Asked by: Gareth Bacon (Conservative - Orpington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is planning to take to ensure that the final Equality Impact Assessment for the prostate cancer screening recommendation does not (a) continue and (b) worsen existing health inequalities for black men.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.
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, whether any additional evidence published since the UK National Screening Committee’s draft recommendation in November will be considered before a final decision is made on prostate cancer screening.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.
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, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of the abolition of NHS England on the commissioning, oversight and consistency of access to weight management services across England.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.
Asked by: Alison Bennett (Liberal Democrat - Mid Sussex)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many patients are being treated in temporary hospital environments, including corridors, for which the latest data is available.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 22 January 2026 to Question 106495, what assessment has been made of the reasons for the 25% reduction in the numbers of those aged 75 and over self referring for bowel cancer screening between 2023 and 2024.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.
Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, what steps they are taking to identify regulatory barriers and evaluate reimbursement policies for brain cancer therapies.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government recognises that there are currently limited treatment options available for people who have been diagnosed with cancerous brain tumours and recognises the significant impact this rare cancer can have on patients, carers, and their families. All new licensed medicines, including medicines for brain cancer, are evaluated by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), which makes recommendations for the National Health Service on whether they represent a clinically and cost effective use of NHS resources. NICE is actively evaluating a number of new medicines for potential use in the treatment of brain cancers.
NICE works closely with companies and the medicines regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), and aims to issue guidance on new medicines as close as possible to the time of licensing. The NHS in England is legally required to fund medicines recommended by NICE and funding from the Cancer Drugs Fund is available for cancer medicines from the point of a draft positive NICE recommendation, bringing forward patient access by up to five months.
The MHRA has several pathways which facilitate rapid assessment of medicines. This includes international collaborations such as Project Orbis and the Access Consortium. The MHRA has also introduced the International Recognition Pathway, which allows the MHRA to take into account the expertise and decision-making of trusted regulatory partners, and the Innovative Licensing and Access Pathway scheme, focussed on getting new and transformative medicines to patients in the UK health system more quickly. Recently, the MHRA also issued new regulations to make it faster and easier for cutting-edge cancer treatments and personalised gene therapies to be made right where patients are treated.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
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 technology companies used by his Department on the automated processing of emails that contain personal health information.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department does not process personal health information. This type of information is handled by NHS England and other authorised health bodies.
We work closely with NHS England to ensure that any technology used across the health system meets the legal and ethical standards required for safeguarding personal health data. This includes data protection, information governance, and the safeguards required for handling health data. These checks ensure that any system we bring into use aligns with the rules that protect people’s privacy.
When personal data is processed as part of specific programmes, it is handled by approved delivery partners under strict governance arrangements. These partners act only on behalf of the Department and in line with data protection law and contractual controls.
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 plans they have to develop a long-term strategy alongside medical professionals to ensure sustainable funding for obesity services, including prevention, behavioural and psychological programmes, and alongside clinical treatments.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Health Service and local government provide a range of obesity services, from universal prevention initiatives to targeted interventions, including behaviour change programmes, digital tools and apps, and specialist services for people living with severe obesity and related conditions. These services support individuals at every stage to achieve and maintain a healthier weight.
Commissioning and funding decisions for obesity services are made locally by local authorities and NHS organisations in line with assessed population needs and available budgets. The Department works with these partners and NHS England to provide national policy direction, to support effective and sustainable service models and to introduce digital behavioural programmes.
NHS England is supporting integrated care boards (ICBs) to deliver a phased roll‑out of tirzepatide for the treatment of obesity. They have provided funding and guidance to ICBs and established a national wraparound support service for patients receiving these treatments, covering diet, physical activity, and behaviour change.
As set out in our 10-Year Health Plan for England, we are taking decisive action on the obesity crisis, including restricting junk food advertising to children, and setting healthy sales reporting and targets for large food businesses.
Whilst we recognise that prevention will always be better than a cure, we also need to support those already living with obesity. We have committed to doubling the number of people able to access the NHS Digital Weight Management Programme and to expand access to the newest obesity medicines.
Asked by: Lord Bird (Crossbench - 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 public health funding in reducing rates of preventable illnesses in disadvantaged communities.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Public Health Grant supports local authorities to deliver vital public health services that focus on reducing preventable illnesses through services such as smoking cessation, drug and alcohol addiction treatment and recovery, health visiting, and sexual health clinics. Public Health Grant allocations are weighted heavily towards deprivation, with per capita funding for the most deprived local authority more than two times greater than that for the least deprived.
More than £13.4 billion will be consolidated into the Public Health Grant to local authorities, and a retained business rates arrangement with Greater Manchester local authorities, over the next three years beginning in 2026/27. This is a 5.6% total cash increase over the period, on top of 5.5% cash growth in 2025/26.
The National Health Service also funds important public health services, including national screening and immunisation programmes. In doing so, NHS England has regard to the need to reduce inequalities both in access to services and in health outcomes.
Asked by: Louie French (Conservative - Old Bexley and Sidcup)
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 Local Authorities commissioning gambling harms prevention; and of their capacity to do so.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
In April 2025, the statutory gambling levy came into effect to fund the research, prevention, and treatment of gambling-related harm across Great Britain. In its first year, the levy has raised nearly £120 million, with 30% allocated to gambling harms prevention activity.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which is responsible for the implementation and oversight of the gambling levy, remains confident that levy commissioners are best placed to make decisions on the future of their work programmes regarding the research, prevention, and treatment of gambling-related harms.
As prevention commissioners, the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) in England and the Scottish and Welsh administrations continue to work collaboratively on the development of their respective work programmes, drawing on expertise from across the system. OHID will employ a ‘test and learn’ approach as they transition to the new levy system, to better-understand what interventions are most effective in preventing gambling harms at a local, regional, and national level.
Local authorities are well placed to play a central role in preventing gambling‑related harms across local communities. An OHID-led stocktake of local authority activity in this space indicated that whilst some activity is already underway, there is appetite within local authorities to do more.
OHID are developing a fund for all upper-tier local authorities across England, which will aim to strengthen local capacity to tackle gambling‑related harm by facilitating improved understanding of local need and supporting the development of effective local and regional networks. This will be delivered alongside the Gambling Harms Prevention: Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise grant fund which launched in January to fund voluntary, community, and social enterprise organisations to deliver prevention activity across England until March 2028. Further information on the Gambling Harms Prevention: Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise grant fund is avaiable at the following link: