Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
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 equality of access to palliative care across England.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Palliative care services are included in the list of services an integrated care board (ICB) must commission. To support ICBs in this duty, NHS England has published statutory guidance and service specifications. The statutory guidance states that ICBs must work to ensure that there is sufficient provision of care services to meet the needs of their local populations.
NHS England has also developed a palliative care and end of life care dashboard, which brings together all relevant local data in one place. The dashboard helps commissioners understand the palliative care and end of life care needs of their local population, enabling ICBs to put plans in place to address and track the improvement of health inequalities, and ensure that funding is distributed fairly, based on prevalence.
The Department and NHS England are currently looking at how to improve the access, quality, and sustainability of all-age palliative care and end of life care in line with the 10-Year Health Plan.
We will closely monitor the shift towards the strategic commissioning of palliative care and end of life care services to ensure that services reduce variation in access and quality, although some variation may be appropriate to reflect both innovation and the needs of local populations.
Additionally, through the National Institute for Health and Care Research, the Department is investing £3 million in a Policy Research Unit in Palliative and End of Life Care. This unit, launched in January 2024, is building the evidence base on palliative care and end of life care, with a specific focus on inequalities.
Whilst the majority of palliative care and end of life care is provided by National Health Service staff and services, we recognise the vital part charitable hospices play as well. This is why we are supporting the hospice sector with a £100 million capital funding boost for eligible adult and children’s hospices in England to ensure they have the best physical environment for care.
We are also providing £26 million in revenue funding to support children and young people’s hospices for 2025/26. I am pleased to confirm the continuation of this vital funding for the next three financial years, from 2026/27 to 2028/29 inclusive. This funding will see approximately £26 million, adjusted for inflation, allocated to children and young people’s hospices in England each year, via their local ICBs on behalf of NHS England, as happened in 2024/25 and 2025/26. This amounts to approximately £80 million over the next three years.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
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 hospice contracts reflect the (a) cost of the services they provide and (b) needs of their local populations.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for the commissioning of palliative care and end of life care services, to meet the needs of their local populations. To support ICBs in this duty, NHS England has published statutory guidance and service specifications. NHS England has also developed a palliative care and end of life care dashboard, which brings together all relevant local data in one place. The dashboard helps commissioners understand the palliative care and end of life care needs of their local population.
Whilst the majority of palliative care and end of life care is provided by National Health Service staff and services, we recognise the vital part that voluntary sector organisations, including hospices, also play in providing support to people at the end of life, and their loved ones.
Most hospices are charitable, independent organisations which receive some statutory funding for providing NHS services. The amount of funding each charitable hospice receives varies both within and between ICB areas. This will vary depending on demand in that ICB area but will also be dependent on the totality and type of palliative and end of life care provision from both NHS and non-NHS services, including charitable hospices, within each ICB area.
The Department and NHS England are currently looking at how to improve the access, quality, and sustainability of all-age palliative care and end of life care in line with the 10- Year Health Plan. We will closely monitor the shift towards the strategic commissioning of palliative care and end of life care services to ensure that services reduce variation in access and quality, although some variation may be appropriate to reflect both innovation and the needs of local populations.
Additionally, we are supporting the hospice sector with a £100 million capital funding boost for eligible adult and children’s hospices in England to ensure they have the best physical environment for care.
We are also providing £26 million in revenue funding to support children and young people’s hospices for 2025/26. I am pleased to confirm the continuation of this vital funding for the next three financial years, from 2026/27 to 2028/29 inclusive. This funding will see approximately £26 million, adjusted for inflation, allocated to children and young people’s hospices in England each year, via their local ICBs on behalf of NHS England, as happened in 2024/25 and 2025/26. This amounts to approximately £80 million over the next three years.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
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 the accessibility of cervical screening in the context of the proposed merging of Integrated Care Boards.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The merging of smaller integrated care boards will help to ensure that they have the capacity and capability to be effective strategic commissioners for all the services for the local population for which they are responsible, including elements of cervical screening.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress he has made on the roll out of HPV vaccination through community pharmacies for people who missed out at school.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to improving vaccine uptake and access across all immunisation programmes by exploring new and innovative delivery models, including expanding routes such as community pharmacies, as set out in the NHS Vaccination Strategy and the 10-Year Health Plan for England.
The Department is working with the UK Health Security Agency and NHS England to develop options for delivering human papilloma virus catch-up vaccination through community pharmacies from 2026, with the ambition to increase uptake among younger adults who have left school, supporting our aim to eliminate cervical cancer by 2040.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of the country has access to the national lung cancer screening programme.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Health Service will build on its recent successes, including roll-out of the National Lung Cancer Screening Programme, to diagnose cancer earlier and boost survival rates. Funding for national lung screening is set by NHS England and the timescale for full implementation of the National Lung Cancer Screening Programme will be specified in due course.
The NHS is currently rolling out the National Lung Cancer Screening Programme to people with a history of smoking. The public health functions agreement between NHS England and the Department sets out that the Lung Cancer Screening Programme has a target to invite 50% of the eligible population by the end of March 2026.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
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 GP (a) training in and (b) awareness of (i) endometriosis and (ii) women’s health issues in general.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
General practitioners (GPs) are responsible for ensuring that their own clinical knowledge, including on endometriosis and women’s health issues in general, remains up-to-date, and for identifying learning needs as part of their continuing professional development.
All United Kingdom registered doctors are expected to meet the professional standards set out in the General Medical Council’s (GMC’s) Good Medical Practice. The training curriculum for postgraduate trainee doctors is set by the Royal College of General Practitioners, and must meet the standards set by the GMC.
The GMC has introduced the Medical Licensing Assessment to encourage a better understanding of common women’s health problems among all doctors as they start their careers in the UK. The content map for this assessment includes several topics relating to women’s health including menstrual problems, endometriosis, menopause and urinary incontinence. This will encourage a better understanding of common women’s health problems among all doctors as they start their careers in the UK. Endometriosis is also included in the core curriculum for trainee GPs, and for obstetricians and gynaecologists.
In November 2024, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence updated their guideline on endometriosis which makes firmer recommendations for healthcare professionals on referral and investigations for women with suspected diagnosis. This guidance is available at the following link:
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng73
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
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 adequacy of the capacity in the whole genome sequencing programme for the treatment of less survivable cancers.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Genomic testing in the National Health Service in England is provided through the NHS Genomic Medicine Service (GMS) as directed by the National Genomic Test Directory (NGTD), which includes tests for over 7,000 rare diseases with an associated genetic cause and over 200 cancer clinical indications, including both whole genome sequencing (WGS) and non-WGS testing. The NGTD sets out the eligibility criteria for patients to access testing as well as the genomic targets to be tested and the method that should be used.
WGS is available on the NGTD for all paediatric and central nervous system tumours where there is a clear, clinical question and where results have expected utility/impact. WGS for all other adult solid tumours, including less survivable cancers, can be performed where there is a clinical need and where results are likely to change clinical management.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
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 access to (a) mental health and (b) pain management support for people with endometriosis.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Long wait times are a feature of a system in desperate need of change. On mental health, we are already responding by delivering new, innovative models of care in the community, including piloting six neighbourhood adult mental health centres, operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to bring together community, crisis and inpatient care.
We are also recruiting an additional 8,500 mental health workers to ensure people can access treatment and support earlier with 6,700 of these having been recruited since July 2024. We are prioritising expansions of Talking Therapies and Individual Placement and Support schemes, supporting those with mild to moderate mental illness through earlier intervention.
Additionally, the National Institute for Health and Care Research, the research delivery arm of the Department, funds a range of research to support women’s health conditions, including endometriosis. Funding has been awarded to studies seeking to improve outcomes for women with endometriosis by better understanding the condition, enabling earlier diagnosis, and evaluating current and emerging treatment options. This includes research on mental health and pain management support for people with endometriosis.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
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 tackle inequalities in early diagnosis of bowel cancer caused by late presentation by patients to health services.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Reducing unwarranted variation in cancer treatment and diagnosing cancer, including bowel cancer, earlier are high priorities for the National Health Service. The National Cancer Plan will include further details on what will be done to improve outcomes for cancer patients, as well as speeding up diagnosis and treatment, and ensuring patients have access to the latest treatments and technology, including for bowel cancer patients.
The bowel cancer screening standards have recently been reviewed by NHS England with representatives from the Department included, with changes taking effect from 1 April 2025. This will update the achievable and acceptable thresholds for both uptake and coverage. To further increase coverage across the population in England, NHS England is delivering new approaches to communicating with people about screening through the NHS App. NHS England is also working on improvements to the way eligible people are identified and invited for screening through the transformation of screening programme digital services.
NHS England runs Help Us Help You campaigns to increase knowledge of cancer symptoms and address barriers to acting on them, to encourage people to come forward as soon as possible to see their general practitioner. The campaigns run across England and are publicly accessible. The campaigns focus on a range of symptoms, as well as encouraging body awareness to help people spot symptoms across a wide range of cancers at an earlier point. Previous phases of the campaigns have focused on abdominal symptoms which, among other abdominal cancers, can be indicative of bowel cancer. It is the responsibility of local National Health Service organisations to consider whether they wish to run additional campaigns tailored to the needs of their local population and aligned to their service provision.
Reducing inequalities and variation in cancer care, including for bowel cancer, is a priority for the Government. The NHS England Cancer Programme commissions clinical cancer audits, which provide timely evidence for cancer service providers of where patterns of care in England may vary, increase the consistency of access to treatments, and help stimulate improvements in cancer treatment and outcomes for patients. Rather than a single audit, NHS England commissions ten audits, by tumour type, including for bowel cancer. On 31 December 2024, the National Cancer Audit Collaborating Centre published its State of the Nation Report on Bowel Cancer, and the initial recommendations are informing improvements in treatment and care.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
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 increase the rates of early diagnosis of bowel cancer.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Reducing unwarranted variation in cancer treatment and diagnosing cancer, including bowel cancer, earlier are high priorities for the National Health Service. The National Cancer Plan will include further details on what will be done to improve outcomes for cancer patients, as well as speeding up diagnosis and treatment, and ensuring patients have access to the latest treatments and technology, including for bowel cancer patients.
The bowel cancer screening standards have recently been reviewed by NHS England with representatives from the Department included, with changes taking effect from 1 April 2025. This will update the achievable and acceptable thresholds for both uptake and coverage. To further increase coverage across the population in England, NHS England is delivering new approaches to communicating with people about screening through the NHS App. NHS England is also working on improvements to the way eligible people are identified and invited for screening through the transformation of screening programme digital services.
NHS England runs Help Us Help You campaigns to increase knowledge of cancer symptoms and address barriers to acting on them, to encourage people to come forward as soon as possible to see their general practitioner. The campaigns run across England and are publicly accessible. The campaigns focus on a range of symptoms, as well as encouraging body awareness to help people spot symptoms across a wide range of cancers at an earlier point. Previous phases of the campaigns have focused on abdominal symptoms which, among other abdominal cancers, can be indicative of bowel cancer. It is the responsibility of local National Health Service organisations to consider whether they wish to run additional campaigns tailored to the needs of their local population and aligned to their service provision.
Reducing inequalities and variation in cancer care, including for bowel cancer, is a priority for the Government. The NHS England Cancer Programme commissions clinical cancer audits, which provide timely evidence for cancer service providers of where patterns of care in England may vary, increase the consistency of access to treatments, and help stimulate improvements in cancer treatment and outcomes for patients. Rather than a single audit, NHS England commissions ten audits, by tumour type, including for bowel cancer. On 31 December 2024, the National Cancer Audit Collaborating Centre published its State of the Nation Report on Bowel Cancer, and the initial recommendations are informing improvements in treatment and care.