Asked by: Luke Evans (Conservative - Hinckley and Bosworth)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to WPQ 95192 answered on 11 December 2025 about men's health, will he include information about the mental and physical health impact of [a] anabolic steroids and [b] ipeds as part of the men's health literacy programme announced as part of the Men's Health Strategy.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
As set out in the Men’s Health Strategy, we have committed to a range of actions to improve men’s health literacy, from building the evidence base to identifying ways to build media and health literacy skills in men.
We are now turning our focus to implementing these commitments. We will consider the evidence base on anabolic steroids and image and performance enhancing drugs in defining the scope of our actions.
By investing in innovative, evidence-based, and locally led community programs, we aim to address health inequalities, improve health literacy, and challenge societal norms that may hinder men from seeking care. This targeted approach lays the foundation for long-term, meaningful change in men's health outcomes.
Asked by: Luke Evans (Conservative - Hinckley and Bosworth)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to WPQ 94952 answered on 10 December 2025 about Crohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis, what steps is [a] DHASC and [b} NHS England taking to monitor the effectiveness of the Getting it Right First Time (GIRFT) programme in the field of supporting people living with Chrohn's disease and Ulcerative Colitis.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England supports local integrated care boards to deliver high-quality, timely services through initiatives such as the Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) programme.
As part of its work within the gastroenterology specialty, GIRFT is sharing a template and best practice for the use of advice and guidance, and advice and referencing to promote earlier diagnosis, and is also encouraging the use of single point of access models, which can help patients get earlier access to specialist opinions, advice, and treatment.
GIRFT has also recently published a new inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) handbook pulling together examples of innovative practice, proven solutions, and practical actions to help optimise the care of National Health Service patients with IBD. The GIRFT IBD pathway and associated handbook include specific guidance for paediatric care and transition to adult services, recognising the unique needs of children and young people with Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. The handbook is available at the following link:
GIRFT is also working with providers on a Further Faster Follow-Up programme, which introduces key protocols for gastroenterology, with IBD and suspected IBD being included, and is also collaborating on national work to develop a digital IBD pathway. It is too early to assess the effectiveness of these initiatives.
Asked by: Luke Evans (Conservative - Hinckley and Bosworth)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 1 December 2025 to Question 87412, how many applications have been received to NHS England’s voluntary redundancy scheme.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England’s voluntary redundancy scheme opened on 1 December 2025 and closed for applications on 16 December 2025. Applications to the scheme are currently being reviewed.
Our ambition is to let as many people leave voluntarily as possible and alongside ongoing recruitment controls and natural staff turnover, we believe this will allow us to make significant progress towards the 50% headcount reduction.
Asked by: Luke Evans (Conservative - Hinckley and Bosworth)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 1 December 2025 to Question 87412, if he will make an estimate of the potential cost of the applications received to NHS England’s voluntary redundancy scheme.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The estimated overall cost of redundancy exits across the Department, NHS England, integrated care boards (ICBs) and commissioning support units is estimated at approximately £1 billion to £1.3 billion. This calculated estimate was informed by inputs from subject matter experts across both organisations, including human resources, the transformation team, and other relevant functions, to ensure that the estimate reflected the full range of financial and operational implications, as well as staff exit estimates provided by ICBs. The process included designing modelling frameworks, integrating workforce data, stress-testing scenarios and ensuring alignment between the Department’s and NHS England’s finance teams.
The redundancy and restructuring programme is now in the stage of active policy development. Final costs are subject to actual take-up of exit schemes and calculated individual costs, which is being continuously monitored.
Asked by: Luke Evans (Conservative - Hinckley and Bosworth)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what materials will be provided by the Government for the (a) the Premier League and (b) Samaritans in the Together Against Suicide Partnership.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
As part of England's first ever Men's Health Strategy, the Government announced a groundbreaking partnership with the Premier League to tackle male suicide and improve health literacy. We will work with the Premier League to co-create materials that promote signposting to existing mental health and suicide prevention support. The partnership will also champion NHS England’s new Staying Safe from Suicide guidance, embedding its principles across club staff and driving adoption of the associated e-learning among mental health practitioners within club networks, ensuring best practice reaches those supporting players and fans. Further information on the Staying Safe from Suicide guidance and the associated e-learning is available, respectively, at the following two links:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/staying-safe-from-suicide/#
https://www.minded.org.uk/Component/Details/849008
Asked by: Luke Evans (Conservative - Hinckley and Bosworth)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to continue the Mental Health Investment Standard.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Despite the challenging fiscal environment, the Department expects all integrated care boards to continue to meet the Mental Health Investment Standard in 2025/26. Spending on mental health support in 2025/26 is forecast to increase compared with 2024/25, reaching £15.6 billion. This represents an increase of £688 million in cash terms.
The Government recognises the need for a new approach to mental health in order to reduce waiting times, improve the quality of care, and increase the productivity of mental health services. Funding is a key component of this. The NHS Medium Term Planning Framework therefore sets out that integrated care boards will be required to meet the Mental Health Investment Standard over the next three years by protecting mental health spending in real terms, ensuring that spending increases in line with inflation.
Asked by: Luke Evans (Conservative - Hinckley and Bosworth)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 2 December 2025 to Question 87411 on NHS England: Redundancy, what proportion of the £860 million will be spent in each financial year.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The £860 million figure reflects funding brought forward from the Department’s 2025 Spending Review settlement. It will be brought forward to earlier years to bring NHS England into the Department, resulting in one organisation, and significantly reducing integrated care board running costs. This investment now will deliver savings of at least £1 billion per year by the end of this Parliament. This reprofiling was agreed following detailed discussions with HM Treasury and was announced at the Budget in November 2025.
The cost estimates to support this reprofiling were calculated jointly by the Department and NHS England’s finance teams, with input from subject matter experts. The calculations remain subject to ongoing policy development and refinement as part of wider transformation planning and prioritisation. Relevant material financial information will be published in due course in line with transparency obligations.
The profile by financial year has been published by HM Treasury within table 4.1, page 90, line 38 of the 2025 Budget policy paper, a copy of which is attached. It should be noted that these figures represent United Kingdom-wide allocations informed by the Barnett formula, rather than the England-only value referenced in the question.
Asked by: Luke Evans (Conservative - Hinckley and Bosworth)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to question 87411, if he will publish the calculations for the figure of £860 million.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The £860 million figure reflects funding brought forward from the Department’s 2025 Spending Review settlement. It will be brought forward to earlier years to bring NHS England into the Department, resulting in one organisation, and significantly reducing integrated care board running costs. This investment now will deliver savings of at least £1 billion per year by the end of this Parliament. This reprofiling was agreed following detailed discussions with HM Treasury and was announced at the Budget in November 2025.
The cost estimates to support this reprofiling were calculated jointly by the Department and NHS England’s finance teams, with input from subject matter experts. The calculations remain subject to ongoing policy development and refinement as part of wider transformation planning and prioritisation. Relevant material financial information will be published in due course in line with transparency obligations.
The profile by financial year has been published by HM Treasury within table 4.1, page 90, line 38 of the 2025 Budget policy paper, a copy of which is attached. It should be noted that these figures represent United Kingdom-wide allocations informed by the Barnett formula, rather than the England-only value referenced in the question.
Asked by: Luke Evans (Conservative - Hinckley and Bosworth)
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 ensure that the patterns of social engagement by young men about issues concerning (a) anabolic steroids and (b) image and performance enhancing drugs are captured as part of improving men's health literacy.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
On 19 November 2025, to coincide with International Men’s Health Day, we published the first ever Men’s Health Strategy for England. The strategy includes tangible actions to improve access to healthcare, provide the right support to enable men to make healthier choices, develop healthy living and working conditions, foster strong social, community, and family networks, and address societal norms. It also considers how to prevent and tackle the biggest health problems affecting men of all ages, which include mental health and suicide prevention, respiratory illness, prostate cancer, and heart disease.
We are taking a range of actions to improve men’s health literacy. For example, our landmark partnership with the Premier League will bring together football clubs and the Government to improve health literacy, particularly around mental health and suicide prevention. We are also ensuring health literacy improvements are embedded at the community level, building the evidence base on heath literacy in men, and identifying ways to build media literacy skills in men to help them critically assess health information and protect against misinformation that harms health.
We will consider the impacts on young men in the implementation of the strategy. The strategy sets up a strong foundation for improving how we think and act on men's health and we will learn, iterate, and adapt as new challenges emerge. As a first step, we will work with the Men's Health Academic Network and the voluntary, community, and social enterprise sector to develop and publish a one-year-on report, highlighting the improvements made and where future efforts will need to be targeted.