Asked by: Baroness Golding (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether schools in England include the results of external candidates in their GCSE and A-Level statistics.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Minister for Women and Equalities)
The department’s GCSE and A level statistics include the results of external candidates at the end of key stage 4 (GCSEs) or 16-18 study (A levels), which are recorded against the school that a pupil has been allocated to. For state schools, pupils are allocated to a school based on the school census, while for independent schools or colleges, pupils are allocated based on exam data or the Individualised Learner Record. All exam results achieved by a pupil are recorded against the allocated school or college, regardless of where they were entered for the exam, including private exam entries.
Prior to publication, schools and colleges are given the opportunity to request the removal of incorrectly included external candidates from their GCSE and A level performance measures data, via the Check Your Performance Measures Data service.
Asked by: Baroness Golding (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to ensure the availability of free and accessible educational materials suitable for KS3 and KS4, particularly for elective home education.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Minister for Women and Equalities)
Parents who choose to educate at home assume full responsibility for the education of their child, including financial responsibility, as a state school place (or state-funded place) is available.
Home educators are not required to follow the national curriculum but if they choose to, local authorities can be a source of information and advice for parents.
As part of the children not in school measures within the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, the department is introducing the first ever duty on local authorities to provide support for home educating families, in the form of advice and information. This will include signposting to high-quality, reputable educational materials, such as those offered by the Oak National Academy.
Government does not provide funding to local authorities for the specific purpose of assisting home educating families accessing examinations. Local authorities do have discretion to provide such financial assistance from within their existing budgets, and we are aware that some do so.
To sit an exam as a private candidate, students need to find an exam centre to enter them for all aspects of their chosen subject or subjects, including any assessments.
The department is committed to supporting home educated students to access exams and as such have worked with the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) to better support home educating families. This includes a search function on JCQ’s website, which enables students to locate the nearest centre available to sit their GCSE, AS or A level exams.
Asked by: Baroness Golding (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether funds are allocated to local education authorities to ensure that elective home education students can access free testing for level 1, 2, 3, and 4 qualifications.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Minister for Women and Equalities)
Parents who choose to educate at home assume full responsibility for the education of their child, including financial responsibility, as a state school place (or state-funded place) is available.
Home educators are not required to follow the national curriculum but if they choose to, local authorities can be a source of information and advice for parents.
As part of the children not in school measures within the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, the department is introducing the first ever duty on local authorities to provide support for home educating families, in the form of advice and information. This will include signposting to high-quality, reputable educational materials, such as those offered by the Oak National Academy.
Government does not provide funding to local authorities for the specific purpose of assisting home educating families accessing examinations. Local authorities do have discretion to provide such financial assistance from within their existing budgets, and we are aware that some do so.
To sit an exam as a private candidate, students need to find an exam centre to enter them for all aspects of their chosen subject or subjects, including any assessments.
The department is committed to supporting home educated students to access exams and as such have worked with the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) to better support home educating families. This includes a search function on JCQ’s website, which enables students to locate the nearest centre available to sit their GCSE, AS or A level exams.
Asked by: Baroness Golding (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government how elective home education students can access exam centres as external candidates.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Minister for Women and Equalities)
Parents who choose to educate at home assume full responsibility for the education of their child, including financial responsibility, as a state school place (or state-funded place) is available.
Home educators are not required to follow the national curriculum but if they choose to, local authorities can be a source of information and advice for parents.
As part of the children not in school measures within the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, the department is introducing the first ever duty on local authorities to provide support for home educating families, in the form of advice and information. This will include signposting to high-quality, reputable educational materials, such as those offered by the Oak National Academy.
Government does not provide funding to local authorities for the specific purpose of assisting home educating families accessing examinations. Local authorities do have discretion to provide such financial assistance from within their existing budgets, and we are aware that some do so.
To sit an exam as a private candidate, students need to find an exam centre to enter them for all aspects of their chosen subject or subjects, including any assessments.
The department is committed to supporting home educated students to access exams and as such have worked with the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) to better support home educating families. This includes a search function on JCQ’s website, which enables students to locate the nearest centre available to sit their GCSE, AS or A level exams.
Asked by: Baroness Golding (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to support the use of imaging equipment in the NHS that enable circular methods of reuse, remanufacture, and recycling; and when will this come within scope of the design for life programme.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Design for Life Roadmap, the Government’s plan to build a circular economy for medical technology, includes all medical technology products within its scope. Therefore, enabling circular imaging equipment sits within its aims.
The programme is already making progress in this area. For example, the Department recently commissioned the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare to conduct a series of pilots across National Health Service trusts to investigate the real-world processes, barriers, and enablers involved in transitioning from single use to reusable products. These pilots spanned several high-priority products, including bronchoscopes. The report of the findings from these pilots will be publicly available later in the year, and the programme will work closely with NHS trusts and the NHS Supply Chain to explore the rapid implementation of the recommendations.
Asked by: Baroness Golding (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of online systems for booking same-day GP appointments on elderly and disabled people who cannot use a computer or the internet independently.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England has published a framework for National Health Service action on digital inclusion and is developing further resources to support practical actions. All programmes are actively considering how they can contribute to improvements in healthcare inequalities and digital inclusion. Digital health tools are part of a wider offering that includes face-to-face support and telephone services, with appropriate help for people who struggle to access digital services.
Asked by: Baroness Golding (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to replace or update (1) medical diagnostic equipment that will become obsolete during the 2026–27 financial year, and (2) medical diagnostic equipment that is falling behind current technology.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Darzi Report highlights the significant underinvestment of capital in the National Health Service, with outdated scanners, too little automation, and a failure to enter the digital era. Patients have been let down for too long whilst they wait for the care they need, including diagnostic testing, which is key to the majority of elective and cancer pathways.
£1.65 billion of additional capital funding has been allocated in the budget for 2025/26 to support NHS performance across secondary and emergency care. This investment includes funding for new surgical hubs and diagnostic scanners, to build capacity for over 30,000 additional procedures and over 1.25 million diagnostic tests as they come online, new beds across the estate to create more treatment space in emergency departments, reduce waiting times, and help shift more care into the community, and £70 million to invest in new radiotherapy machines to improve cancer treatment.
As detailed in the 2025/26 capital guidance, published on 30 January 2025, NHS England has provided systems with their operational capital envelopes, which include funding for the replacement of diagnostic scanners, such as computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging machines, and radiotherapy equipment, outside of national programme funding. These allocations are managed locally, with systems prioritising investments in line with their clinical and operational needs. Some targeted national programme funding is also available for strategic priorities, such as the expansion of Community Diagnostic Centres and the improvement of cancer treatment capacity.
Future capital investment beyond 2025/26, including funding for the replacement of medical diagnostic equipment from 2026/27 onwards, will be considered as part of the next Spending Review.
The Elective Reform Plan, published in January 2025, sets out the reforms needed to return to the 18-week Referral to Treatment (RTT) constitutional standard by March 2029, a standard which has not been met consistently since September 2015. The plan commits to transforming and expanding diagnostic services, and speeding up waiting times for tests, a crucial part of reducing overall waiting times and returning to the RTT standard.
Asked by: Baroness Golding (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to reduce the number of pharmacies closing permanently.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
No assessment has been made of any shortfall in community pharmacy funding. The Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework commits £2.592 billion a year to fund the provision of National Health Service pharmaceutical services in England. In September 2022 we made an additional £100 million one-off investment to fund the increase in clinical services delivery by the sector. In May 2023, as part of the Delivery Plan for Recovering Access to Primary Care we committed to a further investment of up to £645 million to support a Pharmacy First service which will include expanded treatment options for seven common conditions, including earache, sore throat and urinary tract infection, and more blood pressure checks and oral contraception consultations in community pharmacy.
Pharmacy openings and closures in England are published by NHS Business Services Authority. Between 31 December 2022 and 30 June 2023, the number of pharmacies reduced by 222. This reduction is mainly driven by the large multiples reducing their portfolios. To address the disproportionately high rate of closures of 100-hour pharmacies, legislation was amended in April to allow those pharmacies to reduce their hours to a minimum of 72. The Department is monitoring the market, and access to pharmaceutical services remains good, with 80% of people in England living within 20 minutes walking distance of a community pharmacy and twice as many pharmacies in the more deprived areas.
Asked by: Baroness Golding (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of any shortfall in funding affecting pharmacies in England for each year between 2015 and 2023.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
No assessment has been made of any shortfall in community pharmacy funding. The Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework commits £2.592 billion a year to fund the provision of National Health Service pharmaceutical services in England. In September 2022 we made an additional £100 million one-off investment to fund the increase in clinical services delivery by the sector. In May 2023, as part of the Delivery Plan for Recovering Access to Primary Care we committed to a further investment of up to £645 million to support a Pharmacy First service which will include expanded treatment options for seven common conditions, including earache, sore throat and urinary tract infection, and more blood pressure checks and oral contraception consultations in community pharmacy.
Pharmacy openings and closures in England are published by NHS Business Services Authority. Between 31 December 2022 and 30 June 2023, the number of pharmacies reduced by 222. This reduction is mainly driven by the large multiples reducing their portfolios. To address the disproportionately high rate of closures of 100-hour pharmacies, legislation was amended in April to allow those pharmacies to reduce their hours to a minimum of 72. The Department is monitoring the market, and access to pharmaceutical services remains good, with 80% of people in England living within 20 minutes walking distance of a community pharmacy and twice as many pharmacies in the more deprived areas.
Asked by: Baroness Golding (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the trends behind the number of pharmacy closures this year.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
No assessment has been made of any shortfall in community pharmacy funding. The Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework commits £2.592 billion a year to fund the provision of National Health Service pharmaceutical services in England. In September 2022 we made an additional £100 million one-off investment to fund the increase in clinical services delivery by the sector. In May 2023, as part of the Delivery Plan for Recovering Access to Primary Care we committed to a further investment of up to £645 million to support a Pharmacy First service which will include expanded treatment options for seven common conditions, including earache, sore throat and urinary tract infection, and more blood pressure checks and oral contraception consultations in community pharmacy.
Pharmacy openings and closures in England are published by NHS Business Services Authority. Between 31 December 2022 and 30 June 2023, the number of pharmacies reduced by 222. This reduction is mainly driven by the large multiples reducing their portfolios. To address the disproportionately high rate of closures of 100-hour pharmacies, legislation was amended in April to allow those pharmacies to reduce their hours to a minimum of 72. The Department is monitoring the market, and access to pharmaceutical services remains good, with 80% of people in England living within 20 minutes walking distance of a community pharmacy and twice as many pharmacies in the more deprived areas.