to treatment and ongoing care, as well as prevention, and research and innovation. It will seek to improve every aspect of cancer care to better the experience and outcomes for people with cancer.
The plan will aim to improve how the physical and psychosocial needs of people with cancer can be met, with a focus on personalised care to improve quality of life. It will address how the experience of care can be improved for those diagnosed, treated, and living with and beyond cancer.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people have been diagnosed with Actinic keratoses in each of the last five years.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The following table shows the count of finished admission episodes (FAEs) with a recorded primary diagnosis of 'actinic keratoses', for the years 2019/20 to 2023/24, in English National Health Service hospitals:
Year | FAEs |
2019/20 | 13,675 |
2020/21 | 9,278 |
2021/22 | 12,570 |
2022/23 | 13,459 |
2023/24 | 15,346 |
Source: Hospital Episode Statistics, NHS England.
Notes:
The majority of cases of actinic keratoses are treated by a general practitioner or elsewhere in the community, with only a small minority of cases, typically the most serious, requiring hospital admission. The data presented here will, therefore, only represent a small proportion of the total number of cases that were treated.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the number of sexual assaults on hospital sites in the last three years.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to tackling the appalling crimes of rape and sexual assault. NHS England has introduced a comprehensive package of measures to improve sexual safety across the National Health Service. The Department feels strongly about this matter, which is why the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Baroness Merron) met with Surviving in Scrubs in February 2025 and agreed further action to address issues of sexism, sexual harassment and sexual assault including a focus on medical students. Actions include ensuring students know how to raise concerns, developing good practice on how investigations should be carried out and strengthening communications on the importance of protecting medical students on placements.
NHS providers have a mandatory duty to notify the Care Quality Commission of all incidents that affect the health, safety, and welfare of people who use services, including allegations of sexual abuse.
NHS England is investing in improving the collection and analysis of sexual violence data to support organisations to implement policies that reduce incidents of sexual misconduct in the NHS.
Data relating to rape and sexual assault would be held at NHS trust level. There is no single national dataset in the NHS which captures information on rape and sexual assault for all combinations of staff, patients or visitors to NHS hospitals. Local police forces hold data where there has been a report to the police of rape or sexual assault.
For assaults on staff, the NHS Staff Survey now includes questions about staff experiences of sexual misconduct. Results from the 2024 staff survey show 8.82% of staff received unwanted behaviour of a sexual nature from either patients, service-users or members of the public and 3.66% experienced unwanted behaviour of a sexual nature from colleagues.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what his Department's planned timetable is for the rollout of histotripsy treatment through the NHS.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Histotripsy is a non-invasive ultrasound treatment that destroys tumours without the need for surgery or radiation. It is delivered through the Edison System, developed by HistoSonics, which is one of eight transformative technologies supported through the Government’s Innovative Devices Access Pathway pilot, which aims to streamline patient access to medical devices that address an unmet clinical need in the National Health Service.
At this stage, the detailed timetable for the potential NHS rollout of histotripsy treatment is still under development. The Department is working with system partners to determine the most appropriate, effective, and equitable approach and aims to communicate this later in the summer. Our aim is to ensure that any rollout is informed by ongoing evidence, supports early adoption in appropriate sites, and aligns with wider NHS priorities.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
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 NHS dermatology waiting lists.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Cutting waiting lists is a key priority for the Government. The Department is committed to ensuring that the proportion of patients waiting no longer than 18 weeks from Referral to Treatment, including for dermatology services, returns to 92% by March 2029, and to 65% by March 2026.
NHS England’s Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) programme is working to improve waiting times through its established Further Faster programme to transform patient pathways and improve access and waiting times for patients. Dermatology is one of 24 specialties in focus for GIRFT’s Further Faster work.
A Further Faster handbook for dermatology has been produced to share best practice, and the GIRFT team is carrying out regular visits to, and meetings with, challenged departments in order to provide support in improving performance across dermatology.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
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 sick days that were taken by people with osteoporosis in the last 12 months.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department has not collected data over the last 12 months on the number of sick days that were taken by people with osteoporosis specifically.
The Office for National Statistics publishes data on the annual sickness absence rates of workers in the United Kingdom’s labour market, including the number of days lost by reason. This includes 26.5 million days lost through sickness absence in 2024 in the UK, with musculoskeletal (MSK) problems listed as the reason. MSK problems will include osteoporosis, however disaggregated data is not available as part of the publication. Further information on sickness absence in the UK labour market is available at the following link:
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
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 potential merits of reducing the age at which breast screening begins to 30.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Women under the age of 50 years old are not routinely screened for breast cancer due to the lower risk of women under this age developing breast cancer, and the fact that women under 50 years old tend to have denser breasts. The denseness of breast tissue reduces the ability of getting an accurate mammogram, the accepted screening test for breast cancer.
However, the UK National Screening Committee keeps the age brackets under review. The committee recognises that screening programmes are not static and that, over time, they may need to change to be more effective. There are currently two trials under way that will help inform future decisions relating to breast screening. The AgeX trial is looking at extending the upper and lower age brackets, and BRAID is looking at alternative methods of screening for women with dense breasts. The committee will consider the findings of these trials as they become available.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many men between the ages of 50 and 60 have been diagnosed with prostate cancer in the last six months.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The following table shows the number of diagnoses of prostate cancer, from September 2024 to February 2025, the latest available data:
Date | Number of diagnoses |
September 2024 | 516 |
October 2024 | 579 |
November 2024 | 518 |
December 2024 | 628 |
January 2025 | 696 |
February 2025 | 629 |
Source: the Rapid Cancer Registration Data set for prostate cancer in males aged 50 to 59 years old, with further information available at the following link:
https://digital.nhs.uk/ndrs/data/data-outputs/cancer-data-hub/rapid-cancer-registration-data-dashboards
Therefore, the total estimated number of men diagnosed with prostate cancer between 50 to 59 years old, over the most recent six months available, is 3,566.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will take steps with Cabinet colleagues to increase funding for cancer research in UK universities.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Research is crucial in tackling cancer, which is why the Department invests over £1.6 billion per year in health research through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). NIHR spent £133 million on cancer research in 2023/24, reflecting its high priority.
The overall budget for research investment is agreed with the Treasury at the outset of each Spending Review period. Our investments in cancer are pivotal to informing efforts to improve cancer prevention, treatment and care.
As well as funding cancer research itself, the Department also invests in centres of excellence, services and facilities to enable and delivery of cancer research in England. This includes NIHR funding for the Experimental Cancer Medicine Centres, a United Kingdom-wide network for delivery of early phase cancer trials, and NIHR’s Biomedical Research Centres, collaborations between world-leading universities and National Health Service organisations, bringing together academics and clinicians to do translational research, including on all cancer types. NIHR also works closely with industry to bring innovative research to the UK. This creates a strong portfolio of work reflecting the need to research early detection and diagnostics to reduce the impact of cancer on the population.
NIHR is the UK’s largest funder of health and care research training, working with universities and the wider health and care system to deliver a comprehensive research career pathway for researchers from the full range of professions. NIHR welcomes applications for training awards from the clinical and non-clinical academic workforce conducting research into any aspect of human health, including cancer. In addition to training applications, NIHR also continue to welcome high quality, high impact funding applications for research into health and care.