Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps the Department is taking to ensure consistent and effective communication between hospital doctors, consultants, and the families of patients during inpatient care.

Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government is committed to putting patients first, including ensuring that people have the best possible experience of care. We recognise that poor communication can be a source of frustration and worry for patients and their families, particularly for inpatient care. It is therefore crucial that patients and families receive regular, consistent, and effective updates.

Martha’s Rule is a patient safety initiative to support the early detection of deterioration by ensuring the concerns of patients, families, carers, and staff are listened to and acted upon. It gives patients, their family members, and carers a right to request a rapid review if they’re worried that a patient’s condition is getting worse and their concerns are not being responded to.

Under the NHS Constitution, patients have the right to be involved in decisions about their health and care and must be given the information and support to enable this. Where appropriate this right includes family and carers. Hospitals also have a range of legal and regulatory duties, assured by the Care Quality Commission, to ensure consistent and effective communication, including the Duty of Candour, and the Accessible Information Standard, which requires bodies to identify, share, and meet people’s communication needs, and must adhere to national standards to improve communication within clinical teams.

Additionally, improving perioperative care is a key priority for the Government. Better communication between patients and healthcare teams is a key part of improved perioperative care. To improve and standardise the quality of perioperative services in England, Getting It Right First Time is collaborating with NHS England’s Digital Outpatient, Elective Recovery, and Elective Workforce Recovery teams to form the National Perioperative Care Programme.

The programme recognises that shared decision making, where a clinician collaborates and supports a patient and, if a patient wishes, a carer or someone close to them, to decide their treatment, should be embedded in all perioperative pathways, and should begin at the earliest opportunity when surgery is considered.

It is also recognised that local providers are best placed to decide how to embed and maintain perioperative care approaches into their organisations, to reflect local needs and circumstances.

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 (a) to ensure consistent improvement in weekend care at St Mary’s Hospital on the Isle of Wight and (b) to help tackle weekend staffing shortages.

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

It is the responsibility of individual National Health Service trusts to ensure safe staffing levels in all settings and at all times, including over the weekend.

Our Urgent and Emergency Care Plan for 2025/26 sets out clear actions to deliver improvements in emergency department care this winter and to make services better every day. We are aiming for 78% of patients to be seen in four hours this year, meaning over 800,000 people will receive more timely care. The Urgent and Emergency Care Plan for 2025/26 is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/urgent-and-emergency-care-plan-2025-26/

We are also investing nearly £450 million into same day and urgent care services, helping avoid unnecessary admissions to hospital and supporting faster diagnosis, treatment, and discharge for patients.

Through our upcoming workforce plan, we will make sure the NHS has the right people in the right places, with the right skills to care for patients, when they need it.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how often HM Treasury reviews (a) the level of the Sovereign Grant, and (b) what criteria are used in that review.

Answered by James Murray - Chief Secretary to the Treasury

The requirements for reviewing the Sovereign Grant have been set by Parliament in the Sovereign Grant Act 2011, sections 6 and 7.

The Government has also committed to bring forward legislation to reset the Grant to a lower level from 2027-28 once Buckingham Palace Reservicing works are completed.

British forces on the front line in Afghanistan

Found: Peter Lamb (Labour; Crawley) John Lamont (Conservative; Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) Mr Richard Quigley

Submit Evidence (by 27 Feb 2026)

The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee scrutinises the work and performance of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman.