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 steps his department is taking to help ensure trusts have sufficient access to operational capital funding to repair buildings, replace old equipment, and provide a suitable environment for patients.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to delivering a National Health Service that is fit for the future through our 10-Year Health Plan, and we recognise the importance of supporting NHS trusts to manage and maintain their estates using operational capital allocations.
The Government’s recently published 10 Year Infrastructure Strategy set out 10-year maintenance budgets for the public estate, confirming £6 billion per year for the maintenance and repair of the NHS estate up to 2034/35.
Within this overall figure, the Government is providing over £4 billion in operational capital in 2025/26 and has now allocated a further £15.6 billion directly to providers over the following four years, from 2026/27 to 2029/30. Providers have also been given further five-year operational capital planning assumptions, covering 2030/31 to 2034/35, allowing them to plan longer term with confidence and accelerate investment decisions aligned to local priorities, including repairs, maintenance, and ensuring suitable patient environments.
In addition to operational capital, the Estates Safety Fund, established in 2025/26, will continue, with £6.75 billion investment over the next nine years to target the most critical building repairs and ensure safe environments for healthcare delivery.
Asked by: Siân Berry (Green Party - Brighton Pavilion)
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 merits of making the NHS the preferred provider for commissioned healthcare services.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government’s ambition, as set out in the 10-Year Health Plan, is to increasingly put power into patients’ hands themselves so they can personalise their National Health Service care to their individual needs, choices, and preferences.
More broadly, the Health Care Services (Provider Selection Regime) Regulations 2023 provide a proportionate framework under which NHS commissioners consider the most appropriate approach in awarding contracts to healthcare providers. The Health Care Services (Provider Selection Regime) Regulations 2023 are available at the following link:
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2023/1348/contents/made
Further information on the selection processes is available at the following link:
Asked by: Steve Barclay (Conservative - North East Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an estimate of the cost to the public purse of increasing the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence cost-effectiveness threshold by 25%.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The pharmaceutical sector and the innovative medicines it produces are critical to our national interest, helping people access life changing treatments, reducing pressure on the health service over the longer-term, and ensuring we have a National Health Service that is fit for the future.
That is why through our Life Sciences Sector Plan, we have committed to working with industry to accelerate growth in spending on innovative medicines, compared to the previous decade. Our 10-Year Health Plan sets out how we will reform the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
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 cost to the taxpayer of raising NICE’s value for money threshold by 25 percent.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The pharmaceutical sector and the innovative medicines it produces are critical to our national interest, helping people access life changing treatments, reducing pressure on the health service over the longer-term, and ensuring we have a National Health Service that is fit for the future.
That is why through our Life Sciences Sector Plan, we have committed to working with industry to accelerate growth in spending on innovative medicines, compared to the previous decade. Our 10-Year Health Plan sets out how we will reform the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the Government has (a) commissioned and (b) plans to commission studies using (i) genomic datasets, (ii) UK Biobank and (iii) Genomics England to estimate levels of (A) inbreeding and (B) runs of homozygosity and F coefficients across UK populations.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department has not, and has no plans to, commission such research via Genomics England, UK Biobank, Our Future Health, or the National Institute for Health and Care Research.
Asked by: Johanna Baxter (Labour - Paisley and Renfrewshire South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, which health bodies from England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland were involved in Exercise Pegasus.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Exercise PEGASUS, the largest simulation of a pandemic in the United Kingdom’s history, involved all four nations and thousands of participants across different parts of the exercise. Participants that are health bodies included, but were not limited to:
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 recent assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of ensuring that rare autoimmune rheumatic disease patients have named care coordinators.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We are aware there remains unmet need on coordination of care for people with rare diseases and work is underway to improve this.
Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for working with their local communities to understand the needs of the local populations and make decisions about how best to commission services, including for those with rare autoimmune rheumatic disease.
We are improving coordination of care for all rare diseases as a priority under the UK Rare Diseases Framework. England’s Rare Diseases Action Plans details a range of measures to improve coordination of care, including work against Action 37 on co-ordination of care for multi-system disorders. NHS England is also committed to include the definition of coordination of care in all new and revised services specifications for patients with rare diseases. The National Institute of Health and Care Research has commissioned research to provide the evidence needed to operationalise better co-ordination of care for rare diseases in the National Health Service.
Asked by: Calvin Bailey (Labour - Leyton and Wanstead)
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 potential implications for his policies of the evidence presented in Prostate Cancer Research’s report entitled Prostate Cancer Screening: The Impact on the NHS, on targeted prostate cancer screening for high-risk men; and if he will ensure that this is considered as part of the UK National Screening Committee’s review of prostate cancer screening options.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC) Secretariat has noted Prostate Cancer Research’s report entitled Prostate Cancer Screening: The Impact on the NHS and has discussed it with the chair of the UK NSC.
The UK NSC is currently undertaking a new evidence review of prostate cancer screening at both a population level and for targeted high-risk groups such as black men and men with a family history of prostate cancer. We anticipate a public consultation on the findings of this review soon and a recommendation by the UK NSC in the first quarter of next year.
Asked by: Oliver Dowden (Conservative - Hertsmere)
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 promote NHS innovation in nano surgery.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
As set out in the 10-Year Health Plan and Life Sciences Sector Plan, the Department encourages innovation in the health sector that helps to support the three big shifts in healthcare: moving care from hospitals to communities; transitioning from analogue to digital; and focusing on prevention over treatment.
The Department is actively supporting the development and evaluation of game-changing innovations as well as the adoption of technologies to give our world leading clinicians the technology and skills to improve outcomes for patients.
Improving innovation, adoption, and procurement of game-changing technology, including nano surgery, will help the National Health Service secure the best possible outcomes for patients whilst also delivering greater value-for-money and unlocking further economic growth. In addition, the National Cancer Plan will include further details on how we will improve outcomes for cancer patients, as well as speeding up diagnosis and treatment, ensuring patients have access to the latest treatments and technology, and ultimately drive up this country’s cancer survival rates.
The Department funds research through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). As well as funding research directly through NIHR programmes, the Department also funds NIHR infrastructure which are centres of excellence and collaborations, services, and facilities to support health and care research.
The NIHR research infrastructure drives innovation through research across a range of health and care areas, including nano surgery. For example, the Surgical and Perioperative Care Translational Research Collaboration brings together NIHR infrastructure to develop new surgical interventions, improving patient safety and patient care before and after surgery.
The NIHR HealthTech Research Centres (HRCs) work with industry to develop medical devices, diagnostics, and digital technologies. The NIHR Accelerated Surgical Care HRC’s focus is on minimally invasive therapies which enable surgical care to be delivered with greater precision, minimal trauma, and improved outcomes.
Asked by: Andrew Gwynne (Independent - Gorton and Denton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will implement standardised regulations for the (a) collection and (b) storage of rare cancer tissue samples obtained for the purposes of (i) medical treatment and (ii) future research.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Human Tissue Authority (HTA) regulates organisations that remove, store, and use human tissue for scheduled purposes, including research and medical treatment.
Under the Human Tissue Act 2004, appropriate consent is always required to remove tissue from the deceased for research purposes. Tissue from living patients, for example biopsy or blood samples, can ordinarily be used for research only with the person's consent. The HTA ensures that it is removed and stored in an appropriate and well managed way.
Consent is not required for research on tissue from living patients if the samples are anonymised or coded to make sure patient or participant information is not identifiable, and the project has recognised ethics committee approval, or if the tissue samples were obtained before 1 September 2006, when the Human Tissue Act came into force.