Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what guidance her Department has issued to Integrated Care Boards on commissioning services for patients with very severe myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome.
Answered by James Frith - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
I refer the Hon Member to the answer provided on 16 July 2026 to the Hon Member for Skipton and Ripon to Question 16893.
Further to this response, the Department, together with NHS England, has developed a template service specification for mild, moderate, and severe myalgic encephalomyelitis, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). The template, once published, will be circulated to integrated care boards to support the commissioning of services for severe ME/CFS.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what guidance her Department has issued to Integrated Care Boards on commissioning services for patients with very severe myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS).
Answered by James Frith - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
I refer the Hon Member to the answer provided on 16 July 2026 to the Hon Member for Skipton and Ripon to Question 16893.
Further to this response, the Department, together with NHS England, has developed a template service specification for mild, moderate, and severe myalgic encephalomyelitis, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). The template, once published, will be circulated to integrated care boards to support the commissioning of services for severe ME/CFS.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to (a) improve outcomes for women in Hampstead and Highgate constituency with postpartum haemorrhage and (b) ensure access to appropriate and innovative treatments.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
While data is not available specifically for the Hampstead and Highgate constituency, data on postpartum haemorrhage is available for the University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and the Whittington Health NHS Trust, which provide maternity services for patients in the constituency and the wider area.
Between February and April 2026, the proportion of women who had a postpartum haemorrhage of at least 1,5000 millilitres was 32 per 1,000 deliveries at both the University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and the Whittington Health NHS Trust. The proportion for England in this period was 31 per 1,000.
Monthly data back to April 2019, including more detailed information on data quality, is available at the following link:
To tackle leading causes of maternal mortality and morbidity, we have launched a Maternal Care Bundle to set clear standards across all services, focused on the main causes of maternal death and harm. It will codify best practice already in use and support more consistent care, and we expect it to help reduce deaths and serious harm, especially among higher-risk groups, as well as reduce inequalities in maternal mortality.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to improve outcomes for women in Hampstead and Highgate with postpartum haemorrhage and ensure they have access to appropriate and innovative treatments.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
While data is not available specifically for the Hampstead and Highgate constituency, data on postpartum haemorrhage is available for the University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and the Whittington Health NHS Trust, which provide maternity services for patients in the constituency and the wider area.
Between February and April 2026, the proportion of women who had a postpartum haemorrhage of at least 1,5000 millilitres was 32 per 1,000 deliveries at both the University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and the Whittington Health NHS Trust. The proportion for England in this period was 31 per 1,000.
Monthly data back to April 2019, including more detailed information on data quality, is available at the following link:
To tackle leading causes of maternal mortality and morbidity, we have launched a Maternal Care Bundle to set clear standards across all services, focused on the main causes of maternal death and harm. It will codify best practice already in use and support more consistent care, and we expect it to help reduce deaths and serious harm, especially among higher-risk groups, as well as reduce inequalities in maternal mortality.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps his Department has taken to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies to lower the unit cost of the drug Enhertu.
Answered by Preet Kaur Gill
Ministers met with the manufacturers of Enhertu, AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo, in November 2024 to encourage them to engage constructively with NHS England and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) to reach a commercial agreement that would enable patient access for patients with HER2-low metastatic breast cancer.
Enhertu for HER-2 low metastatic breast cancer remains the only breast cancer treatment that NICE has been unable to recommend for patients in the last eight years. This was because, at the price offered by the company in 2024, the treatment was too expensive for the benefits it provided and NICE concluded it was not cost effective. Despite NICE and NHS England offering unprecedented flexibilities, the companies were unable to offer Enhertu at a cost-effective price.
As part of the US-UK trade arrangement, announced in December 2025, NICE is now using a new higher cost-effectiveness threshold. Given these new circumstances, discussions involving NICE, the manufacturers and NHS England have resumed to try to seek agreement on a commercial offer that would make Enhertu cost effective. NICE stands ready to consider reviewing the guidance if new evidence, including a new commercial offer, were to be put forward by the company.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
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 impact of abolishing NHS England on the NHS’s statutory duty to safeguarding.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
It is only right that with such significant reform, we commit to carefully assessing and understanding the potential impacts. Evidence from these ongoing assessments will inform our programme as appropriate.
NHS England will continue to carry out its statutory duties until Parliamentary time allows for legislation to be brought forward to amend the Department’s responsibilities.
We will ensure our decisions are guided by evidence, and above all, focused on improving outcomes for people.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to ensure that people eligible for NHS continuing healthcare funding have access to services.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
The National Framework for NHS Continuing Healthcare and NHS-funded Nursing Care sets out in paragraph 185 that, where an individual is eligible for NHS Continuing Healthcare (CHC), the integrated care board (ICB) is responsible for care planning, commissioning services, and case management. The ICB is responsible for planning strategically, specifying outcomes, procuring services, and managing demand and provider performance in relation to CHC. The services commissioned must include ongoing case management, including review or reassessment of the individual’s needs.
NHS England holds ICBs accountable, and engages with them to ensure that they discharge their functions via timely and well-established assurance mechanisms. The national framework also sets out that those in receipt of CHC continue to be entitled to access to the full range of primary, community, secondary, and other health services.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that people operating as (a) hypnotherapists and (b) psychotherapists are (i) registered and (ii) regulated.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
Hypnotherapists and Psychotherapists are not statutorily regulated, and there are no current plans to introduce statutory regulation for either profession. The Professional Standards Authority for health and social care operates an accredited voluntary registers programme, providing a proportionate means of assurance for unregulated professions, by setting standards for organisations holding voluntary registers. There are currently two accredited registers related to hypnotherapy, and twelve accredited registers related to psychotherapy.
The Government keeps the professions subject to statutory regulation under review, and in 2022, published the consultation Healthcare regulation: deciding when statutory regulation is appropriate, which sought views on the criteria used to decide when regulation is necessary, and whether there are any unregulated professions that should be brought into statutory regulation. The Government will publish its response to the consultation in due course.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she has made an assessment of the potential implications for her policies of Pancreatic Cancer UK's Optimal Care Pathway recommendations.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
NHS England is delivering a range of interventions that are expected to increase early diagnosis, and improve outcomes for those with pancreatic cancer. This includes providing a route into pancreatic cancer surveillance for those at inherited high-risk, to identify lesions before they develop into cancer and diagnose cancers sooner, creating new pathways to support faster referral routes for people with non-specific symptoms that could be linked to a range of cancer types, and increasing general practice direct access to diagnostic tests. NHS England has also formed an expert group to consider a pathway for hepato-pancreato-biliary cancers, including pancreatic cancer.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that any person operating as a (a) hypnotherapist and (b) psychotherapist is (i) registered and (ii) regulated.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
Hypnotherapists and psychotherapists are not statutorily regulated. The Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care operates a voluntary registry programme, and provides a proportionate means of assurance for unregulated professions which sit between employer controls and statutory regulation, by setting standards for organisations holding voluntary registration for unregulated health and social care occupations.
There are currently two accredited registers related to hypnotherapy, and 12 accredited registers related to psychotherapy. The Government regularly reviews which professions are subject to statutory regulation, and in 2022 published the consultation, Healthcare regulation: deciding when statutory regulation is appropriate. This consultation sought views on the criteria used to decide when regulation is necessary, and whether there are any unregulated professions that should be brought into statutory regulation. The Government will publish its response to the consultation in due course.