Asked by: Tom Morrison (Liberal Democrat - Cheadle)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps she is taking with international partners to anticipate and pre-emptively mitigate humanitarian crises around the world.
Answered by Chris Elmore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The UK is working with partner governments to improve early warning for disasters, including through the Met Office. We are also pushing the humanitarian system, including the UN, to better anticipate and act ahead of crises to reduce humanitarian need, including through our contributions to the UN Central Emergency Response Fund, the largest global funder of anticipatory action. The UK is a global leader on pre-arranged finance (PAF) and insurance which pay out in advance or after a disaster to help pre-empt damage. For example, Jamaica received $242 million from a catastrophe bond and insurance after Hurricane Melissa and, in the past month, UK-supported PAF has paid out over $22 million to fund anticipatory and emergency responses to drought in Somalia and cyclones in Madagascar.
Asked by: Tom Morrison (Liberal Democrat - Cheadle)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many (a) neurologists, (b) geriatricians and (c) nurses there are working in the NHS who have specialist training in Parkinson’s.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department does not hold data on the number of neurologists or geriatricians with specialist training in Parkinson’s disease working in the National Health Service in England. National workforce datasets do not record condition‑specific sub‑specialisms, and responsibility for determining local specialist workforce configurations rests with individual employers and integrated care boards (ICBs).
As of December 2025, there were 2,002 full‑time equivalent doctors in neurology and 6,318 in geriatric medicine working in NHS trusts and other organisations in England. These specialties include clinicians who provide care to people with Parkinson’s.
The Department does not hold a central count of the number of specialist Parkinson’s nurses employed across the NHS in England. Workforce planning, including decisions about the number and type of specialist nurses needed locally, is the responsibility of individual employers and their ICBs, which are best placed to assess the needs of their populations.
We continue to work with NHS England through programmes like Getting It Right First Time to support improvements in access to specialist care. The Department has also established a United Kingdom‑wide Neuro Forum, which brings together governments, the NHS, the devolved administrations, and neurological alliances across the four nations to share best practice and address system-wide challenges, including workforce needs for conditions such as Parkinson’s.
Asked by: Tom Morrison (Liberal Democrat - Cheadle)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what assessment she has made of the healthcare system in Gaza.
Answered by Hamish Falconer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
I refer the Hon Member to my statements in the Westminster Hall debate on the healthcare system in Gaza on 24 February.
Asked by: Tom Morrison (Liberal Democrat - Cheadle)
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 5 November 2025 to Question 86003, if his Department will commission a specific comparative review, in collaboration with the Medical Research Council, into the relative level of National Institute for Health and Care Research funding for research into myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome compared with other long-term conditions.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department does not intend to commission a specific comparative review into the relative level of National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) or Medical Research Council funding for research into myalgic encephalomyelitis, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), compared with other long-term conditions. We recognise that ME/CFS is an under-researched area, and we are committed to working with the ME/CFS community to identify and address barriers to research, with the ambition of supporting and funding more research and capacity-building programmes.
As outlined in the ME/CFS Final Delivery Plan, there has historically been a relatively low amount of biomedical research funded on ME/CFS, compared with disease burden. Our efforts are focussed on delivering the actions outlined in the ME/CFS Final Delivery Plan to support and increase research in this area. Since our answer to Question 86003, we have hosted a showcase on post‑acute infection conditions, bringing together people with lived experience, researchers, clinicians, and funders to stimulate further research. A summary of this showcase has been published on NIHR Open Research. We have also made progress with our new funding opportunity for development awards focussed on the feasibility of a phase 2 platform clinical trial. This would test multiple repurposed pharmaceutical interventions and/or non-pharmacological interventions for the treatment of post-viral conditions including ME/CFS. The committee will now consider the applications, and shortlisting decisions will be shared with the researchers in March.