Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will ask the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence to respond to the coroner's Prevention of Future Death report following the death of Chloe Burgess.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence responded to the Hampshire Coroner’s Prevention of Future Death Report following the death of Chloe Burgess on 28 April 2025. The report is available at the following link:
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
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 implementing recommendation 38 of the LGBT Veterans Independent Review, published in May 2023.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Recommendation 36 relates to the expansion of the Veterans’ Covenant Healthcare Alliance (VCHA) accreditation scheme to include care homes and hospices. In July 2024, a pilot was launched by the Royal Star and Garter, supported by the VCHA. An evaluation of the pilot, led by the Royal British Legion, commenced in summer 2025. The evaluation findings will assess the practical viability of the scheme and will be accompanied by a full analysis of the options and associated financial costs.
Recommendation 38 relates to treatment for addiction. Veterans can access all substance misuse services available to non-veterans. In addition, the National Health Service has commissioned Op COURAGE, the veterans’ mental health and wellbeing service which provides support to veterans with substance misuse and mental health issues. NHS England are developing plans to provide training and education about the needs of the Armed Forces community to NHS staff through the National Armed Forces training and education programme. This will include NHS services that provide support to veterans with addiction issues.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
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 implementing recommendation 36 of the LGBT Veterans Independent Review, published in May 2023.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Recommendation 36 relates to the expansion of the Veterans’ Covenant Healthcare Alliance (VCHA) accreditation scheme to include care homes and hospices. In July 2024, a pilot was launched by the Royal Star and Garter, supported by the VCHA. An evaluation of the pilot, led by the Royal British Legion, commenced in summer 2025. The evaluation findings will assess the practical viability of the scheme and will be accompanied by a full analysis of the options and associated financial costs.
Recommendation 38 relates to treatment for addiction. Veterans can access all substance misuse services available to non-veterans. In addition, the National Health Service has commissioned Op COURAGE, the veterans’ mental health and wellbeing service which provides support to veterans with substance misuse and mental health issues. NHS England are developing plans to provide training and education about the needs of the Armed Forces community to NHS staff through the National Armed Forces training and education programme. This will include NHS services that provide support to veterans with addiction issues.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
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 ensure the consistent implementation of (a) Non-Specific Symptom pathways, (b) GP direct access and (c) NHS England Best Practice Timed Pathways to ensure (i) faster and (ii) earlier diagnosis of people with pancreatic cancer.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England has completed the national roll-out of non-specific symptom (NSS) pathways to support faster diagnosis of cancer in patients who present with symptoms that do not align with a single cancer site.
We are investing an additional £1.1 billion in general practices (GPs), bringing total GP Contract spend to £13.4 billion in 2025/26, the biggest increase in over a decade. NHS England has also expanded GP direct access to diagnostic tests, enabling faster investigation of concerning symptoms.
The National Health Service has also launched a new £2 million programme which is funding 300 GPs to identify pancreatic cancer early by screening high-risk patients over 60 years old with new diabetes diagnoses and unexplained weight loss for urgent testing.
NHS England continues to implement Best Practice Timed Pathways to ensure consistent and faster diagnosis in line with the Faster Diagnosis Standard. Alongside this, it is working with Pancreatic Cancer UK on a Family History Checker to help individuals assess inherited risk, and has launched the National Inherited Cancer Predisposition Register, which supports earlier identification and screening of high-risk individuals.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
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 potential merits of a national multi-cancer case finding programme to identify individuals at high risk of (a) pancreatic cancer and (b) all other cancers.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England is developing case-finding approaches for less survivable cancers where the evidence supports this, including pancreatic cancer.
This work includes the development of a public-facing Family History Checker in partnership with Pancreatic Cancer UK, which enables individuals and families affected by pancreatic cancer to assess inherited risk. Those identified as being at risk are referred directly to the European Registry of Hereditary Pancreatic Diseases research trial. Referrals can be made by any healthcare professional or by individuals via self-referral, contributing to a more consistent and centralised approach to case-finding.
The National Disease Registration Service has launched the National Inherited Cancer Predisposition Register, which identifies individuals at increased inherited risk of a wide range of cancers, including pancreatic cancer. The register supports targeted screening and surveillance and will act as an electronic referral route into national screening programmes where these exist.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
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 group B strep infections in newborn babies.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The United Kingdom uses the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists’ risk-based approach whereby those women identified as being at increased risk of having a baby affected by Group B streptococcus (GBS) are managed according to agreed clinical guidelines on the prevention of early on-set neonatal GBS infection.
To improve understanding, prevention, and treatment of GBS infection, the Department is supporting a trial, funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research. It aims to determine whether routine testing for GBS for all women, either in late pregnancy or on admission for labour with point of care testing, reduces early-onset neonatal sepsis compared to the current approach of risk-based screening.
The UK National Screening Committee (NSC) will review its recommendation considering the evidence from the trial, after the report is presented.
The UK NSC previously reviewed the evidence to screen for GBS at 35 to 37 weeks of pregnancy in 2017 and concluded that there was insufficient evidence to demonstrate that the benefits of screening would outweigh the harms. This was because the test currently available cannot accurately distinguish between those mothers whose babies are at risk and those who are not. This means that many women would unnecessarily be offered antibiotics during labour, with the balance of harms and benefits from this approach being unknown.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to include diagnosis targets for myeloma in the national cancer plan for England.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Early diagnosis is a key focus of the National Cancer Plan. It is a priority for the Government to support the National Health Service to diagnose cancer, including blood cancers such as myeloma, as early and quickly as possible, and to treat it faster, to improve outcomes.
To tackle late diagnoses of blood cancers, the NHS is implementing non-specific symptom pathways for patients who present with symptoms such as weight loss and fatigue, which do not clearly align to a tumour type. Blood cancers are one of the most common cancer types diagnosed through these pathways.
We will get the NHS diagnosing blood cancers earlier and treating them faster, and we will support the NHS to increase capacity to meet the demand for diagnostic services through investment, including for magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography scanners.
The National Cancer Plan will include further details on how we will improve outcomes for cancer patients, including speeding up diagnosis and treatment, ensuring patients have access to the latest treatments and technology, and ultimately driving up this country’s cancer survival rates. Having consulted with key stakeholders and patient groups, the Plan will be published early in the new year.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent estimate he has made of the average time taken to diagnose myeloma in the South East.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Information on the average time taken to diagnose myeloma in the South East is not held centrally. We publish 28-Day Faster Diagnosis data by suspected cancer, including provider and commissioner data, monthly. The latest publication is available at the following link:
We recognise that there is more to be done to ensure that patients have timely access to diagnosis, and we remain committed to diagnosing all cancer types earlier, including myeloma. To tackle late diagnoses, the National Health Service is implementing non-specific symptom (NSS) pathways for patients who present with symptoms such as weight loss and fatigue, which do not clearly align to a tumour type. Blood cancers are one of the most common cancer types diagnosed through these pathways. There are currently 115 NSS services operating in England, ensuring more patients benefit from quicker access to the right investigations.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps he has taken to help reduce the time taken to diagnose myeloma.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Information on the average time taken to diagnose myeloma in the South East is not held centrally. We publish 28-Day Faster Diagnosis data by suspected cancer, including provider and commissioner data, monthly. The latest publication is available at the following link:
We recognise that there is more to be done to ensure that patients have timely access to diagnosis, and we remain committed to diagnosing all cancer types earlier, including myeloma. To tackle late diagnoses, the National Health Service is implementing non-specific symptom (NSS) pathways for patients who present with symptoms such as weight loss and fatigue, which do not clearly align to a tumour type. Blood cancers are one of the most common cancer types diagnosed through these pathways. There are currently 115 NSS services operating in England, ensuring more patients benefit from quicker access to the right investigations.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much his Department has spent on (a) providing maternity care and (b) settling legal cases of medical negligence related to maternity care in each of the last four years.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
In regard to maternity care spend, according to the Patient-Level Costing dataset from the National Cost Collection for the National Health Service, the annual spend for providing maternity care was as follows:
Data is not yet available for the 2024/25 financial year.
NHS Resolution manages clinical negligence and other claims against the NHS in England. The table attached shows the spend on maternity clinical claims either closed or settled with a periodical payment order (PPO) between the 2021/22 and 2024/25 financial years, broken down by closure, or settlement PPO, year, for claims with obstetrics or neonatology as the primary specialty.
The data includes the damages and legal costs paid up until 31 March 2025. It does not include future periodical payments on settled claims that are due after the end of the 2024/25 financial year.
Please note that this is different to the value of claims “notified” in a year for obstetrics and neonatology. Data on “notified claims value” only includes an early estimate of the eventual settlement value if all the claims were to settle with damages.