Department of Health and Social Care

NHS England established an attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) taskforce which brought together those with lived experience with experts from the National Health Service, education, charity, and justice sectors to get a better understanding of the challenges affecting those with ADHD, including in accessing timely and equitable access to services and support. We are pleased that the taskforce’s final report was published on 6 November, and we are carefully considering its recommendations.

No assessment has been made of this locally commissioned scheme. However, supervised toothbrushing is evidence based and cost effective, with a five-year return on investment of £3.06 for every £1 spent. Further information is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/improving-oral-health-supervised-tooth-brushing-programme-toolkit/commissioning-and-delivering-supervised-toothbrushing-schemes-in-early-years-and-school-settings

The national supervised toothbrushing programme currently underway is targeting up to 600,000 three- to five-year-olds in the most deprived areas of England. This is backed with investment of £11 million in 202525/26 and a five-year collaboration with Colgate-Palmolive. The National Institute of Health and Care Research will evaluate effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of the national targeted supervised toothbrushing programme, where we expect an impact on population outcomes from two years of implementation. Further information is available at the following link:

https://www.nihr.ac.uk/funding/evaluation-national-targeted-supervised-toothbrushing-programme-england/2025435

Air ambulances form a vital part of the emergency response to patients in critical need. The Department of Health and Social Care continues to work closely with NHS England and the Department for Transport on helipad accessibility for air ambulances across the country including the Midlands.

The Government acknowledges that women suffering with gynaecological conditions, including polycystic ovary syndrome, have been failed for far too long.

As set out in the 2022 Women’s Health Strategy, women's health is included in the Royal College of General Practitioners’ (RCGP) curriculum for trainee general practitioners (GPs), including gynaecology. This ensures that all future GPs receive education on women’s health.

The RCGP has also published a Women’s Health Library which brings together educational resources and guidelines on women’s health from the RCGP, Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, and the College of Sexual and Reproductive Health. This resource is continually updated to ensure GPs and other primary healthcare professionals have the most up-to-date advice to provide the best care for their patients.

On the 15 July, the Department for Education published the revised Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education and Health Education (RSHE) statutory guidance.

This revised guidance emphasises the importance of ensuring that pupils have a comprehensive understanding of women’s health topics, including at primary school level, while also stipulating that secondary school RSHE lessons should cover menstrual and gynaecological health, covering aspects such as what is an average period and polycystic ovary syndrome, and including when to seek help from healthcare professionals.

Abortions are generally very safe, and most women will not experience any complications. The evidence-base for home use of early medical abortion pills has been assessed by leading statutory and professional organisations and it is recognised to be a safe procedure in evidence-based guidance, including the World Health Organisation’s abortion care guideline, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists 2022 report on best practice in abortion care, and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s clinical guidelines on abortion care.

The Abortion Notification System (ANS) collects information on complications that occur up until the time of discharge for all abortions, and where the medicine was administered for medical abortions. Since 2015, there has been a marginal downward trend in complication rates reported in the ANS. In 2022, complications were reported in only 0.12% of abortions.

The Department continues to work with NHS England, the Care Quality Commission, and abortion providers to ensure that women have safe and timely access to abortion services as decided by Parliament.

Abortions are generally very safe, and most women will not experience any complications. The evidence-base for home use of early medical abortion pills has been assessed by leading statutory and professional organisations and it is recognised to be a safe procedure in evidence-based guidance, including the World Health Organisation’s abortion care guideline, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists 2022 report on best practice in abortion care, and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s clinical guidelines on abortion care.

The Abortion Notification System (ANS) collects information on complications that occur up until the time of discharge for all abortions, and where the medicine was administered for medical abortions. Since 2015, there has been a marginal downward trend in complication rates reported in the ANS. In 2022, complications were reported in only 0.12% of abortions.

The Department continues to work with NHS England, the Care Quality Commission, and abortion providers to ensure that women have safe and timely access to abortion services as decided by Parliament.

The Women’s Health Strategy sets out our ambitions to make better use of data already collected, and to address gaps in women’s health data to improve women’s health outcomes.

The Department routinely publishes data on abortion complications reported via the Abortion Notification System (ANS). The ANS collects information on complications that occur up until the time of discharge for all abortions, and where the medicine was administered for medical abortions.

The Department has published a one-time analysis exploring whether Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) can be used as a supplementary source for data on abortion complications. The HES data in the publication includes abortion complications arising from any abortion which resulted in an inpatient admission. The publication found that abortion complications are recorded differently in HES compared to the ANS and there are different strengths and limitations associated with using either data source. The Department has no plans to publish a separate annual report on abortion complications.

The Department keeps guidance on completing the EMA1 abortion form under review. There are currently no plans to update the guidance.

The medical practitioner terminating the pregnancy is required to form an opinion in good faith that the gestation of the pregnancy will be below 10 weeks at the time the first pill is taken. This opinion can be formed either during a teleconsultation, or an in-person appointment.

Pregnancy duration can be assessed from the first day of the last menstrual period (LMP). Advice from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists is clear that most women can determine the duration of their pregnancy with reasonable accuracy by LMP alone.

However, if there is any uncertainty about the gestation of the pregnancy, the medical practitioner would ask the woman to attend an in-person appointment to enable them to form an opinion that the pregnancy will not have exceeded 10 weeks at the time the first abortion pill is taken. If she does not attend in-person when requested, the terminating practitioner would not be able to form an opinion in good faith that the pregnancy is below 10 weeks gestation, and therefore would not be able to prescribe abortion pills for home use.

The Department does intend to publish abortion statistics in England and Wales for 2023 and 2024. The publication dates for these statistics have not yet been announced.

Publication of the 2023 statistics is provisionally planned for winter 2025/26. We will announce the exact dates for publication of the 2023 and, later, 2024 data in due course.

The statistics have been delayed due to several operational issues. These include issues associated with moving to a new data processing system and an increase in the number of paper abortion notification forms to process.

NHS England is currently reviewing its Delivering same-sex accommodation guidance and will ensure that it reflects the Supreme Court’s For Women Scotland Ltd v. The Scottish Ministers ruling, and is aligned with the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s statutory Code of Practice (the Code) when that becomes available.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has submitted its draft updated Code to the Minister for Women and Equalities. The Government will consider the draft updated Code and, if the decision is taken to approve it, the Minister will lay it before Parliament. Parliament will then have a 40-day period to consider the Code.

NHS England has recently completed a substantial update to the suite of Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs) relating to the Privacy Enhancing Technology (PET). These updates were necessary to ensure that the DPIAs reflect the latest technical developments and governance requirements.

These comprise: a Technical DPIA; a Local Operational DPIA; and a National Operational DPIA. NHS England is now undertaking the final stages of review and preparation to ensure that these documents meet all publication standards and accessibility requirements. It is anticipated that the updated PET DPIAs will be published in December 2025.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is responsible for ensuring medicines, medical devices, and blood components for transfusion meet applicable standards of safety, quality, and efficacy. The MHRA rigorously assesses available data, including from the Yellow Card scheme, and seeks advice from their independent advisory committee, the Commission on Human Medicines, where appropriate to inform regulatory decisions.

The MHRA uses the Medical Dictionary for Regulatory Activities (MedDRA) to code suspected adverse drug reactions reported by patients and healthcare professionals via the Yellow Card scheme. MedDRA is an international, clinically validated medical terminology used by regulatory authorities and the biopharmaceutical industry throughout the entire regulatory process, from pre-marketing to post-marketing safety monitoring. MedDRA is updated twice annually, and new terms can be proposed by any MedDRA users. The term Post Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor Sexual Dysfunction (PSSD) was added to MedDRA as a lower-level term in version 24.1 which was and implemented by the MHRA as a term available to users of the Yellow Card website in February 2022 as part of routine updates.

As part of current routine MHRA processes, Yellow Card reports are not recoded to reflect the changes in the reaction terms available but remain as reported with the terms selected by the original reporter.

As a lower-level term in MedDRA, PSSD is recorded if the reporter has specifically used this term at the time of the report, and since this term can include a wide range of symptoms it would not be appropriate to recode cases not reporting this specific term received prior to 2021. All Yellow Card reports received prior to the availability of PSSD as a MedDRA term will have the individual symptoms reported coded as MedDRA terms and available for signal detection and assessment processes.

The Government recognises the concerns of those who have benefitted from the support of the Queen Elizabeth’s Foundation for Disabled People. We are committed to ensuring that disabled people have equitable, effective, and responsive access to health and care services that meet their needs.

Adult social care services are provided through a largely outsourced market of commercial organisations and charities. Ensuring good management of the market and securing continuity of care in the event of market exit due to business failure is the responsibility of local authorities.

Health and care systems and providers should work together to ensure that efforts to discharge individuals from hospital into social care are joined up and make best use of available resources, in line with the duty to cooperate set out in Section 82 of the NHS Act 2006.

Under the Care Act 2014, local authorities have a temporary duty to ensure that individuals continue to receive the services they need, including National Health Service patients receiving adult social care, if their care provider is no longer able to deliver those services. The Care Act Statutory Guidance provides guidance on managing provider failure and other service interruptions.

The Government recognises the concerns of those who have benefitted from the support of the Queen Elizabeth’s Foundation for Disabled People. We are committed to ensuring that disabled people have equitable, effective, and responsive access to health and care services that meet their needs.

Adult social care services are provided through a largely outsourced market of commercial organisations and charities. Ensuring good management of the market and securing continuity of care in the event of market exit due to business failure is the responsibility of local authorities.

Health and care systems and providers should work together to ensure that efforts to discharge individuals from hospital into social care are joined up and make best use of available resources, in line with the duty to cooperate set out in Section 82 of the NHS Act 2006.

Under the Care Act 2014, local authorities have a temporary duty to ensure that individuals continue to receive the services they need, including National Health Service patients receiving adult social care, if their care provider is no longer able to deliver those services. The Care Act Statutory Guidance provides guidance on managing provider failure and other service interruptions.

The Government recognises the concerns of those who have benefitted from the support of the Queen Elizabeth’s Foundation for Disabled People. We are committed to ensuring that disabled people have equitable, effective, and responsive access to health and care services that meet their needs.

Adult social care services are provided through a largely outsourced market of commercial organisations and charities. Ensuring good management of the market and securing continuity of care in the event of market exit due to business failure is the responsibility of local authorities.

Health and care systems and providers should work together to ensure that efforts to discharge individuals from hospital into social care are joined up and make best use of available resources, in line with the duty to cooperate set out in Section 82 of the NHS Act 2006.

Under the Care Act 2014, local authorities have a temporary duty to ensure that individuals continue to receive the services they need, including National Health Service patients receiving adult social care, if their care provider is no longer able to deliver those services. The Care Act Statutory Guidance provides guidance on managing provider failure and other service interruptions.

The adult social care system is means tested and provides funded support for those with the least financial means. While the Department sets the minimum thresholds for accessing local authority support, local authorities have the discretion to set more generous thresholds if they choose.

We have heard from many families who have been impacted by high and unpredictable care costs, and we recognise their frustration at the situation in which they find themselves.

The Government has launched an independent commission into adult social care as part of our critical first steps towards delivering a National Care Service. The terms of reference are sufficiently broad to enable the commission to consider the affordability of care costs.

Data is not held centrally on dental access and treatment outcomes for people born with a cleft. We recognise that certain groups of patients may be more vulnerable to oral health problems, including patients with clefts.

NHS England commissions services for children, young people, and adults with a cleft lip and/or palate. The patient pathway can start from pre-birth and continues into adulthood. Cleft services provide care through multi-disciplinary teams, and the comprehensive care pathway will include elements such as paediatric dentistry, restorative dentistry, and orthodontics. A copy of the Cleft Lip and/or Palate Services including Non-Cleft Velopharyngeal Dysfunction (VPD) (All Ages) Service Specification is attached.

The 10-Year Health Plan sets out our vision for a Neighbourhood Health Service. The Neighbourhood Health Service will embody our new preventative principle that care should happen as locally as it can, digitally by default, in a person’s home if possible, in a neighbourhood health centre when needed, and only in a hospital if necessary.

The Neighbourhood Health Service will mean people are treated and cared for closer to their home by new teams of health professionals. It will rebalance our health system so that it fits around peoples’ lives, not the other way round. We expect neighbourhood teams and services to be designed in a way that reflects the specific needs of local populations.

To support this agenda, we have launched wave 1 of the National Neighbourhood Health Implementation Programme (NNHIP) across 43 places in England, including parts of the West Midlands such as: Walsall; Coventry; Shropshire; East Birmingham; Solihull; and Herefordshire.

The NNHIP will support systems across the country by driving innovation and integration at a local level, to accelerate improvements in outcomes, satisfaction, and experiences for people by ensuring that care is more joined-up, accessible, and responsive to community needs.

Dental care professionals, including dental therapists, dental hygienists, and dental nurses, play a vital role within our dentistry teams and are highly valued members of the workforce.

We recently held a public consultation on a package of changes to improve access to, and improve the quality of, National Health Service dentistry, which will deliver better care and seek to make NHS dentistry a more attractive workplace.

The Government is considering the outcomes of the consultation and will publish a response shortly.

Our Neighbourhood Health Service will provide opportunities for dental care professionals to work as part of neighbourhood teams. We have consulted on changes to improve access to, and the quality of, National Health Service dentistry. To support practices to make better use of the skill mix of their team and to improve delivery of fluoride varnish, we have proposed introducing a new course of treatment for children for fluoride varnish to be applied by suitably trained dental nurses. Public consultation closed on 19 August, and the Government will publish a response shortly.

We have also published guidance on how dental health professionals can improve the oral and general health of their patients, including fluoride varnish and other preventative interventions. This is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/delivering-better-oral-health-an-evidence-based-toolkit-for-prevention

We recognise how important the right housing arrangements are in supporting people to live as independently and safely as possible. In England, we continue to fund the Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG), which is administered by local authorities. This grant helps eligible older and disabled people on low incomes, including people with motor neurone disease, to adapt their homes.

We have provided an additional £172 million over this and the last financial year to uplift the DFG. This uplift could provide approximately 15,600 extra home adaptations to give people more independence in their homes. This brings the total funding for the DFG to £711 million in each of 2024/25 and 2025/26.

The Government recognises the vital role of social care staff working in supported living accommodation in enabling people to live independently with dignity.

We are committed to transforming adult social care and supporting adult social care workers, turning the page on decades of low pay and insecurity. That is why we plan to introduce the first ever Fair Pay Agreement in 2028, backed by £500 million of funding to improve pay and conditions for the adult social care workforce. This will improve recruitment and retention and give staff better recognition for their vital work. The £500 million forms part of an increase of over £4 billion of additional funding available for adult social care in 2028-29, compared to 2025-26.

Ensuring staff have the skills and training needed to work in social care is also essential, both to attract people to join and remain in the workforce, and for the provision of high-quality care and support. That is why we have developed the Care Workforce Pathway, the first national career framework for adult social care, and, we are investing £12 million in learning and development through the Learning and Development Support Scheme, to enable eligible staff to complete eligible courses and qualifications.

These actions form part of our wider commitment to improving skills and support for the social care workforce.

The report highlights systemic challenges in dementia care. Our health system has often struggled to support those with complex needs, including those with dementia. This is why, under the 10-Year Plan, those living with dementia will benefit from improved care planning and better services.

We will deliver the first ever Modern Service Framework for Frailty and Dementia to deliver rapid and significant improvements in the quality of care and productivity. This will be informed by phase one of the independent commission into adult social care, expected in 2026.

The report recommends that a national standardised diagnostic pathway must be established, as well as a nationally mandated standard of care across every stage of the dementia care pathway.

The Modern Service Framework for Frailty and Dementia will seek to reduce unwarranted variation and narrow inequality for those living with dementia and will set national standards for dementia care and redirect National Health Service priorities to provide the best possible care and support.

In developing the Modern Service Framework for Frailty and Dementia, we are engaging with a wide group of partners to understand what should be included to ensure the best outcomes for people living with dementia. As part of this exercise, we are considering all options, including reviewing metrics and targets.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency has completed a public consultation on its draft guideline on individualised mRNA cancer immunotherapies, a new type of personalised cancer treatment. These technologies use cutting-edge science such as artificial intelligence to design a medicine tailored to each patient’s unique tumour profile.

We received positive responses from across the life sciences community, the National Health Service, patient groups, academics, and international regulators. Feedback recognised the United Kingdom’s leadership in this area, while calling for greater clarity in some aspects of the guideline.

In response, we will refine the guideline to ensure regulatory expectations are clearly articulated, without hampering innovation. This will facilitate faster access to these promising new therapies, while upholding our standards of safety, quality, and efficacy. The final version of the guideline will be published in the coming months, with future updates anticipated as regulatory experience evolves in this rapidly developing field.

Suppliers are legally responsible for reporting disruptions and discontinuations through the Health Service Products (Provision and Disclosure of Information) Regulations 2018 (the ‘Information Regulations’), this includes a provision that allows the Department to fine a company if they fail to report. To date the Department has not issued any fines.

Reporting of potential supply issues is critical, enabling the Department to complete a thorough risk assessment of the severity of the issue. Alongside legal requirements, the Department also has an online reporting tool, known as the Discontinuations and Shortages portal, launched in October 2020, which suppliers can use to notify the Department. When reporting issues are identified we work with companies to understand how we can help enable them to inform the Department of any future supply issues. While the majority of suppliers report disruption in a timely manner, not all do so, and this can impede our ability to mitigate patient risk. As part of our obligations under the ‘Information Regulations’, we regularly review and consider the need to amend provisions. We plan to consult on how to ensure we receive sufficient information to put in place effective mitigations for supply issues, and we will also be reviewing the penalties for not complying with legal reporting requirements to ensure that these support the timely reporting of supply issues.

There are over 14,000 medicines and the majority are in good supply. While we can’t always prevent supply issues from occurring, we have a range of well-established processes and tools to manage them when they arise, to mitigate risks to patients. These include close and regular engagement with suppliers, use of alternative strengths or forms of a medicine to allow patients to remain on the same product, expediting regulatory procedures, sourcing unlicensed imports from abroad, adding products to the restricted exports and hoarding list, use of Serious Shortage Protocols, and issuing National Health Service communications to provide management advice and information on the issue to healthcare professionals including pharmacists, so they can advise and support their patients. Further information can be found in A guide to the systems and processes for managing medicines supply issues in England’.

The resilience of United Kingdom supply chains is a key priority, and we are continually learning and seeking to improve the way we work to both manage and help prevent supply issues and avoid shortages. The Department, working closely with NHS England, is taking forward a range of actions to improve our ability to mitigate and manage shortages and strengthen our resilience. These actions were set out in a policy paper published in August 2025, Managing a robust and resilient supply of medicines.

As part of that work, we continue to engage with industry, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, and other colleagues across the supply chain as we progress work to co-design and deliver solutions. However, medicine shortages are a complex and global issue and everyone in the supply chain has a role to play in addressing them, and therefore continued action requires a collaborative approach.

The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is an executive agency of the Department and regulates medicine, medical devices, and blood components for transfusion in the United Kingdom, with responsibility for ensuring that medicines meet appropriate standards of safety, quality, and efficacy.

Northwest Biotherapeutics has submitted a Marketing Authorization Application to the MHRA for DCVax®-L, an immunotherapy for glioblastoma. The MHRA is unable to comment on applications during the process of review, but the MHRA can confirm that this application is not affected by any historical backlogs, and the agency is assessing all applications rapidly for safety, quality, and efficacy.

I refer the Hon. Member to the Written Statement HCWS899 made to the House on 1 September 2025 by my Rt. Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.

The safety, privacy, and wellbeing of these severely ill and vulnerable patients and their families remains our absolute priority. We will not be providing further operational details, including numbers of arrivals, at this stage.

No final decision has been made about how the single patient record will be delivered.

The Department regularly has discussions with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) about a range of issues. NICE is responsible for the methods and processes that it uses in the development of its guidance and recommendations and has processes in place to keep its methods and processes under review.

As part of the National Cancer Plan, we have engaged with brain cancer clinical experts and charities, as well as receiving this report, to help us develop the plan. The plan will include how we can reform the workforce to improve cancer patient outcomes, including for patients with brain cancer.

On 24 October 2025, NHS England published the Medium-Term Planning Framework – delivering change together 2026/27 to 2028/29. This sets out that all National Health Service providers must meet the site-specific timeframes of the Government’s 150-day clinical trial set-up target. To support embedding research as part of everyday care, research activity and income should be reported to boards on a six-monthly basis.

We are embedding genomics as routine practice within the NHS and its workforce by delivering the genomics medicines service, seven NHS Genomic Laboratory Hubs and implementing whole genome sequencing as part of routine care. The Genomics Education Programme is responsible for upskilling the entire multi-professional, multi-specialty NHS workforce in genomics.

The Government also supports the Rare Cancers Private Members Bill. The bill will make it easier for clinical trials on brain cancer to take place in England, by ensuring the patient population can be more easily contacted by researchers.

The pharmaceutical sector and the innovative medicines it produces are critical to our national interest, helping people access life changing treatments, reducing pressure on the health service over the longer-term, and ensuring we have a National Health Service that is fit for the future.

That is why through our Life Sciences Sector Plan, we have committed to working with industry to accelerate growth in spending on innovative medicines, compared to the previous decade. Our 10-Year Health Plan set out how we’d reform National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.

The new Cardiovascular Disease Modern Service Framework (CVD MSF) Task and Finish Group is co-chaired by Dr. Jessica Randall-Carrick and Sir Andrew Goddard. The CVD MSF will be published in 2026, and will support consistent, high quality, and equitable care whilst fostering innovation across the CVD pathway. The membership of the task and finish group has representation from over 30 stakeholders representing a wide range of organisations, including patient experience groups, charities, think tanks, and professional bodies related to CVD and associated conditions.

The CVD MSF Task and Finish Group has convened twice to date, on 7 October 2025 and most recently on 18 November 2025. The next meeting is scheduled to take place in mid-January 2026.

To improve health and social care outcomes for all women in prison and upon their release, NHS England and His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service commissioned the National Women’s Prisons Health and Social Care Review. The review’s report identified a number of recommendations to improve equity and quality of care to meet the specific needs of women in prison.

A wide range of actions to implement these recommendations are taking place at establishment, regional, and national levels, backed by £21 million across three years, and overseen by the Joint Women's Prison Health and Social Care Review Implementation Programme Board.

The health issues facing those detained in the children and young people secure estate are systematically kept under review through regular health and wellbeing needs assessments and the Healthcare Standards for Children and Young People in Secure Settings.

The Framework for Integrated Care operates in the children and young people secure estate as a coherent structure for a comprehensive, trauma-informed system of care that focuses on individualised care rather than on separate labels, diagnoses, or interventions.

NHS England has also commissioned the three-year Benchmarking Project, aimed at assessing and supporting the implementation of the Healthcare Standards for Children and Young People in Secure Settings.

Further work is underway to identify where the existing pathway in the children and young people secure estate requires enhancement to better support the placement, management, and care of all girls in secure settings. This work will be informed by evidence and best practice and will be developed with experts to test the most appropriate model of care.

The Department does not hold data on the number of patients who no longer meet the criteria to reside at a hospital level. However, figures by trust are published monthly by NHS England, and are available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/discharge-delays/acute-discharge-situation-report/

For the Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which includes the Royal Hampshire County Hospital, there were on average 159 adult patients, occupying 19.9% of adult acute beds, who had no criteria to reside but were not discharged by the end of the day in October 2025. This was 5.9% higher than the England average of 14% for October 2025.

To support trusts to tackle discharge delays, the Government published a new policy framework for the £9 billion Better Care Fund (BCF) in January 2025. This gives the National Health Service and local authorities accountability for setting and achieving joint goals for reducing discharge delays and preventing avoidable emergency admissions and care home admissions. Some areas are receiving targeted support from the BCF support programme.

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.

Through the Men’s Health Strategy, we are launching a groundbreaking partnership with the Premier League to tackle male suicide and improve mental health literacy, by embedding health messaging into the matchday experience.

We also announced the Suicide Prevention Support Pathfinders programme for middle-aged men. This program will invest up to £3.6 million over three years in areas of England where middle-aged men are at most risk taking their own lives and will tackle the barriers that they face in seeking support.

The 10-Year Health Plan sets out ambitious plans to boost mental health support across the country. This includes transforming mental health services into 24/7 neighbourhood mental health centres, improving assertive outreach, expanding talking therapies, and giving patients better access to 24/7 support directly through the NHS App.

We are expanding NHS Talking Therapies so that 915,000 people, including men, complete a course of treatment by March 2029, with improved effectiveness and quality of services. We will also expand Individual Placement and Support for severe mental illness so that 73,500 people receive access by March 2028.

We know too many children and young people are waiting too long for mental health support, and through our Plan for Change, we’re determined to give children and young people the best start in life.

The Government is expanding access to mental health support teams in all schools and colleges to reach all pupils by 2029, ensuring that every pupil has access to early support services. This expansion will ensure that up to 900,000 more children and young people will have access to support from trained education mental health practitioners in 2025/26.

More widely, we are, rolling out young futures hubs. The Government’s first 50 young futures hubs will bring together services at a local level to support children and young people, helping to ensure that young people can access early advice and wellbeing intervention. We will work to ensure there is no wrong door for young people who need support with their mental health.

We have also committed to hiring 8,500 more mental health staff to reduce waiting times. Thus far, we have hired almost 7,000 extra mental health workers since July 2024.

We received the Hon. Member’s correspondence of 21 July 2025 and responded on 20 November 2025.

The Home Office is the lead department for controlled drug legislation, whilst the Department of Health and Social Care and its Arm's Length Bodies lead on healthcare and the regulation of medicines. This framework applies to all drugs under Schedules 1 to 5 of the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001, including cannabis-based products for medicinal use. The Government has no plans to change this.

The Department of Health and Social Care and the Home Office work closely with other system partners in developing and reviewing the policy on controlled drugs in healthcare, including cannabis-based products for medicinal use.

The NHS Business Services Authority does not hold the information in the form requested. National Health Service or private controlled drug prescription forms to do contain information on the condition being treated, or why a medicine has been prescribed.

No assessment has been made of trends in the level of access to cannabis-based medicinal products for children with severe epilepsy unable to afford private prescriptions.

The Department does not make provision for the funding of medicines outside of the NHS’ commissioning systems and it remains that the cost of treatments sought privately are the responsibility of patients.

The Government currently has no plans to enable patients to access NHS dental care through the NHS App. However, NHS England routinely seeks opportunities to expand the functionality of the NHS App, and progress on including dental bookings in the functionality will depend on digital readiness and wider service commissioning provisions.

Regarding the oversight of general practices (GPs), GPs are independent businesses, providing primary care services based on a National Health Service GP Contract to their local populations. Most commonly, GPs are run by GP partners who, alongside other GPs and healthcare staff, are responsible for running their own practice.

NHS England has delegated its responsibilities for the direct commissioning of primary care services, for instance primary medical, dental, ophthalmic, and community pharmacy services, to integrated care boards (ICBs).

The responsibilities delegated are set out in the standard delegation agreement between NHS England and each ICB. This includes contractual management and supporting the improvement and transformation of services. Further information on the delegation agreement is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/commissioning/publication/delegation-of-primary-medical-dental-ophthalmic-and-pharmaceutical-functions/#heading-1

We are investing an additional £1.1 billion in general practice to reinforce the front door of the NHS, bringing total spend on the GP Contract to £13.4 billion in 2025/26. This 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 and reflects this government’s commitment to improve support for general practice and ease pressure on general practitioners.

All digital tools used in primary care must meet minimum functionality standards set by NHS England, ensuring a consistent and high-quality user experience. NHS England provides commercial and procurement support to guarantee that all digital solutions comply with nationally specified clinical safety and technical standards

Online consultation tools offer patients an option to contact their general practice (GP) digitally, allowing them to manage appointments, view and request repeat prescriptions, and register electronically with GP surgeries. They are specifically designed to simplify administrative processes

Experience suggests that extending online access provides significant benefits to both patients and practices. With more patients using online options, phone lines are less busy, which increases availability for those who need additional help or more urgent care

It remains the responsibility of the practice and clinicians to ensure that all patient requests are dealt with appropriately, and that urgent cases are identified and managed safely.

All digital tools used in primary care must meet minimum functionality standards set by NHS England, ensuring a consistent and high-quality user experience. NHS England provides commercial and procurement support to guarantee that all digital solutions comply with nationally specified clinical safety and technical standards

Online consultation tools offer patients an option to contact their general practice (GP) digitally, allowing them to manage appointments, view and request repeat prescriptions, and register electronically with GP surgeries. They are specifically designed to simplify administrative processes

Experience suggests that extending online access provides significant benefits to both patients and practices. With more patients using online options, phone lines are less busy, which increases availability for those who need additional help or more urgent care

It remains the responsibility of the practice and clinicians to ensure that all patient requests are dealt with appropriately, and that urgent cases are identified and managed safely.