Asked by: Clive Jones (Liberal Democrat - Wokingham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 11 February 2026 to Question 110577 on Vitamin D: Dietary Supplements, whether he plans to introduce targeted oversampling of Black and Asian populations to allow accelerated analysis by ethnicity of groups at higher risk of Vitamin D deficiency.
Answered by Sharon Hodgson - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) is currently conducting a rapid review of whether current vitamin D recommendations for vitamin D intake and status are adequate for people with higher melanin concentrations. The vitamin D working group is reviewing relevant evidence and discussions are ongoing. In line with the usual SACN process, minutes of the SACN vitamin D working group meetings, along with minutes of all SACN meetings, are published on the SACN’s website. The SACN aims to publish conclusions of the review later in 2026. Ministers are informed of SACN publications and risk assessments and receive separate advice on potential subsequent policy options.
For people at risk of not receiving enough vitamin D during the summer months we recommend they consider taking a daily supplement containing 10 micrograms of vitamin D throughout the year. Advice is available on the National Health Service website for everyone, including pregnant and breastfeeding women, to consider taking a daily supplement containing 10 micrograms of vitamin D during the autumn and winter. Our focus is on ensuring that vitamin D policy prioritises interventions with the greatest public health impact. We have therefore not assessed the merits of workplace-based vitamin supplementation programmes and are not currently planning any additional action to introduce targeted vitamin D supplementation programmes. Any further risk management approaches will be considered once SACN has completed reviewing the evidence and made recommendations for people with higher melanin concentrations.
The National Diet and Nutrition Survey is designed to provide data on the diet and nutrition of the general United Kingdom population. The survey design means that oversampling of ethnic minority groups is challenging. However, a recent increase in the number of blood samples collected annually in the survey means we expect to be able to analyse and report vitamin D status by ethnicity by combining data collected from 2024 to 2029.
Asked by: Clive Jones (Liberal Democrat - Wokingham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has assessment the potential merits of workplace-based vitamin D supplementation programmes as a mechanism to reach populations at higher risk of deficiency.
Answered by Sharon Hodgson - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) is currently conducting a rapid review of whether current vitamin D recommendations for vitamin D intake and status are adequate for people with higher melanin concentrations. The vitamin D working group is reviewing relevant evidence and discussions are ongoing. In line with the usual SACN process, minutes of the SACN vitamin D working group meetings, along with minutes of all SACN meetings, are published on the SACN’s website. The SACN aims to publish conclusions of the review later in 2026. Ministers are informed of SACN publications and risk assessments and receive separate advice on potential subsequent policy options.
For people at risk of not receiving enough vitamin D during the summer months we recommend they consider taking a daily supplement containing 10 micrograms of vitamin D throughout the year. Advice is available on the National Health Service website for everyone, including pregnant and breastfeeding women, to consider taking a daily supplement containing 10 micrograms of vitamin D during the autumn and winter. Our focus is on ensuring that vitamin D policy prioritises interventions with the greatest public health impact. We have therefore not assessed the merits of workplace-based vitamin supplementation programmes and are not currently planning any additional action to introduce targeted vitamin D supplementation programmes. Any further risk management approaches will be considered once SACN has completed reviewing the evidence and made recommendations for people with higher melanin concentrations.
The National Diet and Nutrition Survey is designed to provide data on the diet and nutrition of the general United Kingdom population. The survey design means that oversampling of ethnic minority groups is challenging. However, a recent increase in the number of blood samples collected annually in the survey means we expect to be able to analyse and report vitamin D status by ethnicity by combining data collected from 2024 to 2029.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of average diagnostic times for achalasia.
Answered by Sharon Hodgson - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
As set out in the Plan for Change, we are committed to returning by March 2029 to the National Health Service constitutional standard that 92% of patients wait no longer than 18 weeks from referral to consultant-led treatment. As a first step to achieving this, we exceeded our pledge to deliver an extra two million operations, scans and appointments in our first year of government, having delivered 5.2 million more appointments.
We are also committed to transforming diagnostic services and are supporting the NHS to increase diagnostic capacity to bring down the size of the list and reduce waiting times. We know that there is more to do and that is why we have set a national target in the Medium Term Planning Framework. For any key diagnostic test, no more than 14% of patients will wait longer than six weeks as the end of March 2027, with a target for all providers to ensure by March 2029 that 1% or less of patients wait beyond six weeks.
Diagnosis of achalasia usually requires oesophageal manometry, which most large secondary care gastro/endoscopy units can provide. General monthly diagnostic data is accessible at the following link:
There is no NHS dataset on a national level that reports waiting times specifically for oesophageal manometry, as this test is not included in NHS England’s DM01 Monthly Diagnostics Waiting Times collection. As a result, no national average or benchmark is published as waiting times can only be obtained at a local level.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of the change in the bowel screening age to 50 on rates of diagnosis of prostate cancer.
Answered by Sharon Hodgson - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
This Government is committed to improving cancer screening services in line with the National Cancer Plan and as part of the 10-Year Health Plan’s shift from treatment to prevention. The Department has not made an assessment of the potential impact of lowering bowel cancer screening age to 50 years old on prostate cancer diagnoses as these are two separate conditions.
The Government is advised on all screening matters by the UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC), an independent scientific advisory committee which is made up of leading medical and screening experts. Where the Committee is confident that to offer screening provides more good than harm, they recommend a screening programme.
The National Health Service’s bowel screening programme in England was recently extended from people aged between 60 and 74 years old to those aged between 50 and 74 years old. This aligns with the evidence of where the screening programme can do the most good with the least harm caused. Harm can include increased anxiety, misdiagnosis, over diagnosis, where unnecessary and invasive follow up tests are offered, or unnecessary treatment.
Bowel cancer screening uses home tests called the Faecal Immunochemical Test (FIT). FIT test was introduced into the bowel screening pathway with a sensitivity threshold of 120 micrograms per gram. The screening programme is currently in the process of improving the FIT sensitivity by moving it to 80 micrograms per gram. This will be rolled out gradually by 2028, to ensure colonoscopy capacity required is available.
When FIT80 is fully rolled out, an additional 700 bowel cancers and 2000 pre-cancerous polyps will be detected per year.
Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking at the national level to ensure that International Classifications of Diseases for Mortality and Morbidity Statistics-11 coding practices in the NHS capture the role of psychiatric illness in cases of organ failure or suicide.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is responsible for coding causes of death using the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD‑10). This is separate from hospital morbidity coding undertaken within the National Health Service. The response below therefore relates to morbidity coding and applies to cases of attempted suicide and organ failure for patients admitted to hospital alive.
ICD-11 is the International Classification of Diseases for Mortality and Morbidity Statistics, Eleventh Revision, and is not yet approved as an Information Standard under section 250 of the Health and Social Care Act, and so ICD‑10 remains the mandated classification for NHS morbidity data.
Under current national coding guidance, all conditions identified in the medical record by the responsible consultant as relevant to the episode of care are coded. Where a clinical link has been established between a psychiatric condition and outcomes such as organ failure or an episode of attempted suicide, each of these conditions is coded in line with this guidance.
Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what recent guidance they have issued to medical practitioners about the requirement to record eating disorders as a contributory or underlying cause on medical certificates of cause of death.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Medical Examiner produces the Good Practice Series, a topical collection of focused summary documents, designed to be easily read and digested by busy front-line staff, including medical practitioners, with links to further reading, guidance, and support. The collection is published online by the Royal College of Pathologists.
In June 2022, the National Medical Examiner’s Good Practice Series No. 7 - Mental health and eating disorders was published, and a copy is attached. The paper explores the role medical examiners can play in identifying links between mental health disorders and causes of death, notifying others when lessons can be learned so that care of future patients with mental health conditions is improved, and ensuring medical certificates of cause of death are completed appropriately.
Asked by: Lord Bird (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government when they plan to publish the outcome of the consultation of the extension of Healthy Start to children from families with no recourse to public funds; and whether they have set a timeline for making that extension a statutory scheme.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to giving every child the best start in life. The Department is currently considering options on this issue, and further information will be available in due course.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - 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 9 February (HL13391), whether the chief executive of the South Yorkshire Integrated Care Board (ICB) was offered the opportunity to remain in post under the new 26-ICB framework prior to his selection for compulsory redundancy; and if so, whether his refusal of that offer was considered when determining his eligibility for a contractual redundancy payment.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
As referred to in the answer to HL15722 and HL15723, the redundancy exercise arose from structural reform reducing the number of the integrated care boards (ICBs) from 42 to 26, which resulted in the removal of a number of Chief Executive roles.
Only chief executives whose roles ceased to exist because their ICB was abolished or merged were in scope for compulsory redundancy. In the case of South Yorkshire ICB, the redundancy decision was based solely on the removal of the role as part of restructuring, not on the individual occupying the post. The Department does not hold centrally collated information on local discussions about alternative roles or offers made by individual ICBs, as they operate as statutory and independent employers and such decisions are a matter for local employers, not the Department.
Asked by: Adrian Ramsay (Green Party - Waveney Valley)
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 that changes to NICE’s cost effectiveness thresholds results in improved and equitable access to new and effective treatments for people with incurable secondary breast cancer.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government intends to increase the standard cost-effectiveness threshold that the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) uses in its evaluations of medicines in line with the commitment in the United Kingdon and United States’ trade deal. The new threshold is expected to mean that NICE is able to recommend some medicines for use on the National Health Service that it would not have otherwise been able to recommend. Decisions on whether an individual medicine can be recommended as a clinically and cost-effective use of NHS resources once the new threshold is applied will be taken by NICE in line with its established processes.
Asked by: John Glen (Conservative - Salisbury)
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 potential impact of reclassifying medicines from prescription-only to over-the-counter on costs to the NHS.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government supports the reclassification of prescription only medicines (POMs) to over the counter (OTC) medicines, including for cost savings to the National Health Service, where it is safe and appropriate to do so, as this can improve patient access and support selfcare while maintaining high standards of public health protection.
Decisions on whether POMs can be safely reclassified for OTC sale are taken by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency following an assessment of the safety, quality, and efficacy of the medicine and whether it can be appropriately used without the direct supervision of a prescriber.