Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
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 that people who cannot afford anticancer treatment will continue to receive treatment beyond the stopping date of their anticancer agent being available on the NHS.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is the independent body that develops authoritative, evidence-based recommendations on whether new licensed medicines should be routinely funded by the National Health Service based on an assessment of clinical and cost effectiveness. The NHS in England is legally required to fund medicines in line with NICE’s recommendations.
These are very difficult decisions to make, and it is right that they are taken independently and on the basis of the evidence. NICE’s methods and processes for making its recommendations are internationally respected and have been developed through extensive consultation. NICE is able to recommend the vast majority of new licensed medicines for use on the NHS, and many thousands of patients have benefited from access to medicines as a result.
NICE’s guidance on the use of pembrolizumab for the treatment of untreated PD-L1-positive metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer recommends that treatment should be stopped at two years. This recommendation was based on the best available clinical evidence and was made in the interest of patient safety. During the development of guidance, NICE’s appraisal committee was informed by clinical experts that the optimal duration of treatment was unknown and, despite the medicine having low toxicity, long courses of intravenous infusion may be a burden to patients. Further information is set out in paragraph 3.6 of NICE’s published guidance at the following link:
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ta531/chapter/3-Committee-discussion
The Department and NHS England do not hold any data on the number of patients who are unable to self-fund treatment of medicines beyond any stopping rule set out in NICE’s guidance.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what information his Department holds on the number of cancer patients who could not afford to continue using their anticancer agent beyond its NHS availability.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is the independent body that develops authoritative, evidence-based recommendations on whether new licensed medicines should be routinely funded by the National Health Service based on an assessment of clinical and cost effectiveness. The NHS in England is legally required to fund medicines in line with NICE’s recommendations.
These are very difficult decisions to make, and it is right that they are taken independently and on the basis of the evidence. NICE’s methods and processes for making its recommendations are internationally respected and have been developed through extensive consultation. NICE is able to recommend the vast majority of new licensed medicines for use on the NHS, and many thousands of patients have benefited from access to medicines as a result.
NICE’s guidance on the use of pembrolizumab for the treatment of untreated PD-L1-positive metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer recommends that treatment should be stopped at two years. This recommendation was based on the best available clinical evidence and was made in the interest of patient safety. During the development of guidance, NICE’s appraisal committee was informed by clinical experts that the optimal duration of treatment was unknown and, despite the medicine having low toxicity, long courses of intravenous infusion may be a burden to patients. Further information is set out in paragraph 3.6 of NICE’s published guidance at the following link:
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ta531/chapter/3-Committee-discussion
The Department and NHS England do not hold any data on the number of patients who are unable to self-fund treatment of medicines beyond any stopping rule set out in NICE’s guidance.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he is taking steps to ensure anticancer agents can be offered on the NHS for the duration of people’s cancer treatment.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is the independent body that develops authoritative, evidence-based recommendations on whether new licensed medicines should be routinely funded by the National Health Service based on an assessment of clinical and cost effectiveness. The NHS in England is legally required to fund medicines in line with NICE’s recommendations.
These are very difficult decisions to make, and it is right that they are taken independently and on the basis of the evidence. NICE’s methods and processes for making its recommendations are internationally respected and have been developed through extensive consultation. NICE is able to recommend the vast majority of new licensed medicines for use on the NHS, and many thousands of patients have benefited from access to medicines as a result.
NICE’s guidance on the use of pembrolizumab for the treatment of untreated PD-L1-positive metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer recommends that treatment should be stopped at two years. This recommendation was based on the best available clinical evidence and was made in the interest of patient safety. During the development of guidance, NICE’s appraisal committee was informed by clinical experts that the optimal duration of treatment was unknown and, despite the medicine having low toxicity, long courses of intravenous infusion may be a burden to patients. Further information is set out in paragraph 3.6 of NICE’s published guidance at the following link:
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ta531/chapter/3-Committee-discussion
The Department and NHS England do not hold any data on the number of patients who are unable to self-fund treatment of medicines beyond any stopping rule set out in NICE’s guidance.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the adequacy of systems for determining the duration of NHS funding for anticancer agents.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is the independent body that develops authoritative, evidence-based recommendations on whether new licensed medicines should be routinely funded by the National Health Service based on an assessment of clinical and cost effectiveness. The NHS in England is legally required to fund medicines in line with NICE’s recommendations.
These are very difficult decisions to make, and it is right that they are taken independently and on the basis of the evidence. NICE’s methods and processes for making its recommendations are internationally respected and have been developed through extensive consultation. NICE is able to recommend the vast majority of new licensed medicines for use on the NHS, and many thousands of patients have benefited from access to medicines as a result.
NICE’s guidance on the use of pembrolizumab for the treatment of untreated PD-L1-positive metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer recommends that treatment should be stopped at two years. This recommendation was based on the best available clinical evidence and was made in the interest of patient safety. During the development of guidance, NICE’s appraisal committee was informed by clinical experts that the optimal duration of treatment was unknown and, despite the medicine having low toxicity, long courses of intravenous infusion may be a burden to patients. Further information is set out in paragraph 3.6 of NICE’s published guidance at the following link:
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ta531/chapter/3-Committee-discussion
The Department and NHS England do not hold any data on the number of patients who are unable to self-fund treatment of medicines beyond any stopping rule set out in NICE’s guidance.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of making pembrolizumab available on the NHS for longer than two years.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is the independent body that develops authoritative, evidence-based recommendations on whether new licensed medicines should be routinely funded by the National Health Service based on an assessment of clinical and cost effectiveness. The NHS in England is legally required to fund medicines in line with NICE’s recommendations.
These are very difficult decisions to make, and it is right that they are taken independently and on the basis of the evidence. NICE’s methods and processes for making its recommendations are internationally respected and have been developed through extensive consultation. NICE is able to recommend the vast majority of new licensed medicines for use on the NHS, and many thousands of patients have benefited from access to medicines as a result.
NICE’s guidance on the use of pembrolizumab for the treatment of untreated PD-L1-positive metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer recommends that treatment should be stopped at two years. This recommendation was based on the best available clinical evidence and was made in the interest of patient safety. During the development of guidance, NICE’s appraisal committee was informed by clinical experts that the optimal duration of treatment was unknown and, despite the medicine having low toxicity, long courses of intravenous infusion may be a burden to patients. Further information is set out in paragraph 3.6 of NICE’s published guidance at the following link:
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ta531/chapter/3-Committee-discussion
The Department and NHS England do not hold any data on the number of patients who are unable to self-fund treatment of medicines beyond any stopping rule set out in NICE’s guidance.
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 steps his Department is taking to reduce the number of deaths in hospital.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is prioritising patient safety and a learning culture in the National Health Service to prevent harmful events from happening to patients. The NHS Patient Safety Strategy, originally published in 2019, and updated in 2021 and 2023, includes key programmes to support the NHS to improve patient safety continuously and reduce patient harm. Further information on the NHS Patient Safety Strategy is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/patient-safety/the-nhs-patient-safety-strategy/
As part of this, the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework reforms the way providers respond to patient safety incidents, with further information available at the following link:
In addition, the Learn From Patient Safety Events service also enables the NHS to learn from more than three million patient safety incidents reported annually, including through the development of machine learning and artificial intelligence tools for analysis. Further information on the Learn From Patient Safety Events service is available at the following link:
Other examples of key patient safety initiatives include rollout of Martha’s Rule, with further information available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/patient-safety/marthas-rule/
From September 2024 to July 2025, this policy has resulted in changes in treatment for roughly 1,000 patients, with more than 260 patients requiring transfers of care to high dependency or intensive care units, enhanced levels of care, or a tertiary centre. The Government also introduced the statutory medical examiner system from September 2024 which means that medical examiners independently scrutinise every death in England and Wales not referred to a coroner. This is estimated as more than half a million deaths in 12 months. Medical examiners support local learning and improvement by detecting and referring concerns through established local clinical governance processes.
Asked by: Sarah Gibson (Liberal Democrat - Chippenham)
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 reduce waiting times for veterans accessing Op COURAGE services, including for those in rural counties such as Wiltshire.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England has been working with the regional providers of Op COURAGE to ensure that they are meeting the needs of veterans. This includes reviewing the time that veterans wait for assessment and treatment. Any required changes identified through this internal review will be implemented from April 2026.
All primary care networks in Wiltshire have at least one general practice (GP) accredited as being veteran friendly. NHS England, in partnership with the Royal College of General Practitioners, are continuing to encourage GPs to participate in the Armed Forces Veteran Friendly GP accreditation scheme. This voluntary initiative is available to GPs across England and is free to access.
NHS England is working with Op COURAGE and Op RESTORE to develop more meaningful data on outcomes, patient satisfaction, and to demonstrate progress on continuous improvement in services and clinical provision. This work will focus on ensuring that future reporting is both purposeful and proportionate, to avoid detracting from the delivery of frontline services.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what funding his Department has made available to local authorities for (a) housing (b) other support to Gazan evacuees.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government is funding local authorities, in the form of an accommodation tariff, so they can provide suitable accommodation for families from Gaza for up to two years in England.
The Department of Health and Social Care is providing local authorities a fixed flat-rate tariff to fund wraparound services to families. Local authorities are also able to claim additional funding to cover exceptional adult social care, children’s social care, and educational costs.
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.