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 assessment he has made of the potential impact of the extension to the Healthy Start scheme to families with no recourse to public funds.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department ran a consultation, Eligibility for Healthy Start for groups that have no recourse to public funds or are subject to immigration controls, which provided examples of the potential impacts of extending Healthy Start to families with no recourse to public funds. The consultation has now closed, and the Department is currently considering options following the consultation. Further information will be available in due course.
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 received spirometry testing in community diagnostic centres in 2025.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
As of December 2025, community diagnostic centres (CDCs) are now delivering additional tests and checks on 170 sites across the country.
Spirometry with bronchodilator response is a minimum test requirement of all standard and large CDCs. It is therefore expected that all fully operational standard and large CDCs offer this service.
CDC programme funded diagnostic test activity is reported from management information collected monthly. Spirometry test activity is included as part of the ‘other respiratory’ category. 307,866 ‘other respiratory’ tests have been delivered between January 2025 and the end of October 2025, the latest published data. Spirometry is not recorded separately and so individual testing volumes are not held in the format requested. CDC management information, including a list of tests categorised under the ‘other respiratory’ grouping, can be found 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, how many community diagnostic centres have spirometry equipment.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
As of December 2025, community diagnostic centres (CDCs) are now delivering additional tests and checks on 170 sites across the country.
Spirometry with bronchodilator response is a minimum test requirement of all standard and large CDCs. It is therefore expected that all fully operational standard and large CDCs offer this service.
CDC programme funded diagnostic test activity is reported from management information collected monthly. Spirometry test activity is included as part of the ‘other respiratory’ category. 307,866 ‘other respiratory’ tests have been delivered between January 2025 and the end of October 2025, the latest published data. Spirometry is not recorded separately and so individual testing volumes are not held in the format requested. CDC management information, including a list of tests categorised under the ‘other respiratory’ grouping, can be found 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, how many people are on ENT waiting lists in England.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
As of October 2025, there are 613,974 incomplete ear, nose, and throat patient pathways. Patient pathways are not equivalent to the number of people on the waiting list, as patients can be waiting for more than one treatment at the same time.
A dashboard that provides monthly data on patient pathways is also available at the following link:
https://data.england.nhs.uk/dashboard/rtt
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 admitted to hospital in the last month with Flu A.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England began publishing Winter Situation Reports on 24 November, meaning data on flu-specific bed occupancy is only available from this date onwards.
Between 24 November and 7 December, an average of 2,189 hospital beds were occupied by patients with flu across all acute settings, including both General and Acute and Critical Care beds.
These figures are published in the NHS England Winter Situation Reports which are 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, what steps he is taking to improve CAMHS referral times.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We know too many children and young people are waiting too long for mental health support and through our Plan for Change, we’re determined to give children and young people the best start in life.
The Government is expanding access to mental health support teams in all schools and colleges to reach all pupils by 2029, ensuring that every pupil has access to early support services. This expansion will ensure that up to 900,000 more children and young people will have access to support from trained education mental health practitioners in 2025/26.
More widely, we are, rolling out Young Futures Hubs. The Government’s first 50 Young Futures Hubs will bring together services at a local level to support children and young people, helping to ensure that young people can access early advice and wellbeing intervention. We will work to ensure there is no wrong door for young people who need support with their mental health.
We have also committed to hiring 8,500 more mental health staff to reduce waiting times. Thus far, we have hired almost 7,000 extra mental health workers since July 2024.
Furthermore, the Medium Term Planning Framework is also asking integrated care boards to prioritise eliminating the longest waits of over a year for children and young people to ensure timely access to care and better mental health outcomes.
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 assessment has been made of the adequacy of the current palliative care strategy.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is developing a Palliative Care and End of Life Care Modern Service Framework (MSF) for England.
The MSF will drive improvements in the services that patients and their families receive at the end of life and will enable integrated care boards to address challenges in access, quality, and sustainability through the delivery of high-quality, personalised care. This will be aligned with the ambitions set out in the recently published 10-Year Health Plan.
It would not be right to pre-empt exactly what will be in the final MSF at this time, as we develop it with our palliative care and end of life stakeholders. It is our intention to work together with those stakeholders to ensure that everyone has access to the care they need, in the right place, at the right time. As part of the MSF, we have invited representatives from a number of organisations to engage with us as part of this process, which has already commenced.
Further information about the MSF is set out in the Written Ministerial Statement HCWS1087, which I gave on 24 November 2025.
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 unregistered pharmacies that are operating.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Pharmacy is a protected title in law, and it is a criminal offence for a business to engage in regulated activity, for example supplying pharmacy only medicines to the public, and call themselves ‘a pharmacy’ if they are not registered with the pharmacy regulator. Any concerns about a business that is operating as a pharmacy while not being registered should be raised with either the General Pharmaceutical Council for Great Britain or the Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency Criminal Enforcement Unit (MHRA CEU) actively seeks to identify individuals involved in unlawful activity. Where appropriate, the MHRA CEU prosecutes those who put public health at risk, although are not able to release information on the number of ongoing investigations.
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 the department are taking to mark international day of disabled people.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department has not taken any specific steps to mark International Day of Persons with Disabilities this year. However, we remain committed to championing the rights of disabled people.
As the Lead Minister for Disability (LMD) for the Department, I will continue to work with fellow LMDs across the Government towards our shared goal of breaking down barriers to opportunity for disabled people.
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, whether he is taking steps to raise awareness of grief awareness week.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government understands the importance and significance of National Grief Awareness Week. Grief is something we will all encounter during our lives, and it’s important that grieving families and friends who have lost loved ones have access to the support they need, when they need it.
As part of National Grief Awareness Week 2025, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Patient Safety, Women’s Health and Mental Health met with the UK Commission on Bereavement. This was highlighted on social media, with further information available at the following link:
Furthermore, the Department chairs the cross-Government Bereavement Working Group, with representatives from over 10 departments, to consider options to improve bereavement support and services.