Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment of the adequacy of safeguards in AI when dealing with mental health based queries.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department recognises the importance of safeguards when using artificial intelligence (AI) for mental health queries. The United Kingdom has a world-leading regulatory system, and the National Health Service operates within a comprehensive regulatory framework for AI, underpinned by rigorous standards established by bodies including the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, the Health Research Authority, and the Care Quality Commission. These agencies ensure that AI technologies are safe, effective, and ethically deployed within healthcare settings.
Publicly available AI applications that are not deployed by the NHS, such as ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini, are not regulated as medical technologies and may offer incorrect or harmful information. Users are strongly advised to be careful when using these technologies. The Department recommends that individuals seek advice from the NHS website, which provides clinically approved guidance on mental health-based queries, or that they reach out to healthcare professionals.
The Department continues to work with NHS England and regulators to strengthen oversight and ensure AI in health and care is safe, effective, and accountable.
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, when his Department will set out the budget to local authorities so they can distribute funding for local Healthwatch services in the 2026/27 financial year.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
As advised in the Local Government Bulletin of 7 January, funding for Local Healthwatch arrangements for financial year 2026/27 will be £14.15 million.
As in previous years, this will be paid via the Local Reform and Community Voices grant. The formal grant allocations letter will be issued in due course.
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 improve the internal NHS complaints procedures.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
National Health Service organisations must handle complaints in accordance with the standards and processes set out in the Local Authority Social Services and National Health Service Complaints (England) Regulations 2009.
To support good complaint handling, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s NHS Complaint Standards set out how organisations providing NHS services in the NHS should approach complaint handling. The standards place a strong focus on several key aspects of complaint handling, including early resolution and giving fair and accountable responses. They set out practical advice and good practice to help NHS organisations improve.
Through implementation of Fit for the Future: The 10-Year Health Plan for England, we will improve transparency, deliver high-quality care for all, and strengthen patient and staff voice. This includes reform of the NHS complaints process, setting clear standards for both the timeliness and the quality of responses to complaints, as well as ensuring the NHS listens carefully and compassionately, taking forward learning to ensure high quality care. We will also increase the use of artificial intelligence tools to ensure complaints data is collected, and responded to, far more quickly.
Asked by: Steve Darling (Liberal Democrat - Torbay)
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 adequate funding for Time for Young People in Torbay; and if he will make an assessment of the adequacy of early support provision.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We recognise the importance of high-quality, community-based early support for children and young people’s mental health, including innovative local services such as Time for Young People in Torbay. These services play a key role in offering early, accessible support to young people at a point when they may not meet clinical thresholds for statutory National Health Service mental health services. It is open to integrated care boards and local authorities to commission voluntary sector providers to ensure the mental health and wellbeing needs of their local population are met.
Whilst Government does not directly fund Time for Young People in Torbay, as part of the Department’s wider commitment to early intervention and prevention, we are working with NHS England to expand funding for a range of early support initiatives and to strengthen the evidence base for such provision. For example, in 2024/25, the Department provided £8 million of funding to boost and evaluate the impact of 24 existing early support hubs, with a further £7 million in 2025/26. Findings from the evaluation will help inform the design and implementation of Young Futures Hubs, a national model for open-access support in communities.
This is in addition to other ongoing initiatives that deliver early intervention, for example through further investment and expansion of mental health support teams in schools so that up to 900,000 additional children and young people in England will have access to an NHS-funded mental health support team in their school or college by Spring 2026, compared to Spring 2025. We intend to reach full coverage by 2029.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if his Department has had discussions with the Ministry of Justice on making first cousin marriage unlawful.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department of Health and Social Care recognises the increased health risks for children of first cousins and we are in contact with other Government departments, including the Ministry of Justice, to provide further information on these as part of wider discussions.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
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 Cabinet colleagues on the potential merits of banning first cousin marriage.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department of Health and Social Care recognises the increased health risks for children of first cousins and we are in contact with other Government departments, including the Ministry of Justice, to provide further information on these as part of wider discussions.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the press release entitled NHS to invest in pioneering tech to drive down waiting lists, published on 26 September 2025, if he will monitor value for money and return on investment.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department is developing Value Based Procurement Standard Guidance to ensure greater consistency in National Health Service procurement and shift decisions towards value and outcomes over unit cost.
13 NHS trusts, covered by nine procurement teams are piloting the guidance prior to its publication and national rollout across the NHS in 2026.
NHS trusts have established governance processes to monitor value for money and return on investment in line with Government policy. The guidance will support NHS procurement teams to do this with information on best practice for setting key performance indicators, baselining, and contract management.
Asked by: Vikki Slade (Liberal Democrat - Mid Dorset and North Poole)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department is taking steps to deliver the outstanding recommendations from Sir Stephen Bubb's report for the Public Accounts Select Committee, entitled Care services for people with learning disabilities and challenging behaviour, published On 23 March 2015.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Care services for people with learning disabilities and challenging behaviour was published for the Public Accounts Select Committee in 2015, under a previous administration. The Government is committed to reducing the number of people with a learning disability and autistic people in mental health inpatient settings and ensuring they receive the right support in the community which aligns with the recommendations set out in the report.
Our 10-Year Health Plan sets out to make three big shifts towards more preventative, digitally-enabled care, with more holistic, on-going support in the community to tackle health inequalities, including for disabled people. Our 2025 Mental Health Act will limit the scope to detain people with a learning disability and autistic people so that they can only be detained for treatment in a mental health hospital if they have a co-occurring mental disorder that requires hospital treatment. The act will also introduce measures to improve community support for people with a learning disability and autistic people by putting Care (Education) and Treatment Reviews and Dynamic Support Registers on a statutory footing and placing certain duties on integrated care boards and local authorities when exercising existing commissioning duties.
The NHS Medium Term Planning Framework 2026/27 to 2028/9 maintains a focus on improving mental health and learning disability care with an explicit objective to deliver a minimum 10% reduction in the use of mental health inpatient care for people with a learning disability and autistic people year-on-year.
Asked by: Tom Hayes (Labour - Bournemouth East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if his Department will review the Mental Health Act 1983 to ensure people with co-occurring mental health and substance misuse needs are not excluded from treatment.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Mental Health Act 2025 will give patients greater choice, enhanced rights and support, and ensure everyone is treated with dignity and respect throughout treatment.
We know that people with co-occurring substance use and mental health needs do not always receive the integrated, person-centred care they require and deserve. We are committed to promoting more cohesion between mental health services and substance use services, to ensure people, included those subject to the Mental Health Act, no longer fall through the gaps of treatment. The Department and NHS England have published the Co-occurring Mental Health and Substance Use Delivery framework, which provides national commitments and calls to the sector on how the health system can improve delivery of integrated, person-centred care across drug and alcohol treatment and mental health services.
In developing this plan, we have worked with subject matter experts, including people with lived experience, academics, clinicians, and service providers, to set out a path to improving service provision for those with co-occurring substance use and mental health needs. This standard provides guidance for drug and alcohol treatment commissioners on improving services for people with co-occurring mental health and alcohol or drug conditions and how local services need to work together so that people can access the help they need.
Asked by: Al Pinkerton (Liberal Democrat - Surrey Heath)
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 raise awareness of the health risks associated with (a) unlicensed or (b) illicit medicines among patients in (i) Surrey and (ii) Surrey Heath constituency.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), acting on behalf of my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, is responsible for the regulation of medicines intended for human use in the United Kingdom. This includes applying the legal controls on the retail sale, supply, and advertising of medicines, which are set out in the Human Medicines Regulations 2012.
Sourcing weight loss medicines from unregulated suppliers significantly increases the risk of receiving a product which is either falsified or not authorised for human use. Products purchased in this way will not meet the MHRA’s strict standards for quality, safety, and efficacy and can therefore expose patients to incorrect dosages or dangerous ingredients.
Public safety is the number one priority for the MHRA, and its Criminal Enforcement Unit works hard to prevent, detect, and investigate illegal activity involving medicines and medical devices and takes robust enforcement action where necessary. It works closely with other health regulators, customs authorities, law enforcement agencies, and private sector partners, including e-commerce and the internet industry to identify, remove and block online content promoting the illegal sale of medicines and medical devices.
The MHRA seeks to identify and, where appropriate, prosecute online sellers responsible for putting public health at risk. Between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025, the MHRA and its partners seized approximately 17 million doses of illegally traded medicines with a street value of more than £37 million.
During the same period, it disrupted approximately 190,000 website and social media links responsible for advertising medicinal products illegally. Additionally, collaboration with one well-known online marketplace led to the successful identification and blocking of more than 1.5 million unregulated prescription medicines, over-the-counter medicines, and medical devices before they could be offered for sale to the public.
The MHRA is continually developing new and innovative ways to combat the illegal trade in medicines and to raise public awareness. These measures include:
publication of a #Fakemeds campaign which explains how to access medicines through safe and legitimate online sources, with further information available at the following link:
https://fakemeds.campaign.gov.uk/;
public guidance on how to safely access and use GLP-1 medications, available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/glp-1-medicines-for-weight-loss-and-diabetes-what-you-need-to-know/glp-1-medicines-for-weight-loss-and-diabetes-what-you-need-to-know;
development of an online service which allows the public to check if a website has been deemed ‘Not Recommended’ by the MHRA;
development of a web-based reporting scheme allowing the public to report suspicious online sellers to the MHRA; and
extensive work with media outlets to raise awareness of the dangers of illegal medicines.
The MHRA’s continued efforts have led to more medicines being seized than ever before, significant custodial sentences for offenders, the forfeiture of criminal profits and considerable success in disrupting the illegal supply of medicines.