Asked by: Simon Opher (Labour - Stroud)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many Integrated Care Boards include further education colleges as partner institutions in their place-based partnerships, clinical strategic plans and Neighbourhood Health Plans; and if he will publish that list.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The information requested is not held centrally.
Asked by: Simon Opher (Labour - Stroud)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer to UIN 94508, how many of these unique applications were made by people currently outside the UK, compared to those already based in the UK.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department has not undertaken an analysis of the information collected as part of the 2025 medical specialty training programme to assess the location of applicants at the point of application.
Asked by: Simon Opher (Labour - Stroud)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the modelled projections in the 10 Year Workforce Plan will include projections for medical specialties.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The 10 Year Workforce Plan will ensure the National Health Service has the right people in the right places, with the right skills to care for patients, when they need it. It will include modelling of the potential size and shape of the future workforce and implications for major professions. We are working through how the plan will articulate the changes for different professional groups.
Asked by: Simon Opher (Labour - Stroud)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how extra training places as set out in the 10 year plan will be divided between specialities.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
As set out in the 10-Year Health Plan published in July this year, over the three years we will create 1,000 new specialty training posts with a focus on specialties where there is greatest need. We will set out next steps in due course.
On 8 December, the Government put an offer in writing to the British Medical Association Resident Doctors Committee which was rejected. The offer included the creation of 4,000 more specialty training places, with 1,000 of these brought forward to this year and emergency legislation which would prioritise United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland medical graduates for foundation training, and prioritise UK and Republic of Ireland medical graduates and doctors who have worked in the National Health Service for a significant period of time for specialty training. This would have applied for current applicants for training posts starting in 2026, and every year after that.
We have also made changes for the 2025 specialty training application round to help tackle bottlenecks. Full registration with the General Medical Council is now required at the point of application to specialty training rather than when a successful applicant would take up post, and the number of applications that an applicant can make is restricted to five, whereas previously it has been unlimited.
Asked by: Simon Opher (Labour - Stroud)
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 reduce the backlog for core anaesthetic training.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
As set out in the 10-Year Health Plan published in July this year, over the three years we will create 1,000 new specialty training posts with a focus on specialties where there is greatest need. We will set out next steps in due course.
On 8 December, the Government put an offer in writing to the British Medical Association Resident Doctors Committee which was rejected. The offer included the creation of 4,000 more specialty training places, with 1,000 of these brought forward to this year and emergency legislation which would prioritise United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland medical graduates for foundation training, and prioritise UK and Republic of Ireland medical graduates and doctors who have worked in the National Health Service for a significant period of time for specialty training. This would have applied for current applicants for training posts starting in 2026, and every year after that.
We have also made changes for the 2025 specialty training application round to help tackle bottlenecks. Full registration with the General Medical Council is now required at the point of application to specialty training rather than when a successful applicant would take up post, and the number of applications that an applicant can make is restricted to five, whereas previously it has been unlimited.
Asked by: Simon Opher (Labour - Stroud)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many individual applicants applied for specialty training places across all 65 medical specialties; and how many training places were available in 2025.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department holds data based on the application process for medical specialty training which allows the identification of unique applicants. This data is part of management information systems summarising information supplied in medical specialty training cycles. Applicants may have chosen to only apply to one specialty programme or may have made multiple applications within the year.
The following table shows the number of unique applicants in rounds one and two of medical specialty training for 2025 and the associated training places available across the United Kingdom:
Round one | Round two | |
Unique applicants | 33,870 | 8,481 |
Training posts | 9,479 | 3,354 |
Source: NHS England Medical Specialty Programme Applications Data.
Round one of the medical specialty application process includes applications to first year specialty training and core training programmes, often referred to as ST1 and CT1 respectively, and some ‘higher’ medical specialty training programmes, usually at year three, often referred to as ST3. Round two is for entry to most ‘higher’ medical specialty training programmes, ST3 or ST4. There will be a limited number of doctors who apply in a year to both rounds one and two.
Information on the number of applications and posts available for individual medical specialty training programmes is published annually by NHS England and can be found at the following link:
The 10-Year Health Plan set out that 1,000 more specialty training places would be created over the next three years.
On 8 December, the Government put an offer in writing to the British Medical Association Resident Doctors Committee which would have put in place emergency legislation in the new year which would prioritise United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland medical graduates for foundation training, and prioritise UK and Republic of Ireland medical graduates and doctors who have worked in the National Health Service for a significant period of time for specialty training. This would have applied for current applicants for training posts starting in 2026, and every year after that.
The British Medical Association has rejected the Government's offer and the Government will consider its next steps.
Asked by: Simon Opher (Labour - Stroud)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make it his policy to publish an implementation plan to ensure that each Integrated Care Board commissions a Fracture Liaison Service.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Fracture liaison services are commissioned by integrated care boards, which are well-placed to make decisions according to local need.
Our 10-Year Health Plan committed to rolling out fracture liaison services across every part of the country by 2030.
Officials continue to work closely with NHS England to explore a range of options to provide better quality and access to these important preventative services.
Asked by: Simon Opher (Labour - Stroud)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will increase funding for (a) the pathology (i) workforce, (ii) estates and (iii) IT infrastructure and (b) pathology disciplines involved in the pathways for cancer patients.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The 2025 Spending Review prioritised health, with record investment in the health and social care system. The Spending Review announced that annual National Health Service day-to-day spending will increase by £29 billion in real terms, a £53 billion cash increase, by 2028/29 compared to 2023/24.
To provide stability and ensure public services and industries have certainty in their funding, the Government has committed to holding a Spending Review every two years. The 2025 Spending Review sets departmental budgets for day-to-day spending up to 2028/29 and for capital for five years, to 2029/30. The envelope for the next Spending Review, due to be held in 2027, will be set in due course.
We will also publish a 10 Year Workforce Plan to ensure the NHS has the right people in the right places, with the right skills to deliver the best care for patients, when they need it.
As part of the £600 million in capital for diagnostics in 2025/26, announced as part of the Spending Review, the NHS is investing in histopathology automation technology, which will speed up pathology test reporting across England, helping to ensure that patients get their diagnoses faster and supporting reductions in elective waiting lists.
We are funding all pathology networks to increase digital capabilities by March 2026. This will reduce unnecessary waits and repeat tests to ensure that patients receive their blood test results sooner. These actions will help improve patient pathways, including for cancer.
Asked by: Simon Opher (Labour - Stroud)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will ensure that (a) universal lay terminology is used in the NHS app and (b) there is signposting to Lab Tests Online UK to enable patients to interpret their diagnostic results correctly.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The NHS App aims to use clear, universal lay terminology that is easy for the general public to understand. The content follows the National Health Service content style guide, which mandates writing in plain English to a reading age of nine to 11 years old. As part of the delivery of the 10-Year Health Plan, the NHS App will provide an improved and personalised experience for users, empowering them to access key elements of their health conditions like test results, and providing patients with advice and guidance 24 hours a day, seven days a week, that will help them to understand their health and make informed choices about what to do next.
We regularly test our content with patients to ensure it is clear and effective. This includes working with users who have access needs, low digital literacy, or are from seldom-heard groups.
This work builds on the current test results feature in the NHS App that is successfully used by millions of people each month to access the results of tests they have conducted with their general practitioner.
There is signposting to Lab Tests Online-UK (LTO-UK) to help patients interpret their diagnostic results, though this may depend on how the patient's general practice (GP) has configured its systems. We currently provide links to LTO-UK for approximately 70 of the most common test types. While the NHS App itself primarily displays results along with any accompanying doctor’s comments or actions, GP systems can have embedded links to LTO-UK alongside the test results, providing a direct route for patients to access reliable information at the point of care.
Asked by: Simon Opher (Labour - Stroud)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when his Department will publish the data on the number of patients treated in (a) corridors and (b) other inappropriate spaces.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to tackling the unacceptable practice of corridor care in our National Health Service. Our Urgent and Emergency Care Plan, published in June, set out the steps that we are taking, including the commitment to publish data on the prevalence of corridor care.
NHS England has been working with trusts since 2024 to put in place new reporting arrangements related to the use of temporary escalation spaces, to drive improvement. This information will be published following a review of data quality, and we will consider how this data could be published on a regular basis.