Asked by: Iqbal Mohamed (Independent - Dewsbury and Batley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what guidance his Department issues to local authorities on consultation with families before moving adults with learning disabilities to supported living or residential placements.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Decisions about care placements are made locally, based on individual assessments of need and personal circumstances. Under the Care Act 2014, local authorities are tasked with the duty to shape their care markets and commission services to meet the diverse needs of all local people. This includes commissioning a variety of different providers and specialist services that provide genuine choice to meet the needs of local people, and that offer quality and value for money.
There is no single national assessment of the impact of out‑of‑area placements on disabled adults and their families. However, local authorities should engage with people who draw on care and support, and their families and carers, to inform commissioning decisions and to consider the outcomes which matter to them. This is reflected in the Care and Support Statutory Guidance, which supports local authorities to fulfil their Care Act duties, including expectations around involvement and co‑production with people who draw on care and support and their families.
Asked by: Iqbal Mohamed (Independent - Dewsbury and Batley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what guidance his Department issues to local authorities on consulting with families before moving adults with learning disabilities to supported living and residential placements.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Decisions about care placements are made locally, based on individual assessments of need and personal circumstances. Under the Care Act 2014, local authorities are tasked with the duty to shape their care markets and commission services to meet the diverse needs of all local people. This includes commissioning a variety of different providers and specialist services that provide genuine choice to meet the needs of local people, and that offer quality and value for money.
There is no single national assessment of the impact of out‑of‑area placements on disabled adults and their families. However, local authorities should engage with people who draw on care and support, and their families and carers, to inform commissioning decisions and to consider the outcomes which matter to them. This is reflected in the Care and Support Statutory Guidance, which supports local authorities to fulfil their Care Act duties, including expectations around involvement and co‑production with people who draw on care and support and their families.
Asked by: Iqbal Mohamed (Independent - Dewsbury and Batley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential impact on disabled adults and their families when placements are made far from their home communities.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Decisions about care placements are made locally, based on individual assessments of need and personal circumstances. Under the Care Act 2014, local authorities are tasked with the duty to shape their care markets and commission services to meet the diverse needs of all local people. This includes commissioning a variety of different providers and specialist services that provide genuine choice to meet the needs of local people, and that offer quality and value for money.
There is no single national assessment of the impact of out‑of‑area placements on disabled adults and their families. However, local authorities should engage with people who draw on care and support, and their families and carers, to inform commissioning decisions and to consider the outcomes which matter to them. This is reflected in the Care and Support Statutory Guidance, which supports local authorities to fulfil their Care Act duties, including expectations around involvement and co‑production with people who draw on care and support and their families.
Asked by: Iqbal Mohamed (Independent - Dewsbury and Batley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps the Government is taking to strengthen safeguarding protections for adults with learning disabilities receiving local authority care services.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
When a local authority has reasonable cause to suspect an adult in the local authority’s area has care and support needs, is at risk of, or experiencing abuse or neglect, and cannot protect themselves because of those needs, it must carry out a safeguarding enquiry.
Local authorities must work with their partners under section 6(7) of the Care Act 2014, and those partners must also work with the authority to carry out their care, support, and adult protection duties.
Our 10-Year Health Plan sets out to tackle health inequalities and offer people with disabilities more holistic, on-going support in the community.
Action is underway to improve access and support for people with a learning disability through mandatory training for health and care staff, continued uptake of annual health checks and health action plans, and the Mental Health Act reforms.
Asked by: Baroness Barker (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to improve the collection, monitoring, and publication of data on HIV prevalence, testing, prevention, and treatment in prisons.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) publishes overall HIV prevalence and HIV testing data annually in the HIV Monitoring and Evaluation Framework and the HIV Official Statistics, which are available on the GOV.UK website. Our recently published 2025 report Understanding HIV testing contains further information on people in prison. The report is also available on the GOV.UK website.
The Chief Medical Officer’s annual report in 2025, The health of people in prison, on probation and in the secure NHS estate in England, also available on the GOV.UK’s website, highlighted the significant health challenges faced by people in prison, including in sexual health and HIV, and we are committed to addressing this.
The UKHSA is working with regional partners to carry out an audit to understand the provision of HIV diagnosis, prevention, and care in English prisons. This will highlight what barriers people are facing and what we need to do to ensure every person gets the care they deserve.
Furthermore, the UKHSA is currently independently reviewing blood borne virus service provision in prisons, including the opt-out testing programme which has been in place since 2014 to update guidance, identify areas to optimise implementation, and ensure prisoners are fully supported.
Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what consideration they have given to allowing children and young people with non-malignant conditions who travel long distances to receive stem cell transplants and chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy access to the young cancer patient travel fund announced as part of the National Cancer Plan for England, published on 4 February.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The commitment to fund travel costs of up to £10 million per year to support children and young people with cancer is a key priority for the National Cancer Plan.
The Department is currently working with its partners to define the scope and parameters of the scheme and further detail will be announced in due course.
Asked by: Claire Young (Liberal Democrat - Thornbury and Yate)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department is implementing contract reforms to help support NHS dental provision and recruitment.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We are committed to delivering fundamental reform of the dental contract before the end of this Parliament. As well as working towards a full consultation, we are continuing to engage with the sector regularly, including the British Dental Association and other representatives, to scope potential changes.
As a first step, from April 2026, we will be implementing reforms to the current National Health Service dental contract which are expected to improve access for patients with urgent and complex needs and to better reward dentists for treating these patients. From April, dental practices will be required to deliver a set proportion of their contract as urgent care, supported by increased payments for dentists. We are also introducing three new care pathways for patients with significant dental decay and gum disease, with payments to dentists ranging from £248 to £709 and patients paying one charge for the whole pathway.
By better incentivising urgent and complex care, we’re encouraging dentists to treat these patients, benefiting patients across the country.
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, pursuant to Answer of 16 March 2026 to Question 118667, which community healthcare service types have the longest waiting times, and what steps is he taking to reduce them.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We know people are waiting too long for community services and that is why we have set a clear target for systems to work to reduce long waits in NHS England’s Medium Term Planning Framework. By 2028/29 at least 80% of community health service activity should take place within 18 weeks. In addition, in 2025 we published Standardising Community Health Services which provides an overview of the core community health services, with further detail published in February 2026.
As of January 2026, there were 1.4 million people on waiting lists for community health services, with 59,245 people who had been on waiting lists for 52 to 104 weeks, and 30,946 people who had been on waiting lists for over 104 weeks.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what guidance is provided to GPs on faith-sensitive medical care.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
All United Kingdom registered doctors are expected to meet the professional standards set out in the General Medical Council’s Good Medical Practice. The standards cover personal beliefs and medical practice, and set out that in assessing a patient’s conditions and taking a history, doctors should take account of spiritual, religious, social, and cultural factors, as well as their clinical history and symptoms.
The training curriculum for postgraduate trainee doctors is set by the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) and has to meet the standards set by the General Medical Council. The RCGP curriculum includes content on ‘demonstrating the holistic mindset of a generalist medical practitioner’, which covers spirituality and cultural factors.
Asked by: Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have, if any, to implement a national screening programme of children for exposure to lead (1) in general, or (2) in cases where there is a reason to suspect exposure; and what action they plan to take to identify and remove or seal off sources of lead contamination.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is advised on all screening matters by the UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC), an independent scientific advisory committee which is made up of leading medical and screening experts. Where the committee is confident that there is robust evidence that demonstrates that to offer screening provides more good than harm, they recommend a screening programme.
The UK NSC made a recommendation not to screen children for lead poisoning in 2018. This is because:
- the number of children affected in the United Kingdom is currently not known;
- the test was not reliable enough; and
- treatments in children with mild symptoms have not been proven and may also be harmful.
In 2024 a proposal was submitted to the UK NSC via its open call, to review the decision made in 2018 for screening children for lead poisoning. The UK NSC is planning to undertake an evidence map, which is the first step in the evidence review process.
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) advises that exposure to lead should be as low as reasonably practicable. The UKHSA support partners in identifying the pathway and source of lead and advises on appropriate public health interventions to aid in reducing exposure. Interventions include interruption of lead exposure pathways by source identification and remediation or abatement, behavioural interventions, and consideration of whether others may be at risk of exposure. The UKHSA is also involved in raising awareness as many healthcare professionals are unaware that lead still poses a risk in the UK and elsewhere.
The remit of the UKHSA in relation to lead contamination is advisory and does not extend to undertaking any remedial measures.