Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what was the cost to the NHS of missed appointments at (1) hospitals, and (2) GP surgeries, in each of the past five years.

Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

It is not possible to produce an estimate of the true cost to the National Health Service of these missed appointments, as this will depend on whether NHS staff were still able to use the time productively, for example by seeing other patients instead, or doing other work. NHS England advises local NHS organisations, general practices and trusts to plan for preventing and dealing with missed appointments. These include ensuring patients can cancel appointments in convenient ways, such as by text message or through online cancellation forms and offering telephone consultations if these better suit the patients’ requirements.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what discussions they have had with local authorities about the financing of those in social care.

Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

Ministers and officials in the Department have regular conversations with representatives of local government, including the Local Government Association and the Association for Directors of Adult Social Services, regarding the costs of meeting the needs of adults who draw on care and support. The Department regularly engages with local authorities, who are responsible for assessing eligibility for financial assistance as set out in the Care Act, to understand the impact charging policy has on individuals who draw on care. The Department also regularly engages with individual local authorities to better understand their financial plans for commissioning and delivering adult social care.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what progress they have made on integrating social care and the NHS.

Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Health and Care Act 2022 established integrated care systems, reforming how health and adult social care work together by putting partnership at the heart of planning. The Government has published guidance for integrated care partnerships (ICPs), on the statutory requirement for each ICP to publish an Integrated Care Strategy to address the health, social care, and public health needs of their system. All ICPs have now published their integrated care strategies.

The integration of health and social care is often best achieved through collaboration across smaller geographies within integrated care systems called places. Since the Health and Care Act 2022, we have seen good progress in the development of place-based arrangements to integrate health and social care. In October 2023, we published our Shared Outcomes Toolkit designed to help place-based partnerships develop shared outcomes as a powerful means of promoting integrated working and joined up care. We also issued a call for evidence as part of our review of Section 75 of the NHS Act 2006, which permits local authorities and National Health Service bodies to pool budgets, enabling joint commissioning and the commissioning of integrated services. The findings of this review will be shared in due course.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many missed dental appointments there have been in each of the past five years.

Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

Whilst the Department does not hold this information in the format requested, data is recorded on dental activity that has occurred. For example, the Department holds data on the number of Units of Dental Activity commissioned and delivered each month on the NHS Business Services Authority Open Data Portal in an online-only format. The portal currently holds data from April 2016 to November 2023.