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 avoid creating a single point of failure in PET-CT diagnostic services.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England’s specialised commissioning function commissions positron emission tomography computed tomography (PET-CT) diagnostic services and is responsible for ensuring that there is sufficient capacity across England to meet planned demand. To avoid creating a single point of failure in these services, NHS England has ensured that PET-CT services in England are delivered by a range of different organisations, including National Health Service trusts, the independent sector, and charities, often working in partnership. They help to provide resilience across the system.
NHS England is in the process of reprocuring some PET-CT services to replace current contracts that are due to expire at the end of March 2027. NHS England has recently concluded a round of market engagement on its proposals. NHS England has not yet finalised its proposals for the procurement, as the point of market engagement is to receive feedback and take this into account in the final design.
PET-CT scans use isotopes from a comprehensive network of United Kingdom based cyclotrons. The Government has made up to £520 million available through the Life Sciences Innovative Manufacturing Fund to support UK manufacture of medicine and medical technology products. This includes applications looking to establish, expand, or improve UK-based manufacture of medical radioisotopes for diagnostic or therapeutic applications.
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 plans his Department has to address multiple sclerosis in the updated Women’s Health Strategy; and whether there will be discussions on how this can inform development of the Northern Ireland Women’s Health Action Plan.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We know that women can be impacted by a range of different health conditions at the same time, including those that only affect women, those that affect women differently or more severely to men, or those that affect everyone equally. This is why the renewed Women’s Health Strategy will set out how we are improving experiences and outcomes for all women as we deliver the 10-Year Health Plan.
At the national level, there are a number of initiatives supporting service improvement and better care for patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), including the RightCare Progressive Neurological Conditions Toolkit and the Getting It Right First Time Programme for Neurology.
We have set up a United Kingdom-wide Neuro Forum, facilitating formal, biannual meetings across the Department, NHS England, the devolved administrations and health services, and Neurological Alliances of all four nations. The new forum brings key stakeholders together, to share learnings across the system and discuss challenges, best practice examples and potential solutions for improving the care of people with neurological conditions, including MS.
Health policy and delivery are devolved to the administration of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. As a UK Government department, the Department of Health and Social Care engages constructively and works collaboratively with the devolved administrations on areas of shared interest, including information sharing, coordination, and issues that have UK wide or cross-border implications.
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 admissions for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease have changed since the start of the winter season; and what geographical variation there has been in those admissions.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The information requested is not collected centrally. NHS England publishes annual data on the number of admissions with a primary diagnosis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. In 2024/25, there were 121,506 admissions. This data is available at the following link:
NHS England also publishes 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 assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of changes to PET-CT procurement in England on diagnostic access for patients from Northern Ireland who rely on specialist capacity elsewhere in the UK.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England is in the process of reprocuring some positron emission tomography computed tomography (PET-CT) services to replace current contracts that are due to expire at the end of March 2027. The geographies covered by the existing contracts will continue to be covered under the new arrangements, so no impact on diagnostic access is expected for patients from Northern Ireland who rely on specialist capacity elsewhere in the United Kingdom. The current arrangements for patients travelling to England for PET-CT and other treatments remains unchanged.
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.