Asked by: Maya Ellis (Labour - Ribble Valley)
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 that every ICB retains its Women’s Health Champion.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The network of women’s health champions brings together senior leaders in women’s health from every integrated care system (ICS) to share best practice to improve women’s health outcomes across the life course and reduce health inequalities. The role is a voluntary commitment.
The network continues to meet every one to two months to share insight and discuss best practice on local implementation of women’s health services across ICSs. Meetings continue to be well-attended with insightful, positive discussion. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Patient Safety, Women’s Health and Mental Health also attended the March 2025 Network of Champions meeting and had the opportunity to hear firsthand about their excellent work and ideas for the future.
Asked by: Stuart Andrew (Conservative - Daventry)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what meetings or engagements Ministers or senior officials from his department have had with any of the following patient organisations to discuss newborn screening: (a) Genetic Alliance UK (b) UK LSD Collaborative (c) UK Newborn Screening Collaborative (d) ArchAngel MLD Trust (e) MPS Society (f) MLD Support Association UK (g) SMA UK (h) Immunodeficiency UK (i) Alex, The Leukodystrophy Charity (j) Metabolic Support UK, since July 2024.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government remains committed to improving the lives of people living with rare diseases through the UK Rare Diseases Framework, which includes faster diagnosis as one of its four priorities.
In all aspects of population and targeted screening, ministers are advised by the UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC). When assessing the case for newborn screening for rare diseases, as with all other diseases and conditions, the UK NSC uses internationally recognised criteria and a rigorous evidence review and consultation process. It is only where the UK NSC is confident that the offer to screen provides more good than harm that a screening programme is recommended. When the UK NSC makes a screening recommendation, ministers are then asked to consider and make a decision on whether to accept the recommendation.
This year, the UK NSC secretariat carried out a review of the committee’s stakeholder engagement strategy and activities. The review included an online survey and three focused stakeholder discussion groups that were attended by a total of 17 external stakeholders, including seven representatives of patient organisations representing rare diseases affecting newborns. The UK NSC stakeholder strategy is being updated to incorporate their valuable feedback and is expected to be published in early 2026.
Although the Department screening team supporting the UK NSC has limited capacity to meet with individual stakeholders, they actively involve and engage with stakeholders and partners in other ways. For example:
The Department screening team meets regularly with the Department’s rare diseases team to discuss overlapping areas of work. The rare diseases team have working relationships with the wider rare diseases community and junior officials have met with Genetic Alliance UK.
Asked by: Euan Stainbank (Labour - Falkirk)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has had discussions with the Scottish Government on the rollout of universal thrombectomy services.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Department ministers regularly have discussions with colleagues across Government on issues of cross-border interest. There have been no specific meetings held recently on thrombectomy services.
Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment his Department has made of trends in the level of regional variations in the proportion of NHS Continuing Healthcare applications that are approved; and what steps he is taking to ensure consistency in decision making across Integrated Care Boards.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department works closely with NHS England to monitor levels of regional variation in eligibility for NHS Continuing Healthcare (CHC). This includes NHS England implementing an operational assurance regime across regions which promotes accurate assessment, equal access, standardisation, and consistency within CHC funding.
This assurance regime has a specific focus on reducing unwarranted variation in CHC across the country. To support this further during 2025/26, NHS England has increased their regional assurance meetings from every three months to every two months.
To support improved patient experience in relation to CHC, the NHS Performance and Assessment Framework for 2025/26 also includes an assurance standard for Integrated Care Boards to monitor the percentage of Standard CHC referrals completed within 28 days.
Asked by: Andrew Gwynne (Independent - Gorton and Denton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent discussions his Department has had with stakeholders on compensation for people affected by in-utero exposure to sodium valproate.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is carefully considering the work by the Patient Safety Commissioner and her report, which set out options for redress for those harmed by valproate and pelvic mesh. This is a complex issue involving input from different Government departments. The Government will provide a further update to the Patient Safety Commissioner’s report.
The Department will consider further meetings with the community and relevant stakeholders, when we have a substantive update to ensure that discussions can be productive, as part of our work on these important issues.
Asked by: Andrew Gwynne (Independent - Gorton and Denton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make it his policy to hold further meetings with (a) people affected by in-utero exposure to sodium valproate and (b) other relevant stakeholders on the progress made in implementing the recommendations outlined in the Hughes Report.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is carefully considering the work by the Patient Safety Commissioner and her report, which set out options for redress for those harmed by valproate and pelvic mesh. This is a complex issue involving input from different Government departments. The Government will provide a further update to the Patient Safety Commissioner’s report.
The Department will consider further meetings with the community and relevant stakeholders, when we have a substantive update to ensure that discussions can be productive, as part of our work on these important issues.
Asked by: Lord Murray of Blidworth (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many meetings the departmental board of the Department of Health and Social Care has had since 4 July 2024.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department has held two departmental board meetings since 4 July 2024. Further details on departmental board meetings are published in the Department's published annual report and accounts.
Asked by: Ben Obese-Jecty (Conservative - Huntingdon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to page 130 of the Strategic Defence Review, published on 2 June 2025, what recent progress he has made on undertaking a sprint review.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The sprint review is initiated and led by the Ministry of Defence, working with the Department of Health and Social Care and other Governmental and private organisations. A series of meetings are planned for late 2025 which will explore and progress the joint plans to meet the recommendations outlined in the Strategic Defence Review.
Asked by: Luke Evans (Conservative - Hinckley and Bosworth)
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 August 2025 to Question 68971 on General Practitioners: Disclosure of Information, with which stakeholders the impact of information sharing duties on GPs was last discussed; and at what forums this was discussed.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Keeping children safe is a priority for the Government. The new information sharing duty will clarify when a child’s information should be shared, which should ease the overall burden on practitioners. It will be supported by statutory guidance, and we will work closely with multi-agency partners to ensure effective implementation.
To ensure the impact on general practitioners is effectively captured in the information sharing duty, the Department have consulted the following stakeholders:
- Action for Children;
- Barnardo’s;
- British Association of Social Workers;
- Domestic Abuse Commissioner;
- General Medical Council;
- Royal College of General Practitioners;
- Information Commissioner’s Office;
- Nursing and Midwifery Council;
- Operation Encompass;
- Social Work England;
- Teaching Regulation Agency, Teacher Misconduct; and
- over 400 individual practitioners, including those working in health.
All consultations took place in the form of meetings.
We are committed to ongoing engagement with health stakeholders as we plan for the effective implementation of the information sharing duty.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of the availability of specialist residential drug and alcohol treatment in (a) England and (b) the North East.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Local authorities are responsible for assessing local need for alcohol and drug prevention and treatment in their area, including residential treatment, and commissioning services to meet these needs. The Department set an ambition that 2% of the drug and alcohol treatment population should be accessing residential treatment. We remain committed to this ambition and continue to work with the sector to achieve this.
Earlier this year, the Department launched the self-assessment toolkit to help local areas to improve the residential drug and alcohol treatment that they commission, which is available at the following link:
The Department facilitates a residential treatment provider forum and engages in annual planning for local authorities and partners, including target-setting for residential episodes. The Department also maintains regular engagement with the English Substance Use Commissioners Group and holds joint meetings with the Ministry of Justice to explore improved pathways from the criminal justice system into residential treatment.
In addition to the Public Health Grant, in 2025/26 the Government is providing the North East with £29,432,782 in further targeted grants to improve drug and alcohol treatment and recovery services. This additional funding has provided opportunity for local authorities in the North East to enhance access to out of area facilities and bolster community models of drug and alcohol treatment and recovery support, including quasi residential rehabilitation and dayhab models.