Asked by: Lord Mott (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to assess the potential use of artificial intelligence benchmarking to reduce the side effects of radiotherapy when used to treat prostate cancer.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government remains committed to looking for opportunities to implement artificial intelligence (AI) in cancer services to speed up diagnosis, improve treatment efficacy, and reduce treatment side effects where possible. We have demonstrated this commitment through a £133 million investment in the AI in Health and Care Award, which has funded innovations relevant to prostate cancer diagnosis and treatment that align with the NHS Long Term Plan.
While AI is already being used to support diagnostic and treatment pathways, any future use of AI intended to further improve radiotherapy services, will be carefully evaluated to ensure safety, efficacy, and clinical benefit and benchmarked against existing standards and approaches.
The Government’s recently published National Cancer Plan sets out how we will modernise the National Health Service and utilise AI to support faster radiotherapy planning, provide more accurate contouring, improve productivity, and free up clinicians’ time to focus on patient care. Over the next decade, we will harness AI to help the NHS to deliver more personalised and responsive cancer care.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the role of digital technologies in supporting treatment and recovery services for people experiencing drug and alcohol addiction.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is continuing to invest in improvements to local alcohol and drug treatment services to ensure those in need can access high quality help and support. From 2026, all drug and alcohol treatment and recovery funding will be channelled through the Public Health Grant, with over £13.45 billion allocated across three years, including £3.4 billion ringfenced for drug and alcohol treatment and recovery.
Local authorities are responsible for assessing local needs for alcohol and drug prevention and treatment in their area, and commissioning services to meet these needs. The Government works with local treatment systems to provide a number of digital products including guidance, subject-matter expertise and data tools to help them deliver their service.
Digital products are derived from The National Drug Treatment Monitoring System and other related health datasets and made available via a dedicated website to enable local treatment systems to monitor treatment access and better manage outcomes.
Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, in the light of the report by the Health Services Safety Investigations Body Insulin: supporting safe self-administration for patients in the community with a mental health problem, published on 26 February, what steps they plan to take to ensure that vulnerable patients are appropriately supported to administer insulin safely after discharge from hospital.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England is considering the Health Services Safety Investigations Body’s report and will respond to the recommendation in the report in due course.
To reduce insulin related harm, the NHS Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) programme published guidance in April 2025 to support trusts to establish Diabetes Safety Boards. GIRFT is also undertaking a pilot across 20 integrated care systems as part of a Community and District Nurse Insulin Programme, which works to empower community diabetes nurses and district nursing teams to support patients at home requiring insulin administration.
To further support services to provide high quality personalised care for all patients needing secondary mental health services, including those with diabetes, NHS England has shared new draft guidance with systems, the Mental Health Personalised Care Framework, sets out how services must effectively assess, plan, and manage people's care in collaboration with all relevant teams, including how they assess safety and risks of harm.
Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, in the light of the report by the Health Services Safety Investigations Body Insulin: supporting safe self-administration for patients in the community with a mental health problem, published on 26 February, what assessment they have made of the risks to patient safety of inadequate assessment of a patient's ability to self-administer insulin prior to discharge from hospital
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England is considering the Health Services Safety Investigations Body’s report and will respond to the recommendation in the report in due course.
To reduce insulin related harm, the NHS Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) programme published guidance in April 2025 to support trusts to establish Diabetes Safety Boards. GIRFT is also undertaking a pilot across 20 integrated care systems as part of a Community and District Nurse Insulin Programme, which works to empower community diabetes nurses and district nursing teams to support patients at home requiring insulin administration.
To further support services to provide high quality personalised care for all patients needing secondary mental health services, including those with diabetes, NHS England has shared new draft guidance with systems, the Mental Health Personalised Care Framework, sets out how services must effectively assess, plan, and manage people's care in collaboration with all relevant teams, including how they assess safety and risks of harm.
Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the effectiveness of the NHS Health Check programme in identifying chronic kidney disease; and what steps they are taking to increase uptake of that programme.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Blood pressure is a risk factor for chronic kidney disease (CKD) and cardiovascular disease (CVD). Each year, the NHS Health Check, which is a core component of England’s CVD prevention programme, engages over 1.4 million people and identifies over 340,000 cases of high blood pressure.
Individuals who are identified with high blood pressure during their NHS Health Check are referred to their general practice for further clinical investigation who determine whether an individual should be tested for CKD. Data is currently not collected on the number of individuals who are subsequently tested for CKD.
To improve access and engagement with the NHS Health Check, we are developing the NHS Health Check Online service that people can use at home, at a time convenient to them, to understand and act on their CVD risk. The NHS Health Check Online is being piloted in multiple local authorities across England.
Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 19 January (HL13473), whether the department has considered allowing the term probiotic to be used in mandatory product labelling, notwithstanding its current treatment as a health claim.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The information that must be provided and can be provided on food labels is set out in legislation. The use of specific terms and statements that can be made on food labels is also subject to nutrition and health claims legislation. ‘Probiotic’ is a term commonly used to describe the effect of one or more strains of live bacteria used in food and food supplements. The Department considers the term ‘probiotic’ to constitute a health claim, as it implies that consuming a food or food supplement containing these bacteria may provide a health benefit. The term ‘probiotic’ could only be used on food labels if a specific authorised health claim existed for the particular strain of live bacteria used, which have been scientifically substantiated and authorised in accordance with nutrition and health claims legislation.
There are currently no authorised health claims for probiotics or specific bacterial strains.
Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how the neighbourhood health framework will support the early identification and prevention of chronic kidney disease.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Neighbourhood Health Framework is designed to provide clarity and consistency to integrated care boards (ICBs), local authorities, and their partners, in developing and scaling neighbourhood health.
It is important that reforms are locally led, as ICBs and local authorities are best placed to design services that make sense for their local populations. Local systems can choose to go further than the minimum aims set out in the framework, and this could include a focus on chronic kidney disease.
Early diagnosis of chronic kidney disease is supported through widespread access to blood and urine tests across the National Health Service, including in primary care and community diagnostic services.
Asked by: Lord Ravensdale (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to include sudden unexplained death in childhood on the NHS website to enable parents and professionals to find information.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government recognises the devastating impact of sudden unexplained death in childhood (SUDC) on affected families and communities. As the Minister for Public Health and Prevention (Sharon Hodgson MP) set out during a recent Westminster Hall Debate on this issue on 24 March 2026, the Government’s is committed to strengthening pathology services, ensuring high-quality bereavement support and growing the evidence base around SUDC.
Parents who have lost a child to SUDC should be able to access the advice and support that they need. Bereavement support is available on the NHS help page and GOV.UK website in an online-only format.
NHS Bereavement support is commissioned locally, allowing services to be shaped around the needs of local communities. For anyone seeking help after a bereavement, we encourage them to speak to their general practitioner, who can advise on and refer into local bereavement support services. My officials are exploring opportunities to include signposting on the NHS website to SUDC UK to ensure families have access to information when they need it most.
Asked by: Lord Ravensdale (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to develop a national plan for sudden unexplained death in childhood.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government recognises the devastating impact of sudden unexplained death in childhood (SUDC) on affected families and communities. As the Minister for Public Health and Prevention (Sharon Hodgson MP) set out during a recent Westminster Hall Debate on this issue on 24 March 2026, the Government’s is committed to strengthening pathology services, ensuring high-quality bereavement support and growing the evidence base around SUDC.
Parents who have lost a child to SUDC should be able to access the advice and support that they need. Bereavement support is available on the NHS help page and GOV.UK website in an online-only format.
NHS Bereavement support is commissioned locally, allowing services to be shaped around the needs of local communities. For anyone seeking help after a bereavement, we encourage them to speak to their general practitioner, who can advise on and refer into local bereavement support services. My officials are exploring opportunities to include signposting on the NHS website to SUDC UK to ensure families have access to information when they need it most.
Asked by: Lord Wigley (Plaid Cymru - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what further steps they plan to take to safeguard a reliable supply of radioisotopes for use in the NHS.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The resilience of United Kingdom supply chains is a key priority, and the Department and NHS England are committed to helping to build long term supply chain resilience for medicines. We recognise the importance of ensuring a resilient and reliable supply of medical isotopes and how important that is for patients and for the National Health Service. We regularly engage with industry partners to support continued supply of medical radioisotopes to the NHS, including responding to supply disruptions. The Department is working with the NHS and other parts of the Government to better understand future needs for medical radioisotopes.
In respect to isotope production and associated research in the UK, the Government has made up to £520 million available through the Life Sciences Innovative Manufacturing Fund to support UK manufacture of medicine and medical technology products. This includes applications looking to establish, expand, or improve UK-based manufacture of medical radioisotopes for diagnostic or therapeutic applications. In addition, last year, the Government also announced a £54 million funding package for eight innovative research and development projects, including £9.9 million earmarked for Project Alpha to explore how to make medical treatments from legacy nuclear material, something that could unlock the UK’s potential to develop promising new cancer therapies.