Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has plans to review NHS targets to incentivise improvements in patient experience and outcomes.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government is committed to putting patients first. This means making sure patients are seen on time and ensuring people have the best possible experience of care. Our efforts to improve patient experience will be patient-led and co-developed to support and empower the people who use services within the National Health Service.

In the Elective Reform Plan, published on 6 January 2025, the Government committed to work with patients, carers and their representatives to publish the standards patients should expect to experience while they wait for care. Once published, these standards will set an expectation to all Trusts about the service they are expected to deliver. We will continue to work with patients and carers to build on this work and establish a gold standard for experience.

We will support NHS trusts to prioritise experience of care by ensuring they make customer care training available to non-clinical staff with patient facing roles, as well as ensuring the take up of training already available on the e-Referral Services to support more effective referral, booking and waiting list management processes. NHS trusts will also be required to name an existing director who will be responsible for improving experience of care.

The Department will also make improvements to patient experience on a national level; for example, by expanding the NHS App and Manage Your Referral website to improve information and appointment management for patients, as well as parents and carers through proxy access.

Additionally, in January 2025, NHS England published NHS Planning Guidance for 2025-26, setting out the first steps for reform, and the immediate actions for systems to take to deliver on the Government’s objectives. Acting on findings from the Darzi review, instructions to the NHS have been stripped down to what matters most to patients, including, for instance, improving patient experience of access to general practice as measured by the Office for National Statistics’ Health Insights Survey and shifting focus from inputs to outcomes for patients.

Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, how the Department plans to ensure online marketplaces have a duty to notify consumers who have been sold (a) unsafe and (b) illegal products.

Answered by Justin Madders - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)

UK product safety law is clear: all products must be safe. Despite this, unsafe products are too readily available to consumers online. The Government has introduced the Product Regulation and Metrology Bill to allow us to update our regulatory framework, including clarifying and modernising responsibilities of online marketplaces, building on best practice, to create an effective and proportionate framework.

Alongside this, the Office for Product Safety and Standards takes action to reduce risks from non-compliant products online, including risk-based intelligence-led test purchasing, enforcement of online marketplaces and others, consumer and business advice campaigns, and coordinated interventions at ports and borders.

Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps he is taking to ensure that online marketplaces are accountable for the sale of unsafe products on their platforms.

Answered by Justin Madders - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)

UK product safety law is clear: all products must be safe. Despite this, unsafe products are too readily available to consumers online. The Government has introduced the Product Regulation and Metrology Bill to allow us to update our regulatory framework, including clarifying and modernising responsibilities of online marketplaces, building on best practice, to create an effective and proportionate framework.

Alongside this, the Office for Product Safety and Standards takes action to reduce risks from non-compliant products online, including risk-based intelligence-led test purchasing, enforcement of online marketplaces and others, consumer and business advice campaigns, and coordinated interventions at ports and borders.

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department plans to establish a fully (a) funded, (b) staffed and (c) equipped national Asian Hornet Task Force to tackle the threat posed by the Asian Hornet Wasp.

Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

The response to Yellow-legged hornet (YLH) also known as Asian hornet, is carried out by the Animal and Plant Health Agency’s (APHA) National Bee Unit (NBU). The NBU has been taking action against YLH since 2016 and has developed a fine-tuned response. In 2024, 24 nests were located and destroyed, compared to 72 nests in 2023. They frequently find a nest within a day of an initial sighting being reported.

The NBU are able to draw on further resources from wider APHA to manage the impact on other areas of NBU work including taking action on notifiable bee diseases, while continuing to provide an effective response to YLH.

Genetic analysis of hornet samples, conducted by Fera Science Ltd., also aids the response. Results from the analyses of nests destroyed in 2024, have been used to identify areas where there is a higher risk of hornets overwintering. In 2025, spring trapping will be carried out by the NBU in these areas. Although evidence was found that hornets had overwintered in 2023 this is not considered to be strong evidence of an established YLH population.

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 help increase the uptake of patient-initiated follow-up for people with long-term conditions.

Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

Patient Initiated Follow Up (PIFU) is one way in which the Government will reform follow up care to ensure more optimised and productive clinical pathways. Offering PIFU to patients gives them greater choice and control, where it is clinically recommended, so they can decide if/when they require follow up care. This in turn reduces low value follow up appointments, freeing up hospital capacity for patients who need it.

The Elective Reform Plan, published in January 2025, commits to offering PIFU to patients with long-term conditions as standard in all appropriate pathways by March 2026, and to support the expansion of PIFU to at least 5% of all outpatient appointments by March 2029. The Government will implement digital and technology solutions to support this expansion, including piloting digital options for signing-up patients for PIFU via the NHS App and enhancing how patients suitable for PIFU are identified using artificial intelligence and automation.

In addition, remote monitoring of conditions at home or away from direct clinical settings can help support PIFU by helping inform patients and their healthcare teams about any changes in their condition, ensuring follow-up appointments only happen when clinically needed. We will expand remote monitoring by using Patient Engagement Portals and the NHS App to host digital questionnaires, integrating remote monitoring tools with hospital administration systems, and producing technical guides for remote monitoring to support the sharing of best practice across providers.

Found: Dame Siobhain McDonagh Julia Buckley Susan Murray Luke Taylor David Williams Clive Jones Peter Prinsley