Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the NHS 10-Year Plan will include specific measures to provide health and care staff with full access to integrated patient records.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

We have committed to develop a 10 Year Plan to deliver a National Health Service fit for the future. While it is too soon to say exactly what will be in the plan, it will set out how we shift health and care systems in England from analogue to digital systems. Subject to Parliamentary approval, new laws are set to be introduced to make NHS patient health records available across all NHS trusts, general practice surgeries, and ambulance services in England, speeding up patient care, reducing repeat medical tests, and minimising medication errors.

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 encourage the adoption of (a) AI and (b) other digital technologies to support the healthcare transition from treatment to prevention.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The National Health Service is already home to world-first digital innovation, with NHS England supporting the rollout of key products, many of which support the shift to prevention and early diagnosis. Examples include the world's first certified autonomous artificially intelligent (AI) diagnostic tool, which can triage patients with suspected skin cancer, as well as digital innovations supporting people struggling with mental health and musculoskeletal issues to gain or remain in employment.

NHS England, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, and the Department are developing a rules based pathway (RBP) for medical technology in the NHS. The RBP aims to create a clear, consistent, and efficient process for evaluating and adopting medical technologies, including digital technologies, in the NHS.

The Early Detection using Information Technology in Health, or EDITH trial, announced in February 2025, is backed by £11 million of Government support via the National Institute for Health and Care Research. It is the latest example of how British scientists are transforming cancer care, building on the promising potential of cutting-edge innovations to tackle one of the United Kingdom’s biggest killers.

Between October 2021 and May 2023 funding was invested in a risk-stratification tool to identify women who are at most risk of developing life-threatening and life-altering complications of pre-eclampsia.

Between October 2020 and September 2023, the Department invested £1.9 million in an AI stroke technology, capable of automatically processing acute stroke computed tomography or magnetic resonance imaging scans, which can provide real-time, clinically useful information in the acute stroke setting, leading to faster decisions.

Between October 2020 and September 2021 funding was invested towards generating a toolkit prototype which can automatically generate placental metrics from a 3D-US scan. These can be combined with other known risk factors and blood results to generate a multi-factorial screening test for fetal growth restriction, which is the single most common cause of stillbirth.

The deployment of AI in the NHS is still at a relatively early stage, with many AI tools being used in a research capacity. To address this, the Department is carrying out work, with NHS England, to assess the barriers of safe, ethical, and effective adoption, and improve the way AI tools are deployed and used in the NHS across England.

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 enhance (a) early disease detection and (b) diagnosis through AI adoption.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department has provided £113 million, through the NHS AI Health and Care Awards, to 86 artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, which have been live in 40% of National Health Service acute trusts in England and hundreds of primary care networks across the United Kingdom. This funding is helping us to generate the evidence needed to deploy effective AI tools across the NHS and improve the lives and health outcomes of our population.

Many of these AI technologies are being tested and evaluated to aid healthcare diagnostics. For example, AI is being used to analyse and interpret acute stroke brain scans, to support doctors making treatment decisions in 100% of stroke units in England. In addition, the Department is focusing the £21 million AI Diagnostic Fund on the deployment of technologies in key, high-demand areas such as chest X-ray and chest computed tomography scans, to enable faster diagnosis of lung cancer in over half of acute trusts in England.

Despite these exciting examples of AI use, deployment of AI in the NHS is still at a relatively early stage. To address this, the Department is carrying out work to assess the barriers of effective adoption and improve the way AI tools are deployed across the NHS.

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 NHS Trusts meet digital capability targets.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

NHS England has supported over 160 trusts with digital transformation, which includes the implementation of Electronic Patient Records. Currently, we have achieved a 91% rollout of Electronic Patient Records, with work underway to provide tailored support to the remaining 19 trusts that do not yet have an Electronic Patient Record.

The Digital Maturity Assessment was also successfully completed in May 2024, with a 100% response rate from secondary care organisations and integrated care systems. This assessment provides a baseline and a holistic view of digital maturity across National Health Service trusts in England. The assessment will be run yearly to track progress and identify areas for improvement.

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 progress towards meeting the target of implementing Electronic Patient Records across all NHS Trusts by March 2026.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

91% of trusts have an Electronic Patient Record (EPR), with work underway to provide support to the remaining nineteen trusts which do not have an EPR.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if her Department will take steps to ensure that media literacy is a core component of the Curriculum and Assessment Review, in the context of increases in the use of generative AI.

Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)

The independent Curriculum and Assessment Review’s interim report notes the rise of artificial intelligence and trends in digital information and that it is necessary that the curriculum keep pace with these changes, including a renewed focus on digital and media literacy and critical thinking skills. The interim report is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/curriculum-and-assessment-review-interim-report. The Review’s final report and recommendations will be published in autumn with the government’s response.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans she has to provide (a) additional resources, (b) teacher training and (c) additional curriculum support on media literacy in schools.

Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)

Media literacy is covered in the citizenship, relationships, sex and health education and computing curriculums.

The department funds the National Centre for Computing Education, which provides teachers with continuing professional development and resources to support the teaching of computing. This includes units on messaging in digital media, the credibility of sources, and identifying ‘fake’ news and edited images, supporting the teaching of artificial intelligence (AI) and media literacy.

In 2024, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) provided £0.5 million to scale up two programmes, to provide media literacy support to teachers, children aged 11 to 16, parents/carers and other professionals working with families.

The Educate against Hate website also hosts a series of online media literacy resources which seek to help young people evaluate the validity of information. This can be accessed at: https://www.educateagainsthate.com/.

The independent Curriculum and Assessment Review’s interim report notes the rise of AI and trends in digital information and that it is necessary that the curriculum keep pace with these changes, including a renewed focus on digital and media literacy and critical thinking skills. The interim report is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/curriculum-and-assessment-review-interim-report. The Review’s final report and recommendations will be published in autumn with the government’s response.

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many animal welfare inspections of game bird farms were undertaken in (a) England and (b) Wales in (i) 2022, (ii) 2023 and (iii) 2024; how many and what proportion of those visits identified the use of barren cages for breeding birds; and whether follow up inspections were carried out in those circumstances.

Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

The total number of inspections carried out in gamebirds premises are included in the table below; of those, a total of 5 inspections disclosed non-compliances with welfare legislation however none of the non-compliances identified were due to the use of barren cages for breeding birds. There have been no gamebird inspections in Wales according to the data extrapolated for the years 2023 and 2024.

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of bringing forward legislative proposals to ban the use of cages for (a) pheasants and (b) partridges for breeding.

Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

We remain firmly committed to maintaining and improving animal welfare and want to work closely with the farming sector to deliver high standards.

The use of cages and other close confinement systems for farmed animals, including for gamebirds, is an issue which we are currently considering very carefully.

Defra’s Code of Practice for the Welfare of Gamebirds Reared for Sporting Purposes provides keepers with guidance on how to meet the welfare needs of their gamebirds as required by the Animal Welfare Act 2006. It recommends that barren cages for breeding pheasants and small barren cages for breeding partridges should not be used, and that any system should be appropriately enriched.

Death of Pope Francis

Found: _10 Alex Sobel Christine Jardine Layla Moran Yasmin Qureshi Afzal Khan Sir Iain Duncan Smith

Found: _10 Alex Sobel Christine Jardine Layla Moran Yasmin Qureshi Afzal Khan Sir Iain Duncan Smith

Found: REPORT STAGE Tuesday 6 May 2025 34 _10 Alex Sobel Christine Jardine Layla Moran Yasmin Qureshi Afzal