Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
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 trends in the rates of mental ill health among male carers.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government recognises the vital role of unpaid carers and is committed to ensuring they receive the support they need. Through measures set out in the 10-Year Health Plan, we are supporting carers by making them more visible, empowering their voices in care planning, joining up services, and streamlining caring tasks through a new ‘MyCarer’ section in the NHS App. We are also expanding access to mental health care through 24/7 neighbourhood services, new emergency mental health departments, and enhanced support via the NHS App, all of which will be available to carers experiencing mental ill health.
Local authorities have duties under the Care Act 2014 to support unpaid carers. To help them fulfil these duties, the 2025 Spending Review provides for an increase of over £4 billion in funding available for adult social care in 2028/29 compared to 2025/26.
On 19 November, we published the Men’s Health Strategy. The strategy includes tangible actions to improve access to healthcare, provide the right support to enable men to make healthier choices, develop healthy living and working conditions, foster strong social, community and family networks and address societal norms. It also considers how to prevent and tackle the biggest health problems affecting men of all ages, which include mental health and suicide prevention, respiratory illness, prostate cancer, and heart disease.
As Minister of State for Care, I also chair a regular cross-Government meeting with ministers across departments to consider how we can work together to provide unpaid carers with the recognition and support they deserve.
The Department has no current plans to introduce a multi-year funding scheme for support groups specifically for male carers, but we will continue working across government and with local authorities to ensure that unpaid carers of all genders are able to access appropriate support.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will consider the potential merits of a multi-year funding scheme for support groups for male carers.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government recognises the vital role of unpaid carers and is committed to ensuring they receive the support they need. Through measures set out in the 10-Year Health Plan, we are supporting carers by making them more visible, empowering their voices in care planning, joining up services, and streamlining caring tasks through a new ‘MyCarer’ section in the NHS App. We are also expanding access to mental health care through 24/7 neighbourhood services, new emergency mental health departments, and enhanced support via the NHS App, all of which will be available to carers experiencing mental ill health.
Local authorities have duties under the Care Act 2014 to support unpaid carers. To help them fulfil these duties, the 2025 Spending Review provides for an increase of over £4 billion in funding available for adult social care in 2028/29 compared to 2025/26.
On 19 November, we published the Men’s Health Strategy. The strategy includes tangible actions to improve access to healthcare, provide the right support to enable men to make healthier choices, develop healthy living and working conditions, foster strong social, community and family networks and address societal norms. It also considers how to prevent and tackle the biggest health problems affecting men of all ages, which include mental health and suicide prevention, respiratory illness, prostate cancer, and heart disease.
As Minister of State for Care, I also chair a regular cross-Government meeting with ministers across departments to consider how we can work together to provide unpaid carers with the recognition and support they deserve.
The Department has no current plans to introduce a multi-year funding scheme for support groups specifically for male carers, but we will continue working across government and with local authorities to ensure that unpaid carers of all genders are able to access appropriate support.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
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 increase awareness of support groups for male carers.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government recognises the vital role of unpaid carers and is committed to ensuring they receive the support they need. Through measures set out in the 10-Year Health Plan, we are supporting carers by making them more visible, empowering their voices in care planning, joining up services, and streamlining caring tasks through a new ‘MyCarer’ section in the NHS App. We are also expanding access to mental health care through 24/7 neighbourhood services, new emergency mental health departments, and enhanced support via the NHS App, all of which will be available to carers experiencing mental ill health.
Local authorities have duties under the Care Act 2014 to support unpaid carers. To help them fulfil these duties, the 2025 Spending Review provides for an increase of over £4 billion in funding available for adult social care in 2028/29 compared to 2025/26.
On 19 November, we published the Men’s Health Strategy. The strategy includes tangible actions to improve access to healthcare, provide the right support to enable men to make healthier choices, develop healthy living and working conditions, foster strong social, community and family networks and address societal norms. It also considers how to prevent and tackle the biggest health problems affecting men of all ages, which include mental health and suicide prevention, respiratory illness, prostate cancer, and heart disease.
As Minister of State for Care, I also chair a regular cross-Government meeting with ministers across departments to consider how we can work together to provide unpaid carers with the recognition and support they deserve.
The Department has no current plans to introduce a multi-year funding scheme for support groups specifically for male carers, but we will continue working across government and with local authorities to ensure that unpaid carers of all genders are able to access appropriate support.
Asked by: Josh Babarinde (Liberal Democrat - Eastbourne)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans the department has to improve retention of level 3 staff within the NHS.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
As set out in the 10-Year Health Plan, the Government is committed to making the National Health Service the best place to work, by supporting and retaining our hardworking and dedicated healthcare professionals.
To support this ambition, the Government plans to introduce a new set of standards for modern employment by April 2026. The new standards will reaffirm our commitment to improving retention by tackling the issues that matter to staff including promoting flexible working, improving staff health and wellbeing, and dealing with violence, racism, and sexual harassment in the NHS workplace.
NHS England is already leading work nationally through its retention programme to drive a consistent, system-wide approach to staff retention across NHS trusts. This ensures trusts have access to proven retention strategies, data-driven monitoring, and can foster a more stable, engaged, productive, and supported workforce.
Regarding pay, the Government remitted the Pay Review Bodies on 22 July and published its written evidence on 30 October, with the target of getting uplifts into the pockets of health workers early next year.
Earlier this year, my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care was also able to accept the vast majority of recommendations that were produced from the non-pay work from the 2023 Agenda for Change deal. This covers work on a variety of issues including job evaluation and tackling violence and aggression against staff. NHS organisations are now in the process of implementing these recommendations.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions he has had with his counterparts in Northern Ireland on the retention of district nurses.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Officials from the Department regularly meet with their counterparts in the devolved administrations to discuss and update on the development of the 10-Year Health Plan in England.
As set out in the 10-Year Health Plan, the Government is committed to making the National Health Service the best place to work, by supporting and retaining our hardworking and dedicated healthcare professionals.
NHS England is already leading work nationally through its retention programme to drive a consistent, system-wide approach to staff retention across NHS trusts. This ensures trusts have access to proven retention strategies, data-driven monitoring, and can foster a more stable, engaged, productive, and supported workforce.
Asked by: Zöe Franklin (Liberal Democrat - Guildford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what support is available to children in voluntary foster care who have (a) drug dependency and (b) mental health needs; and whether he has made an assessment of access to (i) therapy and (ii) treatment for such children.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department for Education’s National Minimum Standards for fostering makes it clear that local authorities should ensure that children in their care should have prompt access to doctors and other health professionals, including specialist services such as those supporting mental health and drug dependency, when they need these services. Further information on the National Minimum Standards for fostering is available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fostering-services-national-minimum-standards
Local authority commissioned community drug and alcohol treatment is free and accessible to all those who need it, including children and young people in voluntary foster care. Funding for alcohol and drug treatment and recovery services is provided through the Public Health Grant (PHG). In addition to the PHG, in 2025/26, the Department of Health and Social Care is providing a total of £310 million in additional targeted grants to improve drug and alcohol treatment services and recovery support to ensure that those in need can access high quality help and support. This includes children and young people with, or at risk of developing, drug and/or alcohol problems. As a result of recent increases in funding, as of August 2025, there were 4,374 more children and young people in drug and alcohol treatment. In 2024, 10% of under 18 year olds in drug and alcohol treatment were in care.
For children and young people in distress or struggling with their mental health, including those in voluntary foster care, fast access to early, high-quality support is critical. That is why the 10-Year Health Plan sets out how we will work with schools and colleges to better identify and meet children's mental health needs by expanding mental health support teams in schools and colleges in England, to reach full national coverage by 2029. This will build on the work that has already begun, including providing mental health support for almost one million more young people in schools this year and investing an extra £688 million in Government funding to transform mental health services, hire more staff, and deliver more early interventions.
Asked by: Al Pinkerton (Liberal Democrat - Surrey Heath)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions her Department has had with Surrey County Council on promoting foster caring in Surrey Heath constituency.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This government is committed to working in partnership with local authorities to recruit more foster carers and committed an additional £15 million in the budget. This funding is to start work to ensure every local authority has access to a hub and to embed the existing regional fostering recruitment and retention hubs, covering over 60% of local authorities in England. The hubs will transform the way people who are interested in fostering are supported and rollout of the Mockingbird programme, which offers peer-support to foster carers and the children in their care. Surrey County Council is part of the Fostering South East recruitment hub which officially launched in 2024, bringing together 20 local authorities.
The department is also funding Fosterlink, a support service for local authority fostering services not in the regional programme. This identifies areas for improvement and creates a national network to share best practice.
Asked by: Rebecca Smith (Conservative - South West Devon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she plans to take steps to help support independent fostering agencies to improve their co-commissioning practices.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department’s priority is to recruit and retain more foster carers so there is a choice of stable, loving foster homes for children in care.
We encourage local authorities and independent fostering agencies to collaborate and offer the best possible homes for children in care. We welcome sector efforts such as the National Fostering Model Contract, which was co-produced by local authorities and Independent Fostering Agencies, which aim to improve commissioning processes.
The department is establishing Regional Care Cooperatives to improve the overarching approach to commissioning placements to best meet the needs of children. There are currently two Regional Care Cooperatives, one in Greater Manchester, and one in the South East, and we will continue to work with these regions to strengthen their commissioning approaches, which will include working closely with the relevant independent fostering agencies.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if his Department will take steps to build neighbourhood health services in partnership with (a) Macmillan and (b) other charities.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department recognises the value of neighbourhood health services being built in partnership with voluntary organisations, such as Macmillan. We expect neighbourhood teams and services to be designed in a way that reflects the specific needs of local populations.
The Planning Framework for the National Health Service in England, published on 8 September, reiterates the commitment in the 10-Year Health Plan that place partners develop a local neighbourhood plan, which integrated care boards will bring together into a population health improvement plan. These local plans should set out how the NHS, local authority, and other organisations, including social care providers and the voluntary, community, and social enterprise (VCSE) sector, will work together to design and deliver neighbourhood health services. The Department will publish separate guidance to support their development in the autumn.
The National Cancer Plan will build on the shift from hospital to community set out by the 10-Year Health Plan and will seek to foster improved collaboration with the VCSE sector to deliver this.
This includes exploring how the impact economy can help deliver the goals set in the National Cancer Plan, collaborating across the Government, the NHS, civil society, and the corporate sector.
Asked by: Anna Gelderd (Labour - South East Cornwall)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to introduce (a) additional funding and (b) policy changes to expand (i) therapeutic and (ii) foster care options for young people over 16.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to raising the healthiest generation of children ever and giving mental health the same importance as physical health.
The Department of Health and Social Care set out in the 10-Year Health Plan how we will work to better identify and meet children's and young people’s mental health needs. We will continue to roll out Mental Health Support Teams to schools and colleges in England, to reach full national coverage by 2029/30.
The Department for Education has announced £25 million in transformation funding to recruit hundreds more new foster families and strengthen support to retain existing carers to improve the life chances of thousands of children. This will ensure that children in foster care experience greater stability. This is additional to the £15 million announced at the Autumn Budget 2024, which aims to recruit more foster carers. This will include foster care recruitment for older children and those with more complex needs.
The 2025 Spending Review also included capital funding to provide more foster care placements, by renovating and extending foster care homes.