Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what proposals they intend to take forward in the 10 Year Health Plan for England in relation to services for autistic people.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The 10-Year Health Plan sets out to make the National Health Service fit for the future, by delivering three big shifts, from hospital to care in community, from analogue to digital, and from sickness to prevention. The plan will help to address health inequalities for disabled and autistic people by improving access to care, delivering care closer to home, and supporting the development of holistic care plans for those whose needs may require support from multiple health and care providers. We want autistic people’s access to, and experience of, healthcare services to be equitable, effective, and responsive to their needs.
The plan sets out the core principle of early intervention and support, including without the need for diagnosis, including specifically for children and young people, such as those with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). It is clear about the importance of health services working in partnership with education settings and providing children and young people with early intervention and support to avoid needs escalating, where possible, building on learning from programmes such as Early Language Support for Every Child. We will set out our proposals for SEND reform in the upcoming Schools White Paper.
NHS England continues to support local systems to use a national framework and operational guidance to deliver improved outcomes in all-age autism assessment pathways. It has published national guidance on meeting the needs of autistic adults in mental health services and, to address physical health inequalities, is currently testing a combined health check in primary care for autistic people, those with a severe mental health condition and/or those people with a learning disability.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to publish national dementia outcomes for neighbourhood health services requiring integrated care boards to demonstrate timely access to specialist, community-based dementia support.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
In developing the Modern Service Framework for Frailty and Dementia, we are engaging with a wide group of partners to understand what should be included to ensure the best outcomes for people living with dementia. As part of this exercise, we are considering all options to help reduce variation, including reviewing metrics and targets.
The Neighbourhood Health Service will be the driving force behind our new Genomics Population Health Service; and data will increasingly allow Neighbourhood Health Services to deliver genuinely predictive and pre-emptive care, transforming our care model entirely.
NHS England already collect and publish data about people with dementia at each general practice in England, to enable National Health Service general practitioners and commissioners to make informed choices about how to plan their dementia services around patients’ needs.
The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities Dementia Intelligence Network has also developed a tool for local systems, which includes an assessment of population characteristics such as rurality and socio-economic deprivation. This enables systems to investigate local variation in diagnosis and take informed action to enhance their diagnosis rates. The tool is available via the NHS Futures Collaboration platform.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, in the light of reports that the provision of weight management support in the NHS is limited, (1) what assessment they have made of the adequacy of existing GP training in obesity management, and (2) what steps they are taking to embed evidence-based obesity education, including behavioural and psychological approaches, into GP specialty training curricula.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government recognises the importance of ensuring that the National Health Service workforce is provided with high-quality training to support them to deliver quality care to patients living with obesity.
The curricula for postgraduate specialty training are developed by royal colleges and faculties and approved by the General Medical Council. Standards of education and proficiency are the responsibility of the statutorily independent professional regulators.
Individual employers are responsible for appropriate ongoing training and continuing professional development to ensure they continue to provide safe and effective care. NHS England and other organisations support employers and the NHS workforce by providing and signposting to evidence‑based training resources on weight management. These include programmes that incorporate behavioural approaches, and in some cases psychological elements, available through platforms such as e‑Learning for Healthcare, the Royal College of General Practitioners Obesity Hub, and the Strategic Centre for Obesity Professional Education programme.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they plan to take to ensure that dementia is explicitly designed into the neighbourhood health model at a national level and to prevent local discretion and variable commissioning decisions in relation to such services.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
This Government is empowering local leaders with the autonomy they need to provide the best services to their local community, including those with dementia. This is why we have published the D100: Assessment Tool Pathway programme, which brings together multiple resources into a single, consolidated tool. This will help simplify best practice for system leaders and help create communities and services where the best possible care and support is available to those with dementia.
We will deliver the first ever Modern Service Framework for Frailty and Dementia to deliver rapid and significant improvements in quality of care and productivity, informed by phase one of the independent commission into adult social care, which is expected this year. The framework will seek to reduce unwarranted variation and narrow inequality for those living with dementia.
Neighbourhood Health provides the unifying framework that brings together what is already underway across primary care, community services, urgent care, prevention, digital, estates and population health into a single, coherent model focused on improved access, experience and outcomes.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that all members of the NHS workforce, including psychologists, dietitians, nurses, and pharmacists, receive mandatory training on weight management support, recognising obesity as a life-long relapsing condition.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government recognises the importance of ensuring that the National Health Service workforce is provided with high-quality training to support them to deliver quality care to patients living with obesity.
The curricula for postgraduate specialty training are developed by royal colleges and faculties and approved by the General Medical Council. Standards of education and proficiency are the responsibility of the statutorily independent professional regulators.
Individual employers are responsible for appropriate ongoing training and continuing professional development to ensure they continue to provide safe and effective care. NHS England and other organisations support employers and the NHS workforce by providing and signposting to evidence‑based training resources on weight management. These include programmes that incorporate behavioural approaches, and in some cases psychological elements, available through platforms such as e‑Learning for Healthcare, the Royal College of General Practitioners Obesity Hub, and the Strategic Centre for Obesity Professional Education programme.
Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West and Islwyn)
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 adequacy of the training provided to GPs on prescribing risk-reducing drugs to women at increased risk of breast cancer.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
General practitioners (GPs) are responsible for ensuring their own clinical knowledge remains up-to-date and for identifying learning needs as part of their continuing professional development. This activity should include taking account of new research and developments in guidance, such as that produced by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, to ensure that they can continue to provide high quality care to all patients.
We are investing an additional £1.1 billion in GPs, bringing total spend on the GP Contract to £13.4 billion in 2025/26, the biggest increase in over a decade. The 8.9% boost to the GP Contract in 2025/26 is bigger than the 5.8% growth to the National Health Service budget as a whole, demonstrating our commitment to shifting resources to the community.
Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West and Islwyn)
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 establishing a national register to capture and integrate the data of all women at increased risk of breast cancer.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Disease Registration Service (NDRS) in NHS England provides England’s national resource for data and analytics on cancer, rare diseases, and congenital conditions.
The NDRS already serves as a national register for women at very high risk of breast cancer. NDRS curates and quality assures the collected data to ensure sufficient accuracy and completeness. The NDRS works closely with the very high risk National Breast Screening Programme to ensure safe and robust identification of women at very high risk of cancer. The integration of this data within the wider NDRS cancer data infrastructure maximises the use of this data which helps with service planning, evaluation, and improvement, and reduces the fragmentation and siloing that would occur with standalone registers.
Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West and Islwyn)
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 the accuracy of data collected on all women at increased risk of breast cancer.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Disease Registration Service (NDRS) in NHS England provides England’s national resource for data and analytics on cancer, rare diseases, and congenital conditions.
The NDRS already serves as a national register for women at very high risk of breast cancer. NDRS curates and quality assures the collected data to ensure sufficient accuracy and completeness. The NDRS works closely with the very high risk National Breast Screening Programme to ensure safe and robust identification of women at very high risk of cancer. The integration of this data within the wider NDRS cancer data infrastructure maximises the use of this data which helps with service planning, evaluation, and improvement, and reduces the fragmentation and siloing that would occur with standalone registers.
Asked by: Shockat Adam (Independent - Leicester South)
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 extending Business Rates reimbursements to Community Pharmacies.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
In the Autumn Budget 2025, the Government made hard choices in order to protect the National Health Service in England and continue to prioritise reducing waiting times. We have also stepped in to cap bills and help businesses, as part of a £4.3 billion support package.
This year, we have also increased funding to community pharmacies to almost £3.1 billion, the largest uplift in funding for any part of the NHS across 2024/25 and 2025/26.
The Department will consult Community Pharmacy England on any proposed changes to reimbursement and remuneration of pharmacy contractors for 2026/27 shortly.
Asked by: Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative - Thirsk and Malton)
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 of NICE's draft guidance on brexucabtagene autoleucel on (a) the Life Sciences Strategy and (b) outcomes for patients with rare cancers.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government remains committed to the ambitions set out in the Life Sciences Sector Plan, which set out an ambition that by 2030, we will be one of the top three fastest places in Europe for patient access to medicines. We will achieve this by reducing friction in the system to optimise access and uptake of new medicines so the most clinically and cost-effective can reach patients faster.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is currently re-evaluating brexucabtagene autoleucel to determine whether it should be recommended for routine National Health Service use following a period of managed access through the Cancer Drugs Fund. NICE’s draft guidance, published in December 2025, does not recommend it as a clinically and cost-effective use of NHS resource, although NICE has not yet published final guidance. The Government recognises that the potential withdrawal of brexucabtagene autoleucel as a treatment for future patients will be concerning for patients and their families, but it is right that these decisions are taken independently and on the basis of the available evidence. In line with an arrangement between NHS England and the company, if NICE’s final guidance does not recommend use, patients who started treatment during the managed access period can continue their treatment.