Department of Health and Social Care

The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for assessing the health needs of their population and commissioning primary and secondary eye care services to meet them.

ICBs already commission National Health Service sight testing services through high street optical practices. Regular sight tests, whether provided by the NHS or privately, play a vital role in the early detection of sight threatening eye conditions.

ICBs can also commission enhanced eye care services from high street optical practices, including minor and urgent eye care services and glaucoma referral refinement services. These services further support the identification and management of eye conditions to prevent avoidable sight loss.

National Health Service contractors, in the form of independent sector organisations, who provide health and social care services nationally, can be eligible for NHS.net accounts, formerly NHSmail, subject to acceptance criteria. Organisations that qualify will be permitted to create accounts for staff delivering patient-facing services.

Where an independent sector organisation has been commissioned locally and the commissioning body requires NHS.net, the local NHS organisation may provide sponsor email accounts for the duration of the contract. This is at the discretion of the local NHS organisation, as they are responsible for managing their own accounts.

NHS.net provides licences for optometry practices in England, specifically for General Ophthalmic Services contractors with 10 or fewer sites. Eligible practices can receive one shared mailbox and up to three individual NHS.net accounts per site, enabling secure communication of patient data.

NHS England’s digital accelerators pilots have provided the evidence to demonstrate the value of digital integration of primary and secondary care through a refined single point of access model. The digitally enabled single point of access uses IT connectivity between primary and secondary eye care services to improve the referral and triage of patients, with patient data and images being assessed by clinicians to determine if patients need an appointment in secondary care. This was found to reduce unnecessary hospital appointments, time from referral to treatment, and supports more patients being managed in the community. The learnings from the pilots have been shared with integrated care boards.

For England, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) publishes provisional vaccine uptake data throughout the flu season. Weekly national level data for general practice (GP) patients is available from October to January on the GOV.UK website.

Monthly national and regional level data for GP patients, school-aged children, and frontline healthcare workers is available from October to January. Monthly data for this season was published on 27 November 2025 and included all vaccinations given between 1 September to 31 October 2025. Final end of season data is published in the annual reports in late spring, with the monthly and annual data available on the GOV.UK website.

The Department is working with the UKHSA and NHS England to encourage flu vaccine uptake via the national ‘Stay Strong. Get Vaccinated’ campaign. Marketing activity is currently running across television, video on demand, radio, outdoor advertising, and social channels. This is complemented by mainstream, regional, and specialist, highly targeted media and stakeholder channels to engage priority cohorts. The media plans include weekly a winter bulletin, highlighting the uptake and importance of the flu vaccination. Campaign messaging is supported by a comprehensive suite of information materials and guidance, ensuring healthcare professionals are empowered to guide patients, and the public can make an informed choice.

The Department does not hold information on the number of dieticians who hold specialist knowledge or experience relating to chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).

NHS England publishes monthly Hospital and Community Health Services workforce statistics, with the data is drawn from the Electronic Staff Record, which is the payroll and human resources system for the National Health Service. This means it allows for identification of staff by broad staffing groups, including dieticians, working in Hospital and Community Health Services, but it does not provide the level of detail needed to identify staff with the skills, knowledge or experience of working with patients with specific conditions or allow identification of the types of patients and service delivery areas that staff may be involved in on a day to day basis. The latest data is available at the following link:

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/nhs-workforce-statistics

The Department follows general Government guidance on flying flags, which is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/flying-flags-a-plain-english-guide/flying-flags-a-plain-english-guide

Neither the Department nor NHS England has issued guidance regarding expenditure on flags.

At the Autumn Budget, we announced our commitment to deliver 250 Neighbourhood Health Centres (NHCs) through the NHS Neighbourhood Rebuild Programme. This will deliver NHCs through a mixture of refurbishments to expand and improve sites over the next three years and new-build sites opening in the medium term. The first 120 NHCs are due to be operational by 2030 and will be delivered through public private partnerships and public capital.

Nationwide coverage will take time, but we will start in the areas of greatest need where healthy life expectancy is lowest, including rural towns and communities with higher deprivation levels, targeting places where healthy life expectancy is lowest and delivering healthcare closer to home for those that need it the most.

Integrated care boards and local health systems will be responsible for determining the most appropriate locations for NHCs.

General practices (GPs) are run by independent contractors and are commissioned by integrated care boards to provide National Health Services primary medical services. Decisions around energy contracts are devolved to individual practices.

Practices’ arrangements for utilities. such as gas and electricity, vary depending on the basis or terms of each practice’s occupation of its premises. For example, some GPs have flexibility to choose energy contracts, whereas others lease premises inclusive of utilities, or pay a service charge including energy costs, where the landlord or property manager determines the energy suppliers.

Where GPs occupy NHS owned estate, GPs may benefit from any centralised energy purchasing initiatives the Government has put in place, such as Supply of Energy 2.

The provision of dementia health care services is the responsibility of local integrated care boards (ICBs), and may include services provided by voluntary or charitable organisations. We expect ICBs to commission services based on local population needs, taking account of National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines.

We will deliver the first ever modern service framework for frailty and dementia to deliver rapid and significant improvements in quality of care and productivity. This will be informed by phase one of the independent commission into adult social care, expected in 2026.

The Frailty and Dementia Modern Service Framework 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.

The Government is developing a Palliative Care and End of Life Care Modern Service Framework for England. I refer the Hon. Member for Leicester South and the Rt. Hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green to the Written Ministerial Statement HCWS1087 I gave to the House on 24 November 2025.

We are supporting the hospice sector with a £100 million capital funding boost for eligible adult and children’s hospices in England to ensure they have the best physical environment for care. We are providing £80 million for children’s and young people’s hospices over the next three financial years, giving them stability to plan ahead and focus on what matters most, caring for their patients.

The Government is developing a Palliative Care and End of Life Care Modern Service Framework for England. I refer the Hon. Member for Leicester South and the Rt. Hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green to the Written Ministerial Statement HCWS1087 I gave to the House on 24 November 2025.

We are supporting the hospice sector with a £100 million capital funding boost for eligible adult and children’s hospices in England to ensure they have the best physical environment for care. We are providing £80 million for children’s and young people’s hospices over the next three financial years, giving them stability to plan ahead and focus on what matters most, caring for their patients.

The Government is developing a Palliative Care and End of Life Care Modern Service Framework for England. I refer the Hon. Member for Leicester South and the Rt. Hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green to the Written Ministerial Statement HCWS1087 I gave to the House on 24 November 2025.

We are supporting the hospice sector with a £100 million capital funding boost for eligible adult and children’s hospices in England to ensure they have the best physical environment for care. We are providing £80 million for children’s and young people’s hospices over the next three financial years, giving them stability to plan ahead and focus on what matters most, caring for their patients.

Integrated care boards are responsible for assessing the health needs of their local population and for commissioning primary and secondary eye care services to meet them. This can include the commissioning of enhanced eye care services from high street optical practices, such as glaucoma referral refinement services and glaucoma monitoring.

The Getting It Right First Time programme is currently developing best practice guidance for glaucoma services to support the adoption of high standards across the pathway, from detection onwards.

We are investing an extra £1.1 billion in general practice, the biggest cash increase in a decade. That funding has allowed us to recruit an extra 2,500 general practitioners and improve access for patients.

General practices are valued independent contractors who provide over £13 billion worth of NHS services. Every year we consult with the sector both about what services they provide, and the money providers are entitled to in return under their contract, taking into account the cost of delivering services.

This Government is committed to publishing a 10 Year Workforce Plan to set out action to create a workforce ready to deliver the transformed service set out in the 10-Year Health Plan. The 10 Year Workforce Plan will ensure that the National Health Service has the right people in the right places, with the right skills to care for patients, when they need it.

We hugely value the critical role that health care providers play, we are determined to address the issues they face.

The Cleft Registry and Audit Network (CRANE) is a national register and clinical audit funded by NHS England to evaluate and report on the delivery of cleft services to children born with a cleft lip and/or palate in England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland. The 2024 Annual Report states that cleft lip and/or palate is a common condition, affecting one in 660 births and between 2021 and 2023, as 2,609 children were registered on CRANE, which is approximately 870 per year.

As part of their development activities, CRANE has previously linked with national educational data in England and found that attainment gaps exist between those with a cleft and the general population.

The Department, through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), is currently funding a £2 million study to improve outcomes for individuals with cleft lip and/or palate by addressing variation in unmet needs.

This study aims to understand, and subsequently develop a tool to help address, the clinical, psychosocial, educational, and patient-reported needs of young adults with cleft lip and/or palate when they move from child to adult health services.

The NIHR continues to welcome funding applications for research into any aspect of human health, including cleft palate.

The Cleft Registry and Audit Network (CRANE) is a national register and clinical audit funded by NHS England to evaluate and report on the delivery of cleft services to children born with a cleft lip and/or palate in England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland. The 2024 Annual Report states that cleft lip and/or palate is a common condition, affecting one in 660 births and between 2021 and 2023, as 2,609 children were registered on CRANE, which is approximately 870 per year.

As part of their development activities, CRANE has previously linked with national educational data in England and found that attainment gaps exist between those with a cleft and the general population.

The Department, through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), is currently funding a £2 million study to improve outcomes for individuals with cleft lip and/or palate by addressing variation in unmet needs.

This study aims to understand, and subsequently develop a tool to help address, the clinical, psychosocial, educational, and patient-reported needs of young adults with cleft lip and/or palate when they move from child to adult health services.

The NIHR continues to welcome funding applications for research into any aspect of human health, including cleft palate.

Government data shows that sugar levels in drinks in scope of the Soft Drinks Industry Levy (SDIL) reduced by 47% between 2015 and 2024, removing approximately 57,000 tonnes of sugar from these drinks. This has had benefits across all socio-economic groups.

The National Diet and Nutrition Survey (NDNS), an ongoing Government-funded survey of food consumption and nutrient status in the United Kingdom, shows that sugar intakes of older children and adolescents reduced between 2014 and 2019, and the amount of sugar coming from soft drinks reduced.

Academic modelling papers suggest that the following benefits may have been realised as a result of the reductions in sugar seen in drinks in scope of the SDIL:

• prevented approximately 5,000 cases of obesity in girls aged ten to 11 years old, with a greater impact on those living in the most deprived areas, although the paper did not find any impact on girls in the younger age group, four to five years old, or in boys at either age;
• shown relative reductions in hospital admissions for dental caries related tooth extractions in children aged zero to four years old and five to nine years old of 28.6% and 5.5% respectively, with no change observed for older children, and reductions being observed in children living in most index of multiple deprivation areas regardless of deprivation; and
• shown a reduction in the incidence rates of child admissions to hospital for asthma related complications of 20.9% in those aged five to 18 years old, with reductions being similar across age-groups and deprivation quintiles.

The Government is continuing to take action to increase cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) awareness and training, including NHS England leading sessions on first aid, CPR, and the use of defibrillators both in the community and in schools, under the Restart a Heart programme. This training should help to increase confidence in performing CPR on women.

NHS England has trained over 35,800 adults and children in CPR and defibrillation in the last 13 years, and 2,134 this year so far. NHS England delivers the sessions via their resuscitation team and via their community first responders.

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.

Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for the provision and commissioning of services to meet the varied needs of their local populations, including for children’s continuing care. It is for ICBs to judge the appropriateness of using allocation tools in their local context. ICBs should also ensure that any use is in line with regulatory and privacy obligations and with the principles of the National Framework for Children and Young People’s Continuing Care. The framework, published by the Department, provides guidance to support ICBs and local authorities to assess and agree support for children whose needs cannot be met through existing universal or specialist services.

For these reasons, there are no plans to commission an independent national review at this time.

The provision of dementia health care services is the responsibility of local integrated care boards (ICBs). We expect ICBs to commission services based on local population needs, taking account of National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines.

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

We have taken ‘non-UK residents’ to mean chargeable overseas visitors. The Department publishes data on the income identified from chargeable overseas visitors in England as part of the Department of Health and Social Care Annual Report and Accounts. The cash payments received by the National Health Service from overseas visitors are also published annually in the consolidated NHS provider accounts. The information for the last three years is available at the following links:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6745b836e7cf64050b8098c4/consolidated-nhs-provider-accounts_annual-report-and-accounts-2023-to-2024_print-ready.pdf (page 79)

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/676150ef26a2d1ff18253415/dhsc-annual-report-and-accounts-2023-2024-web-accessible.pdf (page 284)

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65b2a4fc5f8ce2000d3ae544/consolidated-provider-accounts-2022-to-2023-print.pdf (page 74)

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65b236c81702b10013cb1289/DHSC-Annual-report-and-accounts-2022-2023-web-accessible.pdf (page 275)

https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/consolidated-provider-accounts-21-22-final.pdf (page 66)

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/63e50dc0d3bf7f05c8e947a8/dhsc-annual-report-and-accounts-2021-2022_web-accessible.pdf (page 319)

NHS charges can be recovered up to six years from the date of invoice, and therefore the amount recovered in a year does not necessarily mean it was identified in the same financial year.

Guidance on the use of medical devices is a matter for the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, which has existing guidance on the use of left ventricular assistance devices available at the following link:

https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ipg516

The requested data is not held centrally in a reportable format.

All frontline health care workers should be offered a flu vaccination by their employer, with this year’s campaign starting from 1 October 2025 and remaining until 31 March 2026. In the NHS England Urgent and Emergency Care Plan 2025/26, which was published in June 2025, a commitment was given to improve vaccination rates for frontline staff towards the pre-pandemic uptake level of 2018/19, and included the aim to improve uptake by at least 5% in 2025/26.

The UK Health Security Agency publishes monthly provisional vaccine uptake data for frontline healthcare workers from November to March. The first monthly data for this season was published on 27 November 2025 and includes all vaccinations given between 1 September and 31 October 2025.

The Department works closely with the UK Health Security Agency and NHS England to encourage everyone who is eligible to get their flu vaccine. For 2025/26, there is an enhanced communications campaign using multiple ways to reach staff including workplace communications, partnerships with unions and professional bodies, and materials tailored for different healthcare roles. All National Health Service trusts have been asked to have an accessible occupational health vaccination offer to staff throughout the entire flu campaign, including onsite bookable and walk-in appointments. Additionally, a range of digital services have been put in place, including to support individuals to make informed choices about when and where to receive the vaccinations.

NHS England has also developed bespoke data reports to monitor trust uptake in real time, working closely with NHS regions and trusts to determine influencing factors for staff uptake and promoting cross-system working to share best practice throughout the seasonal campaign.

The Quality and Outcomes Framework indicator relating to the learning disability register was retired for the 2025/26 contract year.

National published data is recorded on a financial year basis from April to March. This published data shows that, at the end of October 2025, there were 342,928 people aged 14 years old and over on a general practice learning disability register. This is approximately a quarter of the estimated number of adults with a learning disability in England.

At the Autumn Budget, we announced our commitment to deliver 250 Neighbourhood Health Centres (NHCs) through the NHS Neighbourhood Rebuild Programme. This will deliver NHCs through a mixture of refurbishments to expand and improve sites over the next three years and new-build sites opening in the medium term. The first 120 NHCs are due to be operational by 2030 and will be delivered through public private partnerships and public capital.

Nationwide coverage will take time, but we will start in the areas of greatest need where healthy life expectancy is lowest, including rural towns and communities with higher deprivation levels, targeting places where healthy life expectancy is lowest and delivering healthcare closer to home for those that need it the most.

Integrated care boards will be responsible for determining the most appropriate locations for NHCs.

We expect neighbourhood teams and services to be designed in a way that reflects the specific needs of local populations, including the workforce. While the focus on personalised, coordinated care will be consistent, that will mean the service will look different in rural communities, coastal towns, or deprived inner cities. A 10 Year Workforce Plan will be published in spring 2026, which will set out action to create a workforce to deliver the 10-Year Health Plan.

The Government and Prostate Cancer UK (PCUK) have partnered together on the £42 million TRANSFORM screening trial to find the best way to screen men for prostate cancer, to find it before it becomes advanced and harder to treat. PCUK is leading the development of the trial, with the Government contributing £16 million through the National Institute for Health and Care Research.

The TRANSFORM trial will aim to address some of the inequalities that exist in prostate cancer diagnosis. For example, one in four black men will develop prostate cancer, double the risk of other men, and often at a younger age. The trial will ensure that at least 10% of the men who are invited to participate in the trial are black.

The UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC), that advises ministers in all four nations of the United Kingdom, has carried out an evidence review to look at screening for prostate cancer. It is only where the UK NSC is confident that screening provides more good than harm that a screening programme is recommended.

On 28 November 2025, the UK NSC opened a 12- week public consultation on a draft recommendation to:

• offer a targeted national prostate cancer screening programme to men with confirmed BRCA1/2 gene variants every two years from 45 years old to age 61 years old;
• not recommend population screening;
• not recommend targeted screening of black men;
• not recommend targeted screening of men with family history; and
• collaborate with the Transform trial team to answer outstanding questions on screening effectiveness for black men and men with a family history as soon as the trial data becomes available, and to await the results of the study to develop and trial a more accurate test than the prostate specific antigen test alone, to improve the balance of benefit and harm of screening.

After the consultation closes, in early 2026, the UK NSC will make a final recommendation on screening for prostate cancer. Ministers will consider whether to accept the recommendation at this time.

The Government had two contracts with Palantir Technologies UK which have expired. The first, worth £908,333.33, was for Foundry Software and implementation, between 12 June 2020 and 30 September 2020. The second, worth £750,000, was for the Adult Social Care Data Analytics Project, an extension of Palantir Foundry, between 12 October 2021 and 11 January 2022. There are no contracts in the process of being agreed.

Everyone who has drug and/or alcohol treatment needs is assessed in prison and offered a referral to a treatment or recovery service on release. The Department works closely with national partners and with local authorities to improve continuity of care between prison and community drug and alcohol treatment systems. To support this, the Department has published a continuity of care self-assessment toolkit, and shares actionable data and good practice with drug and alcohol partnerships on a regular basis. The continuity of care self-assessment toolkit is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/continuity-of-care-from-prison-to-community-self-assessment-tool

This work has enabled more people than ever to receive the treatment they need following their release from prison. The proportion of adults released from prison and successfully starting community treatment within three weeks of release was 53% in 2023 to 2024. This is a 10% increase from the proportion reported in 2022 to 2023, at 43%, and is 23% higher than when this data was first reported in 2015 to 2016, at 30%.

It has been illegal for businesses to sell or supply single-use vapes since 1 June 2025. The Government is investing £10 million of new funding in Trading Standards in 2025/26, to support the enforcement of illicit and underage tobacco and vape sales. As part of this package, we have provided training to over 760 Trading Standards officers on the single-use vapes ban, ensuring they have a strong understanding of the regulations and are confident in enforcing them.

Through this programme, we are also funding the Vaping Expert Panel, which provides guidance to Trading Standards officers on vaping products to support the consistent enforcement of regulations. The panel has published 20 pieces of guidance, and Trading Standards officers are able to contact the panel if they would like further clarification or advice.

On 19 November 2025, to coincide with International Men’s Health Day, we published the first ever Men’s Health Strategy for England. 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.

We are taking a range of actions to improve men’s health literacy. For example, our landmark partnership with the Premier League will bring together football clubs and the Government to improve health literacy, particularly around mental health and suicide prevention. We are also ensuring health literacy improvements are embedded at the community level, building the evidence base on heath literacy in men, and identifying ways to build media literacy skills in men to help them critically assess health information and protect against misinformation that harms health.

We will consider the impacts on young men in the implementation of the strategy. The strategy sets up a strong foundation for improving how we think and act on men's health and we will learn, iterate, and adapt as new challenges emerge. As a first step, we will work with the Men's Health Academic Network and the voluntary, community, and social enterprise sector to develop and publish a one-year-on report, highlighting the improvements made and where future efforts will need to be targeted.

The Nursery Milk Scheme is a statutory scheme which allows registered early years childcare settings to claim one-third of a pint of milk for all children under the age of five years old who attend the setting for at least two hours per day. The statutory nature of the scheme means that it is not impacted by annual funding discussions, and these discussions therefore have no impact on the childcare settings who use the scheme, or on the suppliers who supply them.

NHS England has published a RightCare toolkit which sets out what good quality diabetes care looks like for children and young adults and which includes guidance on timely and accurate diagnosis.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has published clinical guidelines for the diagnosis, treatment, and care of children and young people with type 1 diabetes.

Through our National Institute for Health and Care Research, we have supported the establishment of the Early Surveillance for Autoimmune diabetes, or the “ELSA” study. This study is exploring the feasibility and benefits of screening for type 1 diabetes.

NHS England runs training sessions on first aid, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), and the use of defibrillators both in the community and in schools, under the Restart a Heart programme. This training should help to increase confidence in performing CPR on women. NHS England has trained over 35,800 adults and children in CPR and defibrillation in the last 13 years, and 2,134 this year so far. NHS England delivers the sessions via their resuscitation team and via their community first responders.

The Government is committed to tackling the appalling crimes of rape and sexual assault. NHS England has introduced a comprehensive package of measures to improve sexual safety across the National Health Service. NHS England has made tackling sexual misconduct in the NHS a priority, with all trusts and integrated care boards (ICBs) now signed up to the Sexual Safety Charter for the NHS.

NHS England is investing in improving the collection and analysis of sexual violence data to support organisations to implement policies that reduce incidents of sexual misconduct in the NHS. NHS providers have a mandatory duty to notify the Care Quality Commission (CQC) of all incidents that affect the health, safety, and welfare of people who use services, including allegations of sexual assault. The provider must also notify the police if a crime has been committed. The CQC uses the information to monitor the safety of services and to ensure that providers have dealt with incidents appropriately. The CQC publishes reports about the services they inspect on their website.

Data relating to sexual assault in NHS hospitals is currently held at NHS trust level. Local police forces hold data where there has been a report to the police of sexual assault. For assaults on NHS staff, the NHS Staff Survey now includes questions about staff experiences of sexual misconduct. Results from the 2024 staff survey show 3.66% experienced unwanted behaviour of a sexual nature from colleagues.

The Department recognises the complex needs of people living with overlapping conditions such as myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), long COVID, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, hypermobility spectrum disorders, postural tachycardia syndrome, and mast cell activation syndrome. Our approach focuses on improving care coordination and access to appropriate services.

For ME/CFS, we have published a cross-government final delivery plan, which sets out actions to boost research, improve professional education, and enhance support for daily living, including community-based services and better benefit assessments. While the plan is specific to ME/CFS, it acknowledges overlaps with other complex, multi-system disorders and commits to exploring synergies during implementation.

Additionally, the 10-Year Health Plan aims to transform services and outcomes for people living with complex conditions by prioritising integrated, personalised care. The plan focuses on earlier diagnosis and promotes multidisciplinary teams and community-based services to deliver coordinated support closer to home, reducing reliance on hospital care. Digital innovations, including remote monitoring and personalised care planning, will help manage long-term conditions more effectively. The Plan also commits to 95% of people with complex needs to have a personalised care plan by 2027. Personalised care plans will improve support for people with complex needs by ensuring that care is tailored to the individual and coordinated across services.

In addition, research funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research into post-viral syndromes and autonomic disorders will help improve understanding autonomic dysfunction and overlapping conditions, accelerate innovation and deliver evidence-based care for patients with complex, multi-system health needs.