Asked by: Freddie van Mierlo (Liberal Democrat - Henley and Thame)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will bring forward legislative proposals to introduce protections for (a) whistleblowing patients and (b) patient safety advocates.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
There are no plans to bring forward legislation to strengthen protections for patients who raise concerns and patient safety advocates.
National Health Service patients should not experience negative consequences if they raise concerns. The NHS Constitution pledges that patient complaints will not adversely impact future treatment. Patients can raise concerns or provide feedback through channels such as the NHS complaints process, Patient Advice and Liaison Service, and the Friends and Family Test, and can also share experiences of care with the Care Quality Commission. Independent advice and support are available for them from the Independent Complaints Advocacy Service.
Through implementation of the Government’s 10-Year Health Plan, we will reform the NHS complaints process and strengthen the patient voice by setting clear standards for the quality of responses to complaints and ensure the NHS listens carefully and compassionately, taking forward learnings to ensure high quality care.
Patient safety advocates in the NHS may include Patient Safety Specialists and Freedom to Speak Up Guardians who as workers in the NHS are protected by the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 (PIDA). They may also include Patient Safety Partners (PSPs) who are usually lay people and include patients, carers, or members of the public who work with NHS organisations to improve patient safety by contributing directly to governance, decision making, and safety improvement activity. As lay people, PSPs are not covered by PIDA.
Asked by: Caroline Johnson (Conservative - Sleaford and North Hykeham)
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 the severity modifier on recent NICE recommendations on blood cancer treatments.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Since the introduction of the severity modifier, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has approved 27 out of 28 blood cancer medicines it evaluated, reflecting an approval rate of 96%. Of these topics, a severity weighting was applied in nine topics.
Asked by: Liz Jarvis (Liberal Democrat - Eastleigh)
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 variation between Integrated Care Boards in the availability of Xonvea; and whether he plans to issue further advice or guidance to Integrated Care Boards to help improve access.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department recognises the importance of access to medication to treat nausea and vomiting in pregnancy, and hyperemesis gravidarum. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guideline on antenatal care includes guidance on the advantages and disadvantages of the range of pharmacological treatments for nausea and vomiting in pregnancy to support shared decision making.
Whilst no specific assessment has been made, the Department recognises that there is currently regional variation in the availability of certain medicines like Xonvea between integrated care boards (ICBs). ICBs are responsible for developing local formularies setting out the use of medicines for their local populations, informed by national guidance on clinical effectiveness. This can lead to variation with different local areas taking different decisions to reflect the needs of their local population.
This is why we are progressing the Single National Formulary (SNF), as announced in our 10-Year Health Plan which set out a commitment to move towards a SNF for medicines within the next two years. Over time, an SNF is expected to replace local formulary processes and will be designed to help address inequity and variation in the use of approved medicines; helping to ensure every patient has equitable access to medicines, and that the same medicines are available to patients in an equitable way, in all parts of the country. Work is already underway to deliver the SNF through a phased approach. NHS England will work collaboratively with key stakeholders including NICE and industry throughout the implementation.
Asked by: Luke Taylor (Liberal Democrat - Sutton and Cheam)
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 reduce the time taken for kidney transplants for people with Polycystic Kidney Disease.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) is the organisation responsible for organ donation services in the United Kingdom, including management of the NHS Organ Donor Register (ODR) and the transplant waiting list.
NHSBT is working to reduce the kidney transplant waiting list, including for patients with polycystic kidney disease, by promoting living donation and ODR registration, as well as taking action to increase donation consent rates. Current activity includes: high profile year-round campaigns including Living Donation Week, Organ Donation Week, and World Kidney Day, in partnership with a wide range of charities and community groups; year-round national and regional media and public relations, focusing particularly on the need for more Black and Asian organ donors to reduce current inequities in access to transplants; and funding Community Grants Programmes and partnering with trusted community organisations to support leaders with expertise in organ donation in delivering culturally and religiously sensitive messaging.
The Organ Donation Joint Working Group, formed jointly between NHSBT and the Department, recently published recommendations to improve organ donation consent rates, increase societal action for organ donation, and increase the pool of potential donors in its report published on 21 January 2026. The report is available at the following link:
https://nhsbtdbe.blob.core.windows.net/umbraco-assets-corp/38066/odjwg-report.pdf
Asked by: Liz Jarvis (Liberal Democrat - Eastleigh)
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 consistent implementation of National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidance by Integrated Care Boards across England.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
National Health Service commissioners have a statutory responsibility to make funding available for a medicine or treatment recommended in a National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) technology appraisal (TA) or highly specialised technology evaluation within the timeframe recommended in that guidance, usually within three months of the publication of NICE’s final guidance. The Innovation Scorecard reports on the use of medicines and medical technologies which have received a positive recommendation within the last five years by NICE; it can be used by local NHS organisations to monitor progress in implementing NICE TA recommendations. The Estimates Report provides a comparison of expected uptake to the actual volume of medicines used in the NHS in England.
Additionally, as part of commitments made in the 2024 voluntary scheme for branded medicines pricing, access and growth, NHS England agreed to the development of a local formulary national minimum dataset to increase visibility of local variation in the implementation of NICE guidance, identify where variation in local formularies may be creating barriers to access and to provide assurance to NHS England when a NICE recommended treatment has been listed on a local formulary.
Furthermore, the 10-Year Health Plan for England set out a commitment to move towards a Single National Formulary (SNF) for medicines within the next two years. Over time, an SNF is expected to replace local formulary processes and will be designed to help address inequity and variation in the use of approved medicines; helping to ensure every patient has equitable access to medicines, and that the same medicines are available to patients in an equitable way, in all parts of the country. Work is already underway to deliver the SNF through a phased approach. NHS England will work collaboratively with key stakeholders including NICE and industry throughout the implementation.
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, what steps is he taking to help improve GP training pathways to support GP trainees to become qualified GPs.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Recent efforts have improved general practice (GP) specialty training, to enable GP registrars to become well equipped and highly skilled and qualified GPs.
Following the publication of the Training the Future GP report, teams from NHS England have taken substantial steps to put the recommendations into practice. The report is avaiable at the following link:
https://www.hee.nhs.uk/sites/default/files/TrainingTheFutureGP_2.pdf
Reforms include enabling more innovative and flexible models of training, such as offering a wide variety of integrated training placements, including those in the community, mental health, prisons, academia, and structured learning placements. The balance of time spent in practice has been increased to 24 months of the three-year training programme, which has enabled trainees to form stronger relationships within placements.
GP specialty training has expanded from 2,671 places accepted in 2014 to 4,250 places accepted in 2025/26. As part of the 10-Year Health Plan, the expansion of GP specialty training will continue to be implemented through an increase of available training places each year, to increase GP capacity so that patients can have an improved experience of accessing care.
Asked by: Patrick Spencer (Independent - Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how long the average wait time is in England for a patient to have a GP appointment GP a) by telephone and b) face to face.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England publishes monthly data on general practice appointments. In November 2025, 33.5% of appointments delivered on the same day were conducted face to face, while 52.5% took place by telephone. In terms of the proportion of appointments delivered within two weeks, 58.5% were face to face and 26% were conducted by telephone.
Asked by: Samantha Niblett (Labour - South Derbyshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what consideration his department has made of the potential merits of providing parity in pay and conditions between primary care nursing staff and their Agenda for Change colleagues in the NHS.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to ensuring the general practice nursing workforce is sustainable, supported and valued for the work they do.
The Government looks to the independent pay review bodies for a pay recommendation for National Health Service staff, including both contractor and salaried general practitioners (GPs). They consider a range of evidence from organisations including the Government, the NHS and trade unions to reach their recommendations.
The independent review body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration (DDRB) recommended an uplift of 4% to the pay ranges for salaried GPs, and to GP contractor pay. As with the previous year, we accepted the DDRB’s pay recommendation. We provided an increase to core funding for practices to allow this 4% pay uplift, on top of the provisional 2.8% uplift already provided, to be passed on to salaried and contractor GPs. The additional funding also allows for pay uplifts for other salaried general practice staff, including nurses. We expect GP contractors to implement pay rises to other practice staff in line with the uplift in funding they have received.
As self-employed contractors to the NHS, it is up to general practices how they distribute pay and benefits to general practice nurses and other staff. General practice contractual arrangements do not place any specific obligations on practices regarding general practice nurse terms and conditions.
We are investing an additional £1.1 billion in general practice to reinforce the front door of the NHS, bringing total spend on the GP Contract to £13.4 billion in 2025/26, representing the biggest cash increase in over a decade. The 8.9% boost to the GP contract in 2025/26 is greater than the 5.8% growth to the NHS budget overall.
Asked by: Perran Moon (Labour - Camborne and Redruth)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made a comparative assessment of the clinical and administrative workload required to deliver QOF indicators in (a) practices serving highly deprived populations and (b) other practices.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department consults with the profession to ensure that the Quality and Outcomes Framework’s (QOF) proposals are reasonable and deliverable for practices in England, using the relevant available performance data to inform the setting of achievement thresholds.
There are high achievement rates in the majority of practices, for instance in the 2024/25 contract year, 83.2% of practices achieved over 90% of the available QOF points.
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, how many GP practice (a) closures and (b) mergers there have been in (i) Brighton Pavilion constituency and (ii) the Brighton and Hove local authority area since 2016.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department does not hold data on the number of general practice closures and mergers that there have been in the Brighton Pavilion constituency and the Brighton and Hove local authority area since 2016. This data is held by the NHS Sussex Integrated Care Board.