Asked by: Samantha Niblett (Labour - South Derbyshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what additional (a) funding and (b) other resources his Department plans to provide to primary care providers to support preventative healthcare in South Derbyshire constituency.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The 10-Year Health Plan will describe a shared vision for the health and care system in 2035, drawing directly from the extensive engagement underway with the public, patients, and staff. It will set out how the National Health Service will deliver the shift from sickness to prevention, which will be one of the central tenets of the plan. This includes a working group focused on the preventative healthcare model for the future.
We have announced a proposed £889 million uplift for general practices (GPs) in 2025/26 and set out the proposed areas of reform which will help us to deliver on our commitments. This is the largest uplift to GP funding since the beginning of the five-year framework and means that we are reversing the recent trend, with a rising share of total NHS resources going to GPs.
To shift care from sickness to prevention, the Government has also proposed providing financial incentives to reward GPs who go above and beyond to prevent the most common killers, like heart disease, for the next contract year. This is subject to the contract consultation currently underway with the General Practitioners Committee England.
We have already started hiring an extra 1,000 GPs into the NHS and uplifted a monthly payment to practices by 7.4%. We will also be resuming our consultation with Community Pharmacy England regarding funding arrangements.
The most common reason children aged five to nine are admitted to hospital is for tooth decay. We will work with local authorities and the NHS to introduce supervised tooth brushing for children aged between three and five years old in the most deprived communities. These programmes are proven to reduce tooth decay and to boost good practices at home.
Integrated care boards have delegated responsibility for planning and commissioning healthcare services to meet the reasonable needs of the people for whom they are responsible. In South Derbyshire, our Regional Director of Public Health is working with local government and the Joined Up Care Derbyshire Integrated Care System to support the shift to prevention.
Asked by: Samantha Niblett (Labour - South Derbyshire)
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 provide grants to farmers for rainwater harvesting.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We are committed to supporting all farming sectors to increase levels of productivity whilst increasing their sustainability and resilience. We are looking carefully at how to position further investment and support to enable the delivery of this Government's objectives, including on water security.
We plan to simplify and rationalise our grant funding, ensuring that grants deliver the most benefit for food security and nature. We will confirm any future grant rounds in due course.
Asked by: Samantha Niblett (Labour - South Derbyshire)
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 3 February 2025 to Question 27349 on Vaccination, what steps his Department is taking to ensure contemporaneous vaccine delivery across all regions.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England is responsible for the operational delivery of the vaccination programmes, including the respiratory syncytial virus programme, in line with recommendations from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), and considering local population needs.
General practices (GPs) are commissioned as a component of essential services, with practices required to offer and provide vaccinations to eligible patients, including their registered patients residing in care homes. NHS England’s regional teams monitor operational data to ensure that all providers are vaccinating those eligible.
Routine and seasonal vaccination programmes are commissioned in a nationally consistent way across all regions through inclusion in the GP Contract, GP and community pharmacy advanced and enhanced services, and National Health Service standard contracts. Regional commissioners are also able to stand up vaccination programmes in response to local pressures and outbreaks to supplement this core offer.
Asked by: Samantha Niblett (Labour - South Derbyshire)
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 adequacy of waiting times for mental health services in South Derbyshire constituency; and what steps he is taking to reduce those times.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Waiting times for those referred to mental health services are too high all across England, including in the South Derbyshire constituency.
Too many people with mental health issues are not getting the support or care they need, which is why we will fix the broken system to ensure we give mental health the same attention and focus as physical health and that people can be confident in accessing high quality mental health support when they need it.
Nationally, we plan to recruit an additional 8,500 mental health workers across child and adult mental health services in England to reduce delays and provide faster treatment. We will also introduce access to a specialist mental health professional in every school and roll out Young Futures hubs in every community.
In addition, people of all ages who are in crisis or who are concerned about a family or loved one can now call NHS 111, select the mental health option, and speak to a trained mental health professional. National Health Service staff can guide callers with next steps such as organising face-to-face community support or facilitating access to alternative services, like crisis cafés or safe havens, which provide a place for people to stay as an alternative to accident and emergency or a hospital admission.
It is the responsibility of the integrated care boards to commission care to meet the needs of their local population.
Asked by: Samantha Niblett (Labour - South Derbyshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to his Department's press release GP reforms to cut red tape and bring back family doctor, published on 20 December 2024, whether GPs will be able to determine how to spend the additional funding to best meet local needs.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
On 20 December 2024, we announced a proposed £889 million uplift for general practice (GP) in 2025/26 and set out the proposed areas of reform which will help us to deliver on our commitments. This is the largest uplift to GP funding in years and means we are reversing the recent trend with a rising share of total National Health Service resources going to GPs.
Details on how funding will be allocated is subject to the ongoing GP Contract consultation with the General Practitioners Committee England, and will be announced ahead of April.
Asked by: Samantha Niblett (Labour - South Derbyshire)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what progress his Department has made on granting retrospective pension arrangements to Gurkha veterans who served in the armed forces.
Answered by Al Carns - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence) (Minister for Veterans)
The Government greatly values the contribution that Gurkhas make in support of the UK’s security and defence and takes its responsibilities to our Gurkha veterans very seriously.
The legal basis for Gurkha pensions has been upheld by three Judicial Reviews since 2003, including a case that went to the European Court of Human Rights in 2018. The Government maintains that the 1948 Gurkha Pension Scheme continues to provide a good income for our Gurkha veterans living in Nepal, in accordance with the original scheme design.
The Government remains committed to supporting Gurkhas and their families during and after their service with the British Army, as demonstrated by the increase in funding via the Gurkha Welfare Trust, including a £24 million uplift to the medical and healthcare Grant-in-Aid already in place and an extension in principle to that Grant in Aid beyond 2029.
We remain open to conversations about what more could be done to meet the welfare needs of Gurkhas, in both the UK and in Nepal. As the Minister for Veterans and People, I am looking forward to meeting the Nepali Ambassador in the coming weeks.
Asked by: Samantha Niblett (Labour - South Derbyshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to help support people affected by flooding caused inadvertently by flood relief schemes.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
When building flood defences there is a legal requirement that any development cannot increase the flood risk to communities either upstream or downstream, and if an increase in risk is identified, it must be mitigated.
Asked by: Samantha Niblett (Labour - South Derbyshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to reduce the time taken to release death certificates.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
Since the implementation of the death certification reforms in September 2024, the 5-day statutory time period for an informant to register a death commences when the registrar receives a completed Medical Certificate of Cause of Death (MCCD) from a Medical Examiner, or notification from a Coroner.
Monitoring by the General Register Office for England and Wales confirms that current appointment availability for the bereaved with registrars in Local Authorities to be available to register deaths is adequate, but the Government is continuing to work towards the electronic registration of deaths to minimise the burden on bereaved family members at a difficult time, as set out by the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology.
Asked by: Samantha Niblett (Labour - South Derbyshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to reduce the time taken to process Education, Health and Care Plans for children in South Derbyshire constituency.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
I refer my hon. Friend, the Member for South Derbyshire, to the answer of 5 February 2025 to Question 27930.
Asked by: Samantha Niblett (Labour - South Derbyshire)
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 (a) modernise NHS IT infrastructure and (b) ensure value for money in upgrading IT systems.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Through the Frontline Digitisation programme, we will work to level up National Health Service trusts to a baseline level of digital capability. Our investment in digitising the frontline will ensure value for money and that health and care staff have access to health-related information when and where it is needed, supporting them to deliver care efficiently, effectively, and safely, thereby reducing variation and improving outcomes.
Currently 91%, or 187 out of 206, of Secondary Care Trusts have an Electronic Patient Record (EPR) in place, with work underway to provide tailored support to the remaining 19 trusts that do not yet have an EPR. Our ambition is for all trusts to meet our stated core digitisation standards, including having EPRs in place by March 2026.
The programme is forecasting to achieve 96% EPR coverage by its end in March 2026, with the remaining 4% of trusts having advanced in their plans for an EPR.