Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what action they intend to take to ensure that payments to pharmacists for issuing prescribed medicines and medical devices are increased in line with the rising wholesale cost of medicines caused by the war in the Middle East.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

In 2025/26, funding for the core community pharmacy contractual framework was increased to £3.1 billion. This represented the largest uplift in funding of any part of the National Health Service at the time, at over 19% across 2024/25 and 2025/26.

The Department is currently consulting with Community Pharmacy England on any proposed changes to reimbursement and remuneration of pharmacy contractors for 2026/27.

When the market price of a medicine suddenly increases, pharmacy contractors can request an increase to the reimbursement price, known as a concessionary price, from the Department via Community Pharmacy England. ‘Real-time’ data from suppliers, both wholesalers and manufacturers, obtained under Regulation 27 of The Health Service Products (Provision and Disclosure of Information) Regulations 2018 is used to set the concessionary price. This ensures that prices set are reflective of current market prices and availability, with the aim of mitigating pharmacy contractors dispensing at a loss when market prices suddenly rise.

Pharmacy contractors are reimbursed for medical devices in line with the listed prices on Part IX of the NHS Drug Tariff. Suppliers should adhere to these prices as per the terms of their listing.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the findings by The Health Foundation in its analysis, Electronic patient record systems in England: what do NHS staff think?, published on 24 March, that less than 50 per cent of NHS staff who participated in the survey had received training on how to use the electronic patient record system for their role, and less than 28 per cent had received training on how to fix or troubleshoot problems.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

To help ensure every National Health Service hospital in England can benefit from digital transformation, the Government has invested £1.9 billion in either new or existing electronic patient record (EPR) systems. This has resulted in almost all trusts now having an EPR in place, or in delivery. Evidence from secondary care shows that EPRs are contributing to a 4.5% reduction in length of stay and a 13% lower cost in admitted patient spells.

Whilst this represents significant progress, we are continuing to fully realise the benefits of EPRs by building skills and changing management capacity. This includes sharing best practice, improving usability, training users more effectively, and ensuring systems are tailored to local context rather than adopting a one size fits all approach.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the analysis from The Health Foundation, Electronic patient record systems in England: what do NHS staff think?, published on 24 March, particularly the finding that 37 per cent of staff felt that electronic patient records were not currently working well in their organisation.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

To help ensure every National Health Service hospital in England can benefit from digital transformation, the Government has invested £1.9 billion in either new or existing electronic patient record (EPR) systems. This has resulted in almost all trusts now having an EPR in place, or in delivery. Evidence from secondary care shows that EPRs are contributing to a 4.5% reduction in length of stay and a 13% lower cost in admitted patient spells.

Whilst this represents significant progress, we are continuing to fully realise the benefits of EPRs by building skills and changing management capacity. This includes sharing best practice, improving usability, training users more effectively, and ensuring systems are tailored to local context rather than adopting a one size fits all approach.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the finding from the report by the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations, Patients W.A.I.T. Indicator 2024 Survey, published in May 2025, that only 50 per cent of European Medicines Agency approved non-oncology orphan medicines were reimbursed and made available to patients in England.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government recognises how important it is that patients with rare diseases can benefit from access to effective new medicines.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is able to recommend the vast majority of medicines it evaluates for use in the National Health Service, including medicines for the treatment of rare diseases. The recently announced increase to the cost-effectiveness threshold will, alongside measures announced in the Life Sciences Sector Plan, increase both the speed and breadth of patient access to innovative medicines.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the problems affecting transplants identified in the episode by BBC File on 4 Investigates, The battle for hearts and lungs: Transplants in trouble, released on 24 March.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government recognises the challenges faced by heart and lung transplant services, as highlighted in the BBC File on 4 Investigates programme. Clinical teams have continued to improve activity and patient outcomes, reflecting their expertise and commitment. However, challenges remain and further work is needed to address variation in access, workforce pressures, and the complexity of organ acceptance and allocation.

NHS England is working closely with the Department, NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT), and transplant centres to address these issues. The concerns raised in the programme are consistent with challenges previously identified by the Organ Utilisation Group and explored through the Implementation Steering Group for Organ Utilisation’s Cardiothoracic Information Collation Exercise. This has informed NHS England’s clinically led national improvement programme for heart and lung transplant services, which brings together clinicians, patients, and patient organisations to co-design solutions to improve services in these key areas.

In parallel, NHSBT is delivering a Department funded programme of Assessment and Recovery Centres (ARC), including lung ARC pilot schemes launched in February 2026, to improve the preservation and utilisation of donor organs for transplantation.

While it is encouraging that activity has increased and waiting lists have reduced, the Government recognises that continued work is needed to ensure services are consistently accessible and resilient. Work will continue with patients, partners, and local centres to ensure care is personalised, equitable, and sustainable, and to address challenges facing the transplant workforce.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the number of National Institute for Health and Care Excellence technology appraisals that have been terminated in the last five years; and what proportion of those terminations were rare disease medicines.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

Data from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence shows that between 2021/22 and 2025/26, the total number of appraisals that were terminated was 100. Over the past five years, 41% of terminated appraisals related to rare disease medicines.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to secure supplies of medicines, medical devices and medical consumables in the case of war or pandemic; and whether those steps include building and maintaining strategic reserves of those supplies.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

It has not proved possible to respond to this question in the time available before Prorogation. Ministers will correspond directly with the Member.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the risk of UK Biobank participants being identified from information exposed online, whether through (1) the inclusion of their names and addresses or (2) through cross-referencing and the use of AI tools.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

It has not proved possible to respond to this question in the time available before Prorogation. Ministers will correspond directly with the Member.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many times confidential health records from the UK Biobank project have been removed from the internet (1) where UK Biobank requested that the researcher do so, and (2) where UK Biobank did so itself.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

It has not proved possible to respond to this question in the time available before Prorogation. Ministers will correspond directly with the Member.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of how many times confidential health records from the UK Biobank project have been exposed online.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

It has not proved possible to respond to this question in the time available before Prorogation. Ministers will correspond directly with the Member.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether UK Biobank had made them aware of the exposure online of confidential health records from the UK Biobank project, as reported in The Guardian on 14 March, before the General Practice Extraction Service Data for Consented Research Directions 2026 were signed on 10 February.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

It has not proved possible to respond to this question in the time available before Prorogation. Ministers will correspond directly with the Member.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the exposure online of confidential health records from the UK Biobank project, as reported in The Guardian on 14 March.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

It has not proved possible to respond to this question in the time available before Prorogation. Ministers will correspond directly with the Member.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the performance of NHS North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board in (1) contracting dental practices for the provision of NHS dental services, and (2) ensuring that patients have comprehensive access to dental services.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

It has not proved possible to respond to this question in the time available before Prorogation. Ministers will correspond directly with the Member.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what system is in place to ensure that integrated care boards are effective in contracting dental practices for the provision of NHS dental services.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

It has not proved possible to respond to this question in the time available before Prorogation. Ministers will correspond directly with the Member.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to produce a timetable for agreeing compensation for those harmed by pelvic mesh and the medicine valproate, as recommended in the report from the Patient Safety Commissioner, The Hughes Report: Options for redress for those harmed by valproate and pelvic mesh, published on 7 February.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

It has not proved possible to respond to this question in the time available before Prorogation. Ministers will correspond directly with the Member.