Asked by: James McMurdock (Independent - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what guidance his Department has issued to pharmacies on safe dosing of over‑the‑counter cold and flu remedies.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is an executive agency of the Department with responsibility for ensuring medicines meet appropriate standards of quality, efficacy and safety. The MHRA has recently updated voluntary Best Practice Guidance on the general sale of medicines for pain, to further highlight the risks of overdose, to address public concerns and recognise current sales techniques. Links are also provided to patient support groups, including Papyrus for young people. The update was undertaken in collaboration with retailers, stakeholders and healthcare professionals including pharmacists and the updated guidance is available at the following link:
Most retailers adhere to the guidelines on not promoting multiple purchases and have introduced in store measures such as till bars that restrict sales to a maximum of two packs across a range of products containing aspirin, paracetamol, or ibuprofen. The aim of these voluntary measures is to balance the need of people for access to pain relief medicines against the dangers for vulnerable individuals and to reduce the opportunity for customers to purchase on impulse excessive quantities of any single analgesic, like paracetamol, aspirin, or ibuprofen.
The use of paracetamol and accidental overdose is a safety concern, especially in relation to the many trade names of non-prescription and prescription medicines containing paracetamol. Therefore, the Human Medicines Regulations 2012 contain a number of conditions for the presentation of these medicines to highlight the presence of paracetamol in a medicine, including the requirement for “paracetamol” or “contains paracetamol” to be on the outer packaging. In addition, the patient information leaflet should include the warning “Do not take anything else containing paracetamol while taking this medicine”.
For those medicines containing paracetamol which are prescribed to a patient, the statutory warnings should be added to the prescribing label which is applied to the box by the pharmacist. These are highlighted in the British National Formulary, with further information available at the following link:
https://bnf.nice.org.uk/about/labels/
The Summary of Product Characteristics for healthcare professionals including pharmacist, provides a summary of the clinical particulars in the use of a medicine, including the recommended maximum daily dose. In addition, particulars in reference to overdose are provided. This includes the potential dose over which liver damage may occur and potential risk factors which may elevate the risk of overdose, including medical history, concomitant medicines, or alcohol intake. A summary of the symptoms of overdose and management are also provided.
Asked by: Elsie Blundell (Labour - Heywood and Middleton North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure that patients who require rehabilitative physiotherapy have access to NHS services.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Integrated care boards across England are responsible for managing the National Health Service budget and arranging the majority of NHS healthcare services to meet the healthcare needs of their respective populations. This includes the provision of some physiotherapy services.
We know people are waiting too long for community health services. The Medium-Term Planning Framework sets a clear target for systems to work to reduce long waits. By 2028/29, at least 80% of community health services activity should take place within 18 weeks, bringing community health services more into line with targets for elective care.
To support the shift to neighbourhood health, NHS England’s ‘Standardising community health services’ guidance asks systems to increase the capacity in community health services and work to standardise core community health services provision. The recently published 'Standardising community health services - core component descriptions’ guidance clearly defines the core component of community services to help reduce variation and support consistent commissioning, including for physiotherapy.
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.
Asked by: Pippa Heylings (Liberal Democrat - South Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions he has had with (a) the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, (b) the Children’s Commissioner, (c) the Local Government Association and (d) Adoption UK, on the waiting times faced by (i) looked-after children and (ii) previously looked-after children for neurodevelopmental assessment.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
My Rt. Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, has regular discussions on a wide range of matters including with stakeholders.
The Government has recognised that, nationally, demand for assessments for neurodevelopmental conditions such as autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has grown significantly in recent years and that people are experiencing severe delays for accessing such assessments. The Government’s 10-Year Health Plan will make the National Health Service fit for the future and recognises the need for early intervention and support.
It is the responsibility of integrated care boards (ICBs) to make available appropriate provision to meet the health and care needs of their local population, including children and their access to neurodevelopmental assessments.
NHS England issued advice to systems on ADHD service delivery and prioritisation on 7 October 2025. This advice includes guidance on managing service provision, reviewing waiting lists and providing support to patients waiting. The advice is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/adhd-service-delivery-and-prioritisation-advice-to-systems/
Through the Medium-Term Planning Framework, published 24 October, NHS England has set clear expectations for local ICBs and trusts to improve access, experience, and outcomes for autism and ADHD services over the next three years, focusing on improving quality and productivity.
NHS England established an ADHD taskforce which brought together those with lived experience with experts from the NHS, education, charity, and justice sector to get a better understanding of the challenges affecting those with ADHD, including timely and equitable access to services and support. The final report was published on 6 November 2025 and we are carefully considering its recommendations.
Building on the work of the Independent ADHD Taskforce, my Rt. Hon. Friend announced on 4 December 2025 the launch of an Independent Review into Prevalence and Support for Mental Health Conditions, ADHD and Autism. The review will inform our approach so that people with ADHD and autistic people have the right support in place to enable them to live well in their communities.
Asked by: Ben Obese-Jecty (Conservative - Huntingdon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress has he made in evaluating the outcomes of the Design for Life pilot sites.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Design for Life (DfL) Roadmap sets out a new strategy to transition away from all avoidable single-use medical technology products towards a functioning circular system by 2045. The Department has shared a ‘One Year On’ update with its wider collaborative who have supported the policymaking, now numbering over 100 organisations. This update can be found publicly at the following link:
https://exeterce.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/20251127-DfL-One-Year-On-update.pdf
More reporting mechanisms will be developed as the programme matures, for example where the roadmap plans for the creation of specific targets and key performance indicators, such as in Action 3. Reporting is done on a quarterly basis to the DfL Advisory Group, which is comprised of key stakeholders, including those from United Kingdom governments, the National Health Service, industry, and academia.
Information on evaluating outcomes of the recent DfL pilots can be found on the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare’s website, who were our partner on these pilots, at the following link:
These pilots observed that in most cases both cost and carbon savings can be found and staff satisfaction can be either maintained or improved. The Department is building on these evaluations with a dedicated Priority Adoption Working Group, which includes clinical and procurement professionals, to identify the products with the strongest case for safe, immediate transitions to reusables across the NHS. To date this group has evaluated over 50 products.
These transitions will be supported by many technical assessments, including those relating to the readiness of supply chains, reprocessing infrastructure, and staff. The decision to commit to a transition, for example whether to support a transition of certain types of endoscopes or not, will be made on the basis that is it safe, feasible, and valuable in the long-term following these and other assessments. At this juncture these assessments are still underway and so estimates cannot be provided at this time.
Asked by: James McMurdock (Independent - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency’s press release entitled MHRA seizes illegal medicines worth almost £45m in 2025 – disrupting major criminal networks, published on 26 January 2026, what guidance his Department issues to GPs and other healthcare professionals when patients indicate they have obtained illegally traded medicines.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The General Medical Council (GMC) is independent of the Government, is directly accountable to Parliament, and is responsible for operational matters concerning the discharge of their statutory duties. The United Kingdom’s model of healthcare professional regulation is founded on the principle of regulators operating independently from the Government.
The GMC’s Good medical practice states that doctors must follow “Good practice in proposing, prescribing, providing and managing medicines and devices” which notes that when prescribing, doctors must consider whether the information they have is reliable enough to enable them to provide safe care, including a consideration of whether the patient is obtaining medication from other sources.
In addition, the GMC’s Confidentiality: good practice in handling patient information content sets out doctors’ responsibilities regarding disclosure of patient information in the public interest. This guidance sets out the circumstances in which a medical professional may disclose a patient’s personal information without breaching duties of confidentiality, including when disclosure is required by law.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps he has taken to help (a) tackle male suicide and (b) improve access to support for men struggling with their mental health.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Suicide Prevention Strategy for England identifies middle aged men as a priority group for targeted and tailored support at a national level. There needs to be appropriate support and signposting for suicide prevention from services men commonly interact with, especially primary care, as well as Government agencies, and wider physical and mental health services. This can also include places where people may seek support for risk factors that have been linked to male suicide, including debt, and alcohol and drug misuse.
On 19 November, to coincide with International Men’s Health Day, 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, 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 of 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 and access to timely mental health care, expanding talking therapies, and giving patients better access to 24/7 support directly through the NHS App. These services are available to men struggling with their mental health.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to help raise public awareness of routes for support to prevent male suicide.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Suicide Prevention Strategy for England identifies middle aged men as a priority group for targeted and tailored support at a national level. There needs to be appropriate support and signposting for suicide prevention from services men commonly interact with, especially primary care, as well as Government agencies, and wider physical and mental health services. This can also include places where people may seek support for risk factors that have been linked to male suicide, including debt, and alcohol and drug misuse.
On 19 November, to coincide with International Men’s Health Day, 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, 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 of 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 and access to timely mental health care, expanding talking therapies, and giving patients better access to 24/7 support directly through the NHS App. These services are available to men struggling with their mental health.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to help ensure people with (a) disabilities and (b) additional needs receive (i) timely and (ii) effective medical attention.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We want disabled people’s access to, and experience of, healthcare services to be equitable, effective, and responsive to their needs. The 10-Year Health Plan specifically identifies disabled people as a priority group for the development of neighbourhood health care, offering more holistic ongoing support, and noting the health inequalities they face.
Under the Equality Act (2010), health and social care organisations must make reasonable adjustments to ensure that disabled people are not disadvantaged. NHS England is rolling out a Reasonable Adjustment Digital Flag which enables the recording of key information about a disabled patient or client and the reasonable adjustments to care and treatment that they need, to ensure support can be tailored appropriately and equitably. Under a new information standard, published on 19 December 2025, all publicly funded health and social care service providers must be able to share, read, and write reasonable adjustment data by 30 September 2026.
The NHS Medium-Term Planning Framework requires that from 2026/27 all integrated care boards and Community Health Services must actively manage and reduce the proportion of waits across all Community Health Services over 18 weeks and develop a plan to eliminate all 52-week waits. It also sets a new target to deliver all urgent general practice appointments on the same day.
The Elective Recovery Plan sets out commitments to tackle disparities in access to and waiting times for elective care, and our Urgent and Emergency Care Plan for 2025/26 sets out clear actions to deliver improvements this winter and make services better every day.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
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 people with disabilities do not experience long wait times for medical appointments.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We want disabled people’s access to, and experience of, healthcare services to be equitable, effective, and responsive to their needs. The 10-Year Health Plan specifically identifies disabled people as a priority group for the development of neighbourhood health care, offering more holistic ongoing support, and noting the health inequalities they face.
Under the Equality Act (2010), health and social care organisations must make reasonable adjustments to ensure that disabled people are not disadvantaged. NHS England is rolling out a Reasonable Adjustment Digital Flag which enables the recording of key information about a disabled patient or client and the reasonable adjustments to care and treatment that they need, to ensure support can be tailored appropriately and equitably. Under a new information standard, published on 19 December 2025, all publicly funded health and social care service providers must be able to share, read, and write reasonable adjustment data by 30 September 2026.
The NHS Medium-Term Planning Framework requires that from 2026/27 all integrated care boards and Community Health Services must actively manage and reduce the proportion of waits across all Community Health Services over 18 weeks and develop a plan to eliminate all 52-week waits. It also sets a new target to deliver all urgent general practice appointments on the same day.
The Elective Recovery Plan sets out commitments to tackle disparities in access to and waiting times for elective care, and our Urgent and Emergency Care Plan for 2025/26 sets out clear actions to deliver improvements this winter and make services better every day.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will take steps to increase research and development on child brain tumours.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department invests over £1.6 billion per year in research through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). Cancer is a major area of NIHR spending at £141.6 million in 2024/25, reflecting its high priority.
We are committed to furthering our investment in brain cancer research and have already taken steps to stimulate scientific progress and build scientific capacity to do research on brain cancer.
In January 2026, the NIHR announced increased investment of over £25 million in the NIHR Brain Tumour Research Consortium. The world-leading consortium aims to transform outcomes for adults and children and their families who are living with brain tumours, ultimately reducing lives lost to cancer.
The NIHR has also announced a new partnership with Cancer Research UK (CRUK), with approximately £3 million to co-fund Brain Tumour Centres of Excellence, which includes the Children’s Brain Tumour Centre of Excellence. This investment will accelerate the move from foundational research to delivering innovative treatments for patients.
In addition, the NIHR is actively engaged with CRUK alongside the health departments of the devolved administrations, through joint funding of the Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre network, a United Kingdom-wide consortium of specialist centres dedicated to early phase clinical trials and translational cancer research, including those for brain tumours. They have both an adult and a paediatric network.
The NIHR continues to welcome funding applications for research into any aspect of human health and care, including paediatric brain cancer. These applications are subject to peer review and judged in open competition, with awards being made on the basis of the importance of the topic to the public and health and care services, value for money, and scientific quality.