Asked by: Lee Dillon (Liberal Democrat - Newbury)
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 improve access to routine tissue freezing for brain cancer patients in Newbury.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Information on the number of National Health Service trusts in England that have facilities for fresh freezing brain cancer tissue samples is not currently collected and no recent assessment has been made on the adequacy, extent, or capacity of procedures for freezing brain cancer and general cancer tissue samples across NHS trusts in England.
Pathology services in England are delivered through 27 regional pathology networks, and offer a comprehensive range of tests, including the analysis of brain tissues. Individual pathology services maintain their own standard operating procedures (SOPs) for fresh, or snap-freezing, of tissue samples. These SOPs outline local capabilities and practices.
In addition, the Department invests over £1.6 billion each year in research through the National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR). The NIHR’s investments for capital equipment, technology, and modular buildings support NHS trusts across England to deliver high-quality research to improve the health of the population. This investment includes cutting edge research equipment and fixed assets such as ultra-low and cryogenic freezers, to strengthen research capacity and improve access to samples for research.
Asked by: John McDonnell (Labour - Hayes and Harlington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what are the findings of the department’s business case on new private finance in the NHS.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
As set out in the 10 Year Infrastructure Strategy (the Strategy) and the 10-Year Health Plan, in addition to significant capital investment, the Government would explore the feasibility of using new Public Private Partnership (PPP) models for taxpayer-funded projects in very limited circumstances, where they could represent value for money. This included the potential use of PPPs to deliver Neighbourhood Health Centres (NHCs).
A business case was developed by the Department and supported by National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA). The business case was considered by ministers and has resulted in the announcement in the Budget published on 26 November 2025.
The Budget builds on the Strategy and the 10-Year Health Plan by confirming that the NHS Neighbourhood Rebuild Programme will deliver new NHCs through upgrading and repurposing existing buildings and building new facilities through a combination of public sector investment and a new model of PPPs.
This new PPP model is being developed by NISTA, and is supported by the Department, and will ensure private sector expertise is harnessed to deliver these assets on time and on budget.
The new model will build on lessons from the past and other models currently in use, and will draw on lessons learnt, including the National Audit Office’s 2025 report on private finance.
To ensure the NHC PPPs are managed transparently and are fiscally sustainable, these partnerships will be budgeted for as if they are on a balance sheet.
Delivering new NHCs through a combination of public investment and PPPs will also allow, for the first time, for evidence to be built and compared between different delivery models.
Asked by: Sonia Kumar (Labour - Dudley)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, whether his Department has made an assessment of the public health impacts of the Warm Homes Plan, especially regarding both indoor and outdoor air quality; and what metrics her Department plans to use to measure success in Dudley constituency.
Answered by Martin McCluskey - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Warm Homes Plan will set out a strategy to improve health outcomes through the upgrade of British buildings. This includes measures that mitigate the health risks associated with living in a cold home (such as respiratory disease), exposure to poor air quality as a result of gas boiler emissions, and overheating in hotter months. DESNZ will work with the Department for Health and Social Care, the NHS and local government to promote the delivery of home upgrades that will support vulnerable health groups. Our ambition is to upgrade 5 million homes this parliament, and the success of our programmes will be monitored and evaluated through the collection of scheme data.
Asked by: Adrian Ramsay (Green Party - Waveney Valley)
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 ensure capital investment in NHS estate and infrastructure supports improvements in climate resilience.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We recognise the importance of increasing the climate resilience of the National Health Service estate and infrastructure. NHS trusts are responsible for maintaining their estate, including adapting premises to reduce the risks associated with climate change, as set out in the NHS Standard Contract.
The Department is supporting the improvement of NHS sites by investing £30 billion over the next five years in day-to-day maintenance and repair, with £5 billion allocated specifically to address the most critical building issues. NHS trusts will be able to direct some of this funding towards improving the climate resilience of their estate where this is locally appropriate. Additionally, the Department is making sure all new hospitals are fit for the future. The Department’s New Hospital Programme requires schemes to achieve a minimum rating of BREEAM ‘Excellent’ for new builds, and ‘Very Good’ for refurbishments. All NHS investments in new buildings and upgrades to existing facilities that are subject to HM Treasury business case approval process must align with the NHS Net Zero Building Standard, which includes a focus on overheating risks.
Asked by: Chris Coghlan (Liberal Democrat - Dorking and Horley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential implications for the 10-year health plan of the findings of the report by NHS Providers entitled Investing in the NHS: empowering the sector to drive productivity, renewal and growth, published on 15 October 2025 on local authority funding for NHS infrastructure.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department of Health and Social Care continues to work proactively with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and local authorities to reform National Health Service infrastructure in England. The 2025 Autumn Budget confirmed that the Department of Health and Social Care’s capital budgets will rise to £15.2 billion by the end of the Spending Review period of 2029/30, delivering the largest ever health capital budget, as well as medium-term certainty to the sector to enable multi-year planning.
This settlement commits to a major transformation of care delivery, moving from analogue to digital systems, hospital to community-based care, and from treatment to prevention, and also confirmed £300 million additional capital investment in NHS technology which will support NHS productivity improvements. Additionally, this includes the establishment of 250 neighbourhood health centres across England, of which 120 will be operational by 2030. These will be delivered through upgrading and repurposing existing buildings, and building new facilities through a combination of public sector investment and a new model of public-private partnerships. This is being developed by the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority, supported by the Department of Health and Social Care, and will build on lessons learnt from past and current models and harness private sector expertise to deliver the new neighbourhood health centres.
Additionally, in November 2025, NHS England published the Capital guidance 2026/27 to 2029/30, which introduced several national reforms to the capital regime which addresses several of the recommendations in the report. These include: multi-year operational capital envelopes allocated directly to providers for the first time, providing firm funding until 2029/30 and indicative assumptions for a further five years; a new balance between national control and regional autonomy, giving regions a lead role in strategic estates planning and delivery oversight; expanded capital freedoms and flexibilities, including greater delegated authority and the ability for high-performing providers and newly authorised foundation trusts to reinvest surpluses; streamlined approvals and higher delegated limits, enabling faster delivery of capital schemes; and integration with the 10-Year Health Plan shifts, namely hospital to community, analogue to digital, and sickness to prevention, ensuring that capital investment underpins the long-term transformation of NHS services.
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the policy papers entitled Spending Review 2025, published on 30 June 2025, and Budget 2025, published on 28 November 2025, what their Department’s capital Departmental Expenditure Limit (DEL) will be in each year of the Spending Review period; how much capital funding has been allocated to each of their Department’s programmes; and how much and what proportion of the capital DEL allocation remains unallocated in each year.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The 2025 Autumn Budget confirmed that the Department’s capital budgets will rise to £15.2 billion by the end of the 2025 Spending Review period, in 2029/30, to invest in the National Health Service and wider health infrastructure. The following table shows the planned Capital Departmental Expenditure Limits from 2024/25 to 2029/30:
Outturn 2024/25 (£bn) | Planned 2025/26 (£bn) | Planned 2026/27 (£bn) | Planned 2027/28 (£bn) | Planned 2028/29 (£bn) | Planned 2029/30 (£bn) |
£11.5 | £13.6 | £14.0 | £13.8 | £14.8 | £15.2 |
Funding allocations for national capital programmes for spend in the NHS across the 2025 Spending Review period are outlined in the NHS Capital Planning Guidance, for 2026/27 to 2029/30, at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/capital-guidance-2026-27-to-2029-30/
Business planning is conducted each financial year to ensure capital funding is allocated appropriately. Therefore, the allocations set out in the guidance represent indicative figures. The following table shows the allocations set out for the national programme, for estates safety, for reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete work, and for constitutional standards and left shift, from 2025/26 to 2029/30:
National programme | 2025/26 (£’000) | 2026/27 (£’000) | 2027/28 (£’000) | 2028/29 (£’000) | 2029/30 (£’000) |
Estates safety | 750,000 | 750,000 | 750,000 | 750,000 | 750,000 |
Reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete | 440,000 | 432,000 | 402,000 | 391,000 | 399,000 |
Constitutional standards and left shift | 1,650,000 | 1,873,509 | 1,001,290 | 950,500 | 591,000 |
In addition, the 2025 Autumn Budget confirmed £300 million of additional capital investment in NHS technology, building on the investment of up to £10 billion of combined revenue and capital by 2028/29 announced at the 2025 Spending Review. We are also investing over £400 million for upgrades to primary care buildings and neighbourhood health centres over the 2026/27 to 2029/30 period.
We remain committed to delivering all schemes within the New Hospital Programme, which will continue through the 2025 Spending Review period, with funding rising from £979 million in 2026/27 to £3 billion by 2029/30.
Our plans fully allocate research and development funding, which is classified as capital, and for agreed national infrastructure and pandemic preparedness schemes.
The Department does not routinely hold back unallocated capital but has an active role in managing the overall position throughout the year as pressures and underspends emerge as part of core financial management, to ensure capital funding is maximised to address strategic priorities and delivery for the taxpayer.
Asked by: Alex Brewer (Liberal Democrat - North East Hampshire)
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 support NHS trusts in managing and removing reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) from hospital buildings; and how this work is prioritised within the New Hospital Programme.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
On 20 January 2025, my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care announced a new, realistic plan to deliver the New Hospital Programme (NHP) and we continue to work to these timelines. As set out in the Plan for Implementation, delivery expectations may be subject to change depending on local and national factors and the programme reserves the right to adjust the delivery plan as schemes develop in the future.
We are prioritising the seven hospitals built wholly or primarily from reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC), as part of Wave 1, with ongoing mitigations in place to ensure patient and staff safety. Priority will be given to the most affected buildings and services.
My Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has commissioned a comprehensive site-by-site report into these seven hospitals, which will help inform individual development plans, which continue to progress at pace.
£1.6 billion will be provided to continue supporting NHS England’s national RAAC programme across the 2025 Spending Review period. The seven NHP RAAC replacement hospitals continue to receive funding and support from NHS England’s national RAAC programme ahead of the delivery of replacement hospitals.
Asked by: John McDonnell (Labour - Hayes and Harlington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of renegotiating current private finance debt to fund neighbourhood health centres with any potential savings.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Private finance initiative contracts are not held by the Department. Contracts are held between the local National Health Service trust and their respective private finance company.
The Department’s Private Finance Centre of Best Practice (CoBP) team, together with the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority, provides expert support and advice to public authorities with private finance initiative contracts, to improve the performance of existing contracts and manage their expiry.
The Department focuses on supporting trusts to assess the costs and performance of their contracts, to help maximise support for frontline services and make every penny of our NHS funding count. The Department supports trusts on a case-by-case basis considering all options available whilst maintaining contractual compliance. The contracts were let for a prescribed period of time, with the terms set at the outset with limited areas for renegotiation. The CoPB team, however, continues to assess opportunities to refinance debt where possible and where it would provide value for money.
As set out in the 10 Year Infrastructure Strategy (the Strategy) and the 10-Year Health Plan, in addition to significant capital investment, the Government would explore the feasibility of using new Public Private Partnership (PPP) Neighbourhood Health Centres (NHCs).
The Budget, published on 26 November 2025, builds on the Strategy and the 10-Year Health Plan by confirming that the NHS Neighbourhood Rebuild Programme will deliver new NHCs through upgrading and repurposing existing buildings and building new facilities through a combination of public sector investment and a new model of PPPs.
To ensure the NHC PPPs are managed transparently and are fiscally sustainable, these partnerships will be budgeted for as if they are on a balance sheet.
Delivering new NHCs through a combination of public investment and PPPs will also allow, for the first time, for evidence to be built and compared between different delivery models.
Asked by: James MacCleary (Liberal Democrat - Lewes)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made a recent assessment on the potential merits of allowing the use of prescribed medical cannabis within NHS buildings.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
National Health Service trusts have a duty of care to both staff and patients, as outlined in the NHS constitution, to ensure a safe working and care environment. This will include local policies concerning the use and administration of a patient’s own medicines.
The law was amended in 2018 to permit specialist doctors to prescribe unlicensed cannabis-based products for medicinal use. While smoking these medicines is banned, vaping and other forms of administration are not prohibited. Regardless of the form of administration, it is always advisable for patients to declare any medicines prescribed, whether on the NHS or privately, and discuss them with their clinical team upon admission.
Asked by: Rachel Gilmour (Liberal Democrat - Tiverton and Minehead)
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 help ensure trusts have sufficient access to operational capital funding to repair buildings, replace old equipment, and provide a suitable environment for patients.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to delivering a National Health Service that is fit for the future through our 10-Year Health Plan, and we recognise the importance of supporting NHS trusts to manage and maintain their estates using operational capital allocations.
The Government’s recently published 10 Year Infrastructure Strategy set out 10-year maintenance budgets for the public estate, confirming £6 billion per year for the maintenance and repair of the NHS estate up to 2034/35.
Within this overall figure, the Government is providing over £4 billion in operational capital in 2025/26 and has now allocated a further £15.6 billion directly to providers over the following four years, from 2026/27 to 2029/30. Providers have also been given further five-year operational capital planning assumptions, covering 2030/31 to 2034/35, allowing them to plan longer term with confidence and accelerate investment decisions aligned to local priorities, including repairs, maintenance, and ensuring suitable patient environments.
In addition to operational capital, the Estates Safety Fund, established in 2025/26, will continue, with £6.75 billion investment over the next nine years to target the most critical building repairs and ensure safe environments for healthcare delivery.