Asked by: Max Wilkinson (Liberal Democrat - Cheltenham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment has his department made of the potential impact of funding levels for primary care on levels of demand for secondary and urgent care.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We are investing an additional £1.1 billion in general practice (GP) to reinforce the front door of the National Health Service, bringing total spend on the GP Contract to £13.4 billion in 2025/26, which is the biggest cash increase in over a decade. The 8.9% boost to the GP Contract in 2025/26 is greater than the 5.8% growth to the NHS budget as a whole. Over 10 million more GP appointments have been delivered in the 12-months to September 2025 compared to the same period last year, building capacity and improving access so that patients can be seen when they need to be in primary care.
As part of GP Contract funding, since 1 October, GPs must allow patients to contact them via an online form at any time during core hours to request an appointment or to raise a query, in addition to telephone and in-person requests. By expanding ease of contact via online access, we will reduce pressure on accident and emergency, as we know that many patients seek medical care in accident and emergency if they fail to make contact with their GP.
We are also funding the expansion of Advice and Guidance to improve two-way communication between GPs and hospital specialists and to ensure care is delivered in the right setting. We expect this to increase the usage of Advice and Guidance and to help patients receive the care they need in primary and community settings where appropriate, reducing referrals to secondary care.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many referrals have the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman received in each year since 2015 regarding Children’s Continuing Care.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to ensuring that all children, including those with complex health needs, receive appropriate care and support whenever and wherever they need it.
The National Framework for Children and Young People’s Continuing Care provides guidance to support integrated care boards and local authorities to assess and agree support for children whose needs cannot be met through existing universal or specialist services.
The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) is an independent organisation. The PHSO publishes statistics on the referrals and complaints they receive categorised by organisation and not by type of service provided or age group. Therefore, the Department does not have access to the information requested.
Asked by: Gregory Stafford (Conservative - Farnham and Bordon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, given the existing co-location of many health services with leisure centres, what assessment his Department has made of the benefits of including these facilities in neighbourhood health schemes.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Neighbourhood health sits at the heart of the Government’s 10-Year Health Plan. Our ambition is to build a service that: delivers more personalised care closer to where people live; empowers individuals to lead healthier, more independent lives; and offers genuine choice in how to access support. Further information on the 10-Year Health Plan is available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/10-year-health-plan-for-england-fit-for-the-future
We are engaging with local government sector representatives, as well as the voluntary, community, and social enterprise sector, to understand how neighbourhood health plans and centres can make best use of the full range of existing local assets, as well as create opportunities to co-locate and join up a broad range of health-impacting services. This includes those that are local authority commissioned and owned as well as those that are National Health Service commissioned and owned.
We will be publishing further guidance to support local areas to develop Neighbourhood Health Plans in due course. This will set out how the NHS, local authorities, and partners should work together under the leadership of Health and Wellbeing Boards to develop and implement plans.
We expect neighbourhood teams and services to be designed in a way that reflects the specific needs of local populations. While the focus on personalised, coordinated care will be consistent, that will mean the service will look different in rural communities, coastal towns, and/or deprived inner cities.
Asked by: Gregory Stafford (Conservative - Farnham and Bordon)
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 include a) gyms, b) swimming pools, and c) leisure centres in the neighbourhood health schemes.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Neighbourhood health sits at the heart of the Government’s 10-Year Health Plan. Our ambition is to build a service that: delivers more personalised care closer to where people live; empowers individuals to lead healthier, more independent lives; and offers genuine choice in how to access support. Further information on the 10-Year Health Plan is available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/10-year-health-plan-for-england-fit-for-the-future
We are engaging with local government sector representatives, as well as the voluntary, community, and social enterprise sector, to understand how neighbourhood health plans and centres can make best use of the full range of existing local assets, as well as create opportunities to co-locate and join up a broad range of health-impacting services. This includes those that are local authority commissioned and owned as well as those that are National Health Service commissioned and owned.
We will be publishing further guidance to support local areas to develop Neighbourhood Health Plans in due course. This will set out how the NHS, local authorities, and partners should work together under the leadership of Health and Wellbeing Boards to develop and implement plans.
We expect neighbourhood teams and services to be designed in a way that reflects the specific needs of local populations. While the focus on personalised, coordinated care will be consistent, that will mean the service will look different in rural communities, coastal towns, and/or deprived inner cities.
Asked by: Patrick Spencer (Independent - Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to improve treatment options for glioblastoma.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Brain tumours, including glioblastoma, remain one of the hardest to treat cancers. The Government is taking action to improve treatment options and outcomes.
Research is crucial in tackling cancer, which is why the Department invests over £1.6 billion per year in research through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). In October 2025, a new nationwide trial exploring whether surgery can improve quality of life for patients when glioblastoma comes back after treatment commenced, backed by £1.98 million of NIHR funding.
Further to this, in September 2024, the NIHR announced new research funding opportunities for brain cancer research, including glioblastoma, spanning both adult and paediatric populations. This includes a NIHR Brain Tumour Research Consortium, to ensure the most promising research opportunities are made available to adult and child patients, and a new funding call to generate high quality evidence in brain tumour care, support, and rehabilitation.
The Government supports Scott Arthur’s Private Members Bill on rare cancers which will make it easier for clinical trials into rare cancers, such as glioblastomas, to take place in England by ensuring the patient population can be easily contacted by researchers. This will ensure that the National Health Service will remain at the forefront of medical innovation and is able to provide patients with the newest, most effective treatment options and ultimately boost survival rates.
Early next year, the Government will publish a National Cancer Plan which will set out targeted actions to reduce lives lost to cancers, including rarer cancers such as glioblastoma.
Asked by: Charlie Maynard (Liberal Democrat - Witney)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what form of impact assessment on pharmacies was carried out prior to changing the payment claim window for pharmacy first services from 3 months to five days.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
As part of delivering the Pharmacy First service, pharmacy contractors receive a monthly fixed payment if they meet specific requirements, which include minimum activity levels.
From June 2025, pharmacies delivering 20 to 29 consultations receive £500, while those with at least 30 consultations continued to receive £1,000 monthly. To make this change and facilitate more timely payments, the claim window for Pharmacy First was reduced from three months to one month. The new tier of payment supports pharmacies with lower potential for delivery and has increased the number of pharmacies qualifying for Pharmacy First fixed payments.
This adjustment was agreed with the sector representative body, Community Pharmacy England, as part of negotiations for the Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework for 2025/26. An article was published in May 2025 by NHS Business Services Authority providing advanced notice.
For the clinical pathway element of the Pharmacy First service, 241,340 consultations were delivered in April, 242,077 consultations were delivered in May, and 254,692 consultations were delivered in June. In April, 3,996 contractors received the £1,000 fixed payment, in May 3,979 contractors received the £1000 fixed payment, and in June 4,051 contractors received the £1,000 fixed payment while 1,565 contractors received the £500 fixed payment.
Asked by: Charlie Maynard (Liberal Democrat - Witney)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what number of pharmacy first consultations have been recorded for (a) April , (b) May and (c) June 2025.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
As part of delivering the Pharmacy First service, pharmacy contractors receive a monthly fixed payment if they meet specific requirements, which include minimum activity levels.
From June 2025, pharmacies delivering 20 to 29 consultations receive £500, while those with at least 30 consultations continued to receive £1,000 monthly. To make this change and facilitate more timely payments, the claim window for Pharmacy First was reduced from three months to one month. The new tier of payment supports pharmacies with lower potential for delivery and has increased the number of pharmacies qualifying for Pharmacy First fixed payments.
This adjustment was agreed with the sector representative body, Community Pharmacy England, as part of negotiations for the Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework for 2025/26. An article was published in May 2025 by NHS Business Services Authority providing advanced notice.
For the clinical pathway element of the Pharmacy First service, 241,340 consultations were delivered in April, 242,077 consultations were delivered in May, and 254,692 consultations were delivered in June. In April, 3,996 contractors received the £1,000 fixed payment, in May 3,979 contractors received the £1000 fixed payment, and in June 4,051 contractors received the £1,000 fixed payment while 1,565 contractors received the £500 fixed payment.
Asked by: Scott Arthur (Labour - Edinburgh South West)
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 the implications for his policies of the (a) findings of and (b) recommendation on alcohol and breast cancer in the World Cancer Research Fund's 2025 report entitled Dietary and Lifestyle Patterns for Cancer Prevention: Evidence and Recommendations from CUP Global.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government and the National Health Service recognise that a healthy lifestyle can help reduce the biggest risk factors of certain cancers. The Government welcomes the recent publication of the World Cancer Research Fund's 2025 report.
The UK Chief Medical Officers’ low-risk drinking guidelines and the NHS webpage on the risks of alcohol, clearly state that alcohol consumption can increase the risk of developing seven types of cancer, including breast cancer.
The National Disease Registration Service (NDRS) collects patient data on cancer, congenital anomalies and rare diseases. The NDRS does not collect data on the causes of cancer. Therefore, the Department has not made a formal assessment on the annual cost to the NHS of treating breast cancer cases in the United Kingdom that are attributable to alcohol consumption.
The National Cancer Plan for England, which will be published in the new year, will build on the shift from sickness to prevention set out by the 10-Year Health Plan and will seek to reduce risk factors. The plan will cover the entirety of the cancer pathway, from referral and diagnosis to treatment and ongoing care, as well as prevention. This will include alcohol consumption, alongside other risk factors, given alcohol is linked to an increased risk of seven types of cancer, including breast cancer.
Asked by: Tom Morrison (Liberal Democrat - Cheadle)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential impact of target-driven GP contracts on the quality of care and doctor-patient relationships.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The GP Contract sees practices receive funding through a range of income streams.
The Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) is an optional pay-for-performance scheme that makes up approximately 10% of overall practice income. The indicators and thresholds included in the QOF are developed in accordance with National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines, underpinned by a robust evidence base. Thresholds are designed to be attainable, while encouraging and incentivising practices to provide the best possible care. Thresholds are aspirational rather than a contractual obligation.
As part of our recently published Medium-Term Planning Framework, we have introduced a new and ambitious target to ensure all urgent appointments are provided on the same day, so that patients requiring urgent care are prioritised. The Department continues to engage with general practitioners broadly to ensure the targets are achievable, reflect the needs of the populations they serve, and to understand barriers to meeting this target.
Asked by: Luke Akehurst (Labour - North Durham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many of the first-wave Neighbourhood Health Centre sites have prioritised neurology within a) initial service plans and b) delivery models.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
In August 2025, NHS England updated its service specification for specialised adult neurology services. It outlines how specialised neurology services should support integrated and responsive care for individuals with long-term neurological conditions through collaboration between hospital and community providers. Service specifications define the standards of care expected from organisations funded by NHS England to provide specialised care.
At the national level, there are a number of initiatives supporting service improvement and better care for patients with neurological conditions, including the Getting It Right First Time Programme for Neurology and the Neurology Transformation Programme.
We have announced our commitment to deliver 250 Neighbourhood Health Centres through the NHS Neighbourhood Rebuild Programme, with 120 delivered by 2030, with rollout starting in areas of the greatest need where healthy life expectancy is lowest
We expect neighbourhood teams and services to be designed in a way that reflects the specific needs of local populations. While the focus on personalised, coordinated care will be consistent, that will mean the service will look different in different places across the country.
We will be publishing further guidance to support local areas to develop Neighbourhood Health Plans in due course. This will set out how the National Health Service, local authorities, and partners should work together under the leadership of Health and Wellbeing Boards to develop and implement plans.