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 his Department has made of the potential merits of lowering the age at which women are offered their first smear test.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The cervical screening age in the United Kingdom was officially changed from 20 to 25 years old in 2003. This decision was made by the Advisory Committee on Cervical Cancer Screening which advised the NHS Cervical Screening Programme to raise the starting age due to evidence that screening younger women could do more harm than good. This is because: cervical abnormalities are common in women under 25 years old, but they usually resolve naturally; screening could lead to unnecessary treatments, which carry risks such as increased chances of pre-term delivery; and cervical cancer is extremely rare in women under 25 years old.
Since then, the human papillomavirus vaccination programme has been introduced, which means the vast majority of women under 29 years old have been offered the vaccine that protects against most forms of cervical 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, what steps she is taking to increase the number of early interventions for prostate cancer.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Early cancer diagnosis remains a key priority for the Government, and we recognise the importance of implementing early interventions to provide faster diagnoses and quicker access to treatment, including for patients with prostate cancer.
To help develop early interventions for prostate cancer, the Government has invested £16 million into the Prostate Cancer UK-led TRANSFORM screening trial, which aims to identify more effective approaches for detecting prostate cancer earlier. The UK National Screening Committee, which independently advises ministers, is also reviewing the evidence for both population-wide and targeted prostate cancer screening.
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 much funding was allocated to immunisation programmes in each financial year since 2022-23.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We have interpreted “allocated” here to mean overall expenditure on vaccination and immunisation programmes. The expenditure by NHS England and the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) on vaccination and immunisation programmes, including associated costs, is set out below. In total, the expenditure on vaccination and immunisation programmes across NHS England and the UKHSA was approximately:
These figures cover spend across England, except for COVID-19 vaccine procurement and associated costs, which are on a United Kingdom-wide basis.
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 his Department has undertaken research into the potential impact of anti-depressants during pregnancy on unborn babies.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department through its research delivery arm, the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), has funded research into this topic. Examples of relevant research include a study exploring antidepressant use during pregnancy to assess the benefits to mothers and long-term neurodevelopmental risks to children, and a project which aimed to create a computerised decision support tool to guide discussions between doctors and pregnant women about medication risks and benefits, ensuring a balance between maternal health and foetal protection.
In addition, the NIHR has supported research which investigated Neonatal Adaptation Syndrome, a cluster of symptoms like jitteriness and feeding difficulties, in babies exposed to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors or selective noradrenaline reuptake inhibitors antidepressants in utero. This research aimed to understand the experiences of mothers and monitoring practices.
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 help find rare blood type donors.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) is the organisation responsible for blood services in England. NHSBT works to find and encourage people with rare blood types to give blood to ensure blood of all types is available for patients when needed.
In addition to routine extended antigen typing, which enables many rare donors to be identified, NHSBT’s Rare Donor Screening Programme tests approximately 25,000 donors annually, for additional blood group antigens, to identify donors with rare blood types. This testing helps to maintain a national rare donor panel containing extremely rare types.
Furthermore, NHSBT’s Rare Donor Clinical Team contacts donors and actively manages their donation schedule via a special call up process. This team also works closely with hospitals to identify patients and their siblings as potential new donors. To ensure the timely availability of blood, blood from rare donors may also be frozen and stored in the National Frozen Blood Bank and thawed when required for patients.
Finally, NHSBT also contributes to the International Rare Donor Panel which contains details of donors of rare blood types from 27 contributing countries and frozen unit inventories from frozen blood banks around the world. Further information on the International Rare Donor Panel is available at the following link:
https://www.nhsbt.nhs.uk/ibgrl/services/international-rare-donor-panel/
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 active legal cases are open against the NHS.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS Resolution (NHSR) manages clinical negligence and other claims against the National Health Service in England.
NHSR handles negligence claims on behalf of the members of their indemnity schemes. The indemnity schemes are divided into clinical and non-clinical negligence schemes.
Clinical negligence schemes:
Non clinical negligence schemes:
NHSR has provided the attached information:
Table 1: Number of Clinical and Non-Clinical Claims received between Financial Years '2006/07' and '2024/25' where the status of the claim was open as at 31/03/2025. Broken down by Scheme (as noted above).
Table 2: Number of Clinical and Non-Clinical Claims and Incidents received between Financial Years '2006/07' and '2024/25' where the status was 'Open' or 'Incident' as at 31/03/2025. Broken down by Scheme (as noted above).
Note: NHSR defines an ‘open’ claim as one where NHSR is yet to settle or claims that have settled but remain open, where NHSR are yet to agree costs. NHSR has not included cases which are settled but remain open due to ongoing periodical order payments.
The distinction between Table 1 and Table 2 is that Table 2 includes incidents reported to NHSR that have not yet progressed to a formal notification of claim. NHSR encourages its members and beneficiaries to report such incidents directly, even prior to the receipt of a claim.
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 his Department has made of the potential merits of integrating psychological support into care pathways for people with rare diseases.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to improving the lives of those living with rare diseases and continues to make progress under the UK Rare Diseases Framework. Mental health and psychological support has featured as a focus area under England’s rare diseases action plans, the most recent of which was published in February 2025. Access to psychological support for people with rare diseases is underpinned by National Health Service service specifications. In addition, the NHS National Genomics Education Programme provides information to health care professionals, including on mental health and rare disease. This includes setting out how the mental health of rare disease patients requires assessment, and that monitoring should be an integral part of care plans, considered equally as important as physical health.
More widely, the 10-Year Health Plan sets out ambitious plans to transform mental health services to improve access and treatment, and to promote good mental health and wellbeing for the nation. This includes improving assertive outreach, investing in mental health emergency departments and neighbourhood mental health centres, and increasing access to talking therapies and evidence-based digital interventions.
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 hire more GPs.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We are starting to see consistent growth in the general practitioner (GP) workforce. There was an overall increase of 440 full-time equivalent, or 1,298 headcount, doctors in GPs in September 2025 compared to September 2024.
The Government committed to recruiting over 1,000 recently qualified GPs in primary care networks (PCNs) through a £160 million investment into the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS) over 2024/25. This is part of our initiative to secure the future pipeline of GPs, with over 1,000 doctors otherwise likely to graduate into unemployment in 2024/25. Data on the number of recently qualified GPs for which PCNs are claiming reimbursement via the ARRS show that, since 1 October 2024, over 2,500 GPs were recruited through the scheme.
Newly qualified GPs employed under the ARRS will continue to receive support under the scheme in the coming year as part of the 2025/26 contract. Several changes have been confirmed to increase the flexibility of the ARRS. These include: GPs and practice nurses being included in the main ARRS funding pot; an uplift of the maximum reimbursable rate for GPs in the scheme; and no caps on the number of GPs that can be employed through the scheme.
We are boosting practice finances by investing an additional £1,092 million in GPs to reinforce the front door of the National Health Service, bringing total spend on the GP Contract to £13.4 billion in 2025/26. This is the biggest increase in over a decade. The 8.9% boost to the GP Contract in 2025/26 is faster than the 5.8% growth to the NHS budget as a whole.
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 raise awareness of osteoporosis.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
In July, we published the 10-Year Health Plan, which committed to rolling out Fracture Liaison Services across every part of the country by 2030.
The National Fracture Liaison Service database is a clinically-led national audit of secondary fracture prevention in England and Wales, commissioned by the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership and delivered by the Royal College of Physicians. It collects and publishes data on individual Fracture Liaison Services and uses internationally recognised standards as the key performance indicators that these services are measured against. The data is publicly available.
Additionally, the National Health Service website, along with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence and the Royal Osteoporosis Society, has information and resources for patients to learn about osteoporosis, including advice on how to manage osteoporosis and advice on lifestyle changes that patients can make to improve their bone health and reduce their risk of fractures. The Royal College of General Practitioners’ e-learning module on the diagnosis and management of osteoporosis also suggests resources that clinicians can use with their patients.
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 people being treated for prostate cancer.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The latest Cancer Waiting Times data published by NHS England shows that 4,441 people started their first treatment for prostate cancer in August 2025 under the 31-day cancer waiting time standard.