Asked by: Lee Dillon (Liberal Democrat - Newbury)
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 improve 24-hour Urgent Community Response services for people at the end of life.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to ensuring that people approaching the end of life receive high-quality, compassionate care whenever it is needed.
Urgent community response (UCR) services play a key role in this. UCR provides a two-hour community-based response to adults experiencing a sudden deterioration in their health and helps avoid unnecessary hospital admissions. People at the end of life are among those who can be referred into UCR services for urgent crisis, for symptom control and/or pain relief, in line with a person’s wishes.
We are committed to improving the consistency, capacity, and availability of UCR services across England. The Urgent and Emergency Care Delivery Plan 2025/26 includes actions to expand urgent care delivered in the community, including UCR, and the National Health Service 10-Year Health Plan further commits to increasing access to urgent care at home and in the community as part of the new Neighbourhood Health model.
Additionally, NHS England’s published statutory guidance on palliative care and end-of-life care states that integrated care boards, as commissioning authorities, must define how their local service providers meet population needs on a 24/7 basis.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guideline, NG142: End of life care for adults: service delivery, also recommends that adults nearing the end of life have access to a healthcare professional 24 hours a day, seven days a week, as well as an out-of-hours advice line and access to essential medicines for symptom management.
Although NICE guidance is not mandatory, there is an expectation that commissioners and service providers take the guidelines into account when making decisions about how to best meet the needs of their local communities.
Furthermore, to strengthen provision for people at the end of life, we will publish a Palliative Care and End-of-Life Care Modern Service Framework (MSF) later this year. Through our MSF, we will closely monitor the shift towards the strategic commissioning of palliative care and end-of-life care services to ensure that services reduce variation in access and quality, including strengthening out-of-hours community health support, dedicated telephone advice, and overall consideration of 24/7 provision.
Asked by: Lee Dillon (Liberal Democrat - Newbury)
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 improve out-of-hours support for people at the end of life.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to ensuring that people approaching the end of life receive high-quality, compassionate care whenever it is needed.
Urgent community response (UCR) services play a key role in this. UCR provides a two-hour community-based response to adults experiencing a sudden deterioration in their health and helps avoid unnecessary hospital admissions. People at the end of life are among those who can be referred into UCR services for urgent crisis, for symptom control and/or pain relief, in line with a person’s wishes.
We are committed to improving the consistency, capacity, and availability of UCR services across England. The Urgent and Emergency Care Delivery Plan 2025/26 includes actions to expand urgent care delivered in the community, including UCR, and the National Health Service 10-Year Health Plan further commits to increasing access to urgent care at home and in the community as part of the new Neighbourhood Health model.
Additionally, NHS England’s published statutory guidance on palliative care and end-of-life care states that integrated care boards, as commissioning authorities, must define how their local service providers meet population needs on a 24/7 basis.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guideline, NG142: End of life care for adults: service delivery, also recommends that adults nearing the end of life have access to a healthcare professional 24 hours a day, seven days a week, as well as an out-of-hours advice line and access to essential medicines for symptom management.
Although NICE guidance is not mandatory, there is an expectation that commissioners and service providers take the guidelines into account when making decisions about how to best meet the needs of their local communities.
Furthermore, to strengthen provision for people at the end of life, we will publish a Palliative Care and End-of-Life Care Modern Service Framework (MSF) later this year. Through our MSF, we will closely monitor the shift towards the strategic commissioning of palliative care and end-of-life care services to ensure that services reduce variation in access and quality, including strengthening out-of-hours community health support, dedicated telephone advice, and overall consideration of 24/7 provision.
Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government when they plan to establish the role of National Director of Patient Experience announced in the 10-year Health Plan for England, published in July 2025; and to clarify the expected role and responsibilities of the position.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Detailed work is currently underway to finalise the role description and the process and timetable for the recruitment of the new National Director of Patient Experience. Once this work has been completed, we will be in a better position to clarify when we expect the role to be established, and to confirm the role and responsibilities of the position.
Asked by: Mary Glindon (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to make interim payments to people affected by sodium valproate.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is carefully considering the valuable work done by the Patient Safety Commissioner and the resulting Hughes Report, which sets out options for redress for those harmed by sodium valproate and pelvic mesh. This is a complex issue, and the Government's priority is to ensure that any response is fair, balanced and sensitive to those affected. The Department is carefully considering the recommendations within the Hughes Report, including providing interim payments, in collaboration with relevant departments, and we aim to provide an update in due course.
Asked by: Adrian Ramsay (Green Party - Waveney Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of access to medication, paediatric support, and Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services follow-up for children diagnosed with ADHD through the Right to Choose pathway.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
It is the responsibility of integrated care boards (ICBs) in England to make available appropriate provision to meet the health and care needs of their local population, including providing access to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) assessment and support, in line with relevant National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines.
NICE guidelines recommend that all medication for ADHD should only be initiated by a healthcare professional with training and expertise in diagnosing and managing ADHD and after titration and dose stabilisation. Prescribing and monitoring of ADHD medication should be carried out under shared care protocol arrangements with primary care.
NHS England established an 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 services and support. The final report was published on 6 November 2025. The work of the independent ADHD taskforce highlighted the need for coordinated action across health, education and public services to reform ADHD services and support.
On 4 December, my Rt. Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, announced the launch of an Independent Review into Prevalence and Support for Mental Health Conditions, ADHD and Autism. The independent review will build directly on the evidence and recommendations of the ADHD taskforce. The taskforce’s report provides a strong, evidence‑based foundation, and the review will consider its findings in full to ensure conclusions are aligned and complementary. In the meantime, we are working with NHS England to deliver some of the taskforce’s recommendations such as on data improvement, enhancing mental health support teams in schools, improved commissioning and better collaboration between mental health and primary care services.
Asked by: Rachel Gilmour (Liberal Democrat - Tiverton and Minehead)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions his Department has had with the Department for Science and Technology about the potential for a respiratory Modern Service Framework to strengthen the UK’s life sciences ecosystem by scaling up the adoption of new medicines and innovations for lung conditions.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government will consider long-term conditions for future waves of modern service frameworks (MSFs), including respiratory conditions. The criteria for determining other conditions for future MSFs will be based on where there is potential for rapid and significant improvements in quality of care and productivity. After the initial wave of MSFs is complete, the National Quality Board will determine the conditions to prioritise for new MSFs as part of its work programme.
NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care are working with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology to explore innovation and policy prioritisation in respiratory health, including the cross‑Government alignment that may be required.
Asked by: Caroline Dinenage (Conservative - Gosport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the additional cost of requiring the Human Tissue Authority to regulate the care of corpses throughout the death pathway including in funeral homes.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department has not made an assessment of the additional cost of requiring the Human Tissue Authority to regulate the care of the deceased throughout the death pathway, including in funeral homes.
The Government is considering the full range of options to strengthen and improve standards to safeguard the security and dignity of the deceased. In this context, an interim update on progress with our response to the Fuller Inquiry Phase 2 report was published 16 December 2025, and is available at the following link:
We will provide a full response by summer 2026.
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department will take forward the recommendations of the report entitled Mental health clinically-led review of standards - Models of care and measurement: consultation response, published on 22 February 2022, including the development of an access standard for non-urgent community mental health care.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Following the clinically-led review, data is now available showing the number of referrals for urgent mental health crisis care (specifically Crisis Resolution and Home Treatment Teams), by level of urgency, and the number responded to within the appropriate timeframe for that level of urgency. These are for new urgent referrals within 24 hours; and new very urgent emergency referrals within 4 hours. This data is available at the following link on the National Health Service Mental Health Dashboard:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/nhs-mental-health-dashboard/
As there are numerous different services and patient pathways provided within the mental health sector, there is no single waiting list standard and there are multiple ways of measuring how many people are waiting for the start of support, help or treatment.
With regard to accessing non-urgent community mental health services, as part of the mental health clinically-led review of standards in 2022, NHS England has collaboratively developed additional mental health waiting times metrics across NHS-funded urgent and emergency care, and NHS-funded community mental health services. While no specific waiting times standard for community mental health services has been set, the review recommended four weeks.
Some children and young people who have a mental health need as part of a referral pathway may also have other needs. NHS England has tried to separate out referrals in a way that shows more clearly where waits lie without enforcing a hard, exclusionary line that might lead to perverse incentives, longer waits and the risk that children and young people are left with no support. From December 2025, some limited breakdowns of children and young people’s waits have been published, with four broad groups: (a) autism; (b) other neurodevelopmental; (c) gender identity; and (d) all other waits. This last group is expected to be mostly mental health related waits. As a single patient referral spell may be included in multiple groups, NHS England also publishes an indicator of the overlap between this last group, and the other groups.
Asked by: Alison Hume (Labour - Scarborough and Whitby)
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 effectiveness of the rollout of mental health professionals into schools in Scarborough and Whitby constituency.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
No such specific assessment has been made. Mental Health Support Teams work with young people and parents across wide areas of England, including Scarborough and Whitby, to support the mental health needs of children and young people in primary, secondary, and further education, providing early, evidence-based interventions that follow recommendations from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. Up to 900,000 additional children and young people will have access to a National Health Service funded Mental Health Support Team in their school or college by Spring 2026, or 60% of pupils, and we are accelerating the rollout to reach full national coverage by 2029.
In 2025, 4,570 children and young people aged under 18 years old received at least one contact with an education-based mental health support team in the NHS Humber and North Yorkshire Integrated Care Board’s area.
In July 2025, the National Children’s Bureau published an independent Mental Health Support Teams evaluation report, Evaluating the implementation of the Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health Provision Green Paper programme. The impacts and other details are set out in the report, which is available at the following link:
Asked by: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)
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 trends in the waiting times for children and young people to start community eating disorder treatment, based on the data published by NHS England.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government keeps waiting time data for children and young people’s community eating disorder services under close review, drawing on the statistics published regularly by NHS England.
We recognise that demand for eating disorder services has increased in recent years and that performance varies across the country. That is why we are reforming eating disorder services so that children and young people can access timely, effective support when they need it, rather than after their condition has escalated.
This shift towards prevention and stronger community-based support underpins the new National Health Service guidance for children and young people’s eating disorder services, published last month. The guidance makes clear that children and young people should receive timely, joined-up care delivered as close to home as possible.
The Government is also recruiting 8,500 additional mental health workers across the NHS to increase capacity and ensure that help is available when and where it is needed. NHS England continues to work with integrated care boards to improve performance against national access standards and reduce unwarranted variation in waiting times.