Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to encourage the use of surgical robotics in prostate cancer treatment.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England currently commissions robotic assisted surgical procedures for the treatment of prostate cancer for patients who meet the necessary criteria.
In June 2025, NHS England announced a commitment to expand robotic-assisted surgery over the next 10 years for a range of procedures. Following the announcement, NHS England published guidance for National Health Service systems to implement robotic-assisted surgery in the NHS.
Furthermore, on 3 July 2025, the Department published the 10-Year Health Plan which outlines our commitment to expand surgical robot adoption in line with National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines.
Asked by: Baroness Altmann (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what they have done to ensure parity in patient education and empowerment resources between osteoporosis and other long-term conditions.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Health Service website, along with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence and the Royal Osteoporosis Society, has information and resources for patients to learn about osteoporosis, including advice on how to manage osteoporosis and advice on lifestyle changes that patients can make to improve their bone health and reduce their risk of fractures. The Royal College of General Practitioners’ e-learning module on the diagnosis and management of osteoporosis also provides suggested resources that clinicians can use with their patients.
Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 14 July (HL8966), what are the reasons for not allowing patients to directly nominate a distance selling pharmacy from within the NHS App.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
There are no current plans to allow patients to directly nominate a distance selling pharmacy (DSP) from within the NHS App. A discovery exercise completed in January 2025 explored this option and concluded that within the current landscape of DSPs there are several challenges that could impact user experience and timely access to medicines. This has been communicated to relevant DSP stakeholders.
The NHS App supports seamless pharmacy services by allowing patients to order repeat prescriptions, nominate their preferred pharmacy, and manage their medication. A new prescription tracker feature means that nearly 1,500 pharmacies are now offering the new prescription tracking service through the NHS App, which provides updates on when prescriptions are ready to be collected. Work has also commenced on an ‘in App’ notification which will enhance this feature further.
Asked by: Lord Rennard (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to reduce the number of people diagnosed with cancer in an emergency care setting in (1) Yorkshire, and (2) other regions of the country.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
It is a priority for the Government to support the National Health Service to diagnose cancer as early and quickly as possible and to treat it faster, to improve outcomes. This will help cancer patients across England, including in Yorkshire.
We are improving public awareness of cancer signs and symptoms, streamlining referral routes, and increasing the availability of diagnostic capacity through the roll-out of more community diagnostic centres. We are also investing an additional £889 million in general practices (GPs) to reinforce the front door of the National Health Service, bringing total spend on the GP Contract to £13.2 billion in 2025/26. This is the biggest increase in over a decade.
Alongside improving cancer waiting time performance, the NHS has implemented non-specific symptom pathways for patients who present with vague and non-site-specific symptoms, which do not clearly align to a tumour type. To support the use of rapid diagnostic centres, non-specific symptom (NSS) pathways have been rolled out across England for patients who present with vague symptoms which could indicate multiple different types of cancer, for example unexplained weight-loss and fatigue.
The Government has announced that the National Cancer Plan will be published later this year, following the recent publication of the 10-Year Health Plan. The National Cancer Plan will ensure that cancer patients in England, including in Yorkshire, will have access to the best cancer care and treatments. It will have patients at its heart and will cover the entirety of the cancer pathway, from referral and diagnosis to treatment and ongoing care.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the cost of treating patients with prostate cancer that was not identified at an early stage; and what steps they are taking to improve early diagnosis.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department is committed to getting the National Health Service diagnosing prostate cancer earlier and treating it faster. In January 2025, NHS England re-launched its Abdominal and urological symptoms of cancer phase of the Help Us Help You campaigns to increase knowledge of cancer symptoms and address barriers to acting on them, to encourage people to come forward as soon as possible to see their general practitioner. The campaigns focus on a range of symptoms, including symptoms of urological cancers, as well as encouraging body awareness to help people spot symptoms across a wide range of cancers at an earlier point.
In addition, NHS England is streamlining cancer pathways. This includes the introduction of a best-practice timed pathway for prostate cancer so that those suspected of having prostate cancer receive a multi-parametric magnetic resonance imaging scan first, which ensures that only those men most at risk of having cancer undergo an invasive biopsy. For patients, the prostate best-practice timed pathway may reduce anxiety and uncertainty of a possible cancer diagnosis, with less time between referral and receiving the outcome of a diagnostic test.
A new National Cancer Plan will be published later this year which will include further details on how the NHS will improve outcomes for all cancer patients, including those with prostate cancer. The plan will set out actions for speeding up diagnosis and treatment.
Given the wide-ranging work being taken forward, the Department has not made a formal assessment of the specific cost of treating patients with prostate cancer that was not identified at an early stage.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the higher risk of prostate cancer in black men, and what steps they are taking to provide support to black men with a higher risk profile.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government understands that more needs to be done to improve outcomes for all people with prostate cancer, including black men, who we know are two to three times more likely to develop prostate cancer than white men.
To address disparities and find ways to better detect prostate cancer earlier, we have invested £16 million in the United Kingdom-wide TRANSFORM trial, aimed at helping to find the best ways of detecting prostate cancer in men, even if they are not displaying any symptoms. This research will aim to address some of the inequalities that exist in prostate cancer diagnosis by targeting black men in trial recruitment, ensuring that one in ten participants are black men. We have also asked the National Screening Committee to review the evidence for introducing prostate cancer screening, including for high-risk groups.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have, if any, to assist local authorities address social care overspends, considering Association of Directors of Adult Social Services' ADASS Spring Survey 2025 finding that “the financial situation is as bad as it has been in recent history”.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
To enable local authorities to deliver key services such as adult social care, the Government has made available up to £3.7 billion of additional funding for social care authorities in 2025/26, which includes an £880 million increase in the Social Care Grant.
In addition, the 2025 Spending Review allows for an increase of over £4 billion of funding for adult social care in 2028/29 compared to 2025/26, to support the sector in making improvements. Funding will be made available each year of the Spending Review through additional grant funding and growth in other sources of income available to support adult social care.
Between 2025/26 and 2028/29, local authority core spending power will increase by an average of 2.6% in real terms.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the BARCODE 1 study on the early detection of prostate cancer using saliva samples to identify high-risk patients.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government has invested £16 million in the £42 million, United Kingdom-wide TRANSFORM trial, led by Prostate Cancer UK, which aims to identify new ways of detecting prostate cancer at an earlier stage, including in men without symptoms. The BARCODE 1 study tests are being included in the TRANSFORM trial, and the UK National Screening Committee will be assessing the evidence that emerges from this trial as it is published.
Asked by: Lord Harper (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of their planned advertising restrictions on less healthy food on commercial broadcasters' advertising revenues.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government has set a bold ambition to raise the healthiest generation of children ever and will take action to address the childhood obesity crisis. This requires a range of policies, which is why we have set out decisive action in the 10-Year Health Plan. As part of this, we are committed to implementing the advertising restrictions for less healthy food and drink on television and online. These restrictions are expected to remove up to 7.2 billion calories from children’s diets per year in the United Kingdom and deliver approximately £2 billion in health benefits. The restrictions are expected to reduce childhood obesity by 20,000 cases. The restrictions specifically target categories of products that have been identified as of most concern in relation to childhood obesity. However, we also recognise that the restrictions will have an impact on businesses, and we have therefore made sure that the restrictions are proportionate and strike the right balance between health benefits and impact on businesses, for example ensuring that brand advertising which does not identify less healthy food or drink products is not in the scope of the policy.
Asked by: Lord Harper (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of their planned advertising restrictions on less healthy food on reducing child obesity.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government has set a bold ambition to raise the healthiest generation of children ever and will take action to address the childhood obesity crisis. This requires a range of policies, which is why we have set out decisive action in the 10-Year Health Plan. As part of this, we are committed to implementing the advertising restrictions for less healthy food and drink on television and online. These restrictions are expected to remove up to 7.2 billion calories from children’s diets per year in the United Kingdom and deliver approximately £2 billion in health benefits. The restrictions are expected to reduce childhood obesity by 20,000 cases. The restrictions specifically target categories of products that have been identified as of most concern in relation to childhood obesity. However, we also recognise that the restrictions will have an impact on businesses, and we have therefore made sure that the restrictions are proportionate and strike the right balance between health benefits and impact on businesses, for example ensuring that brand advertising which does not identify less healthy food or drink products is not in the scope of the policy.