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Written Question
General Practitioners: Tomography
Tuesday 4th February 2025

Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they maintain a complete, current, and accurate list of all establishments to which a GP can refer a patient for a scan, including the new community diagnostic hubs, and if so, what is the URL of the website hosting this list.

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

The Department does not hold a central list of all establishments to which a general practitioner can refer a patient for a scan.

The Organisation Data Service, operated by NHS Digital, holds and publishes unique identification codes and accompanying reference data for organisations that are involved in health and social care in England and beyond. This covers a wide variety of National Health Service and non-NHS organisations, such as NHS trusts and independent sector healthcare providers, including those that provide diagnostic scans.

A list of community diagnostic centres (CDCs) is published by NHS England, and is available on the NHS.UK website, in an online only format. Where a newly opened CDC starts to deliver activity, this will be captured in an updated publication. This includes temporary CDC sites that are delivering services on an interim basis whilst the permanent CDC site is under construction.


Written Question
Health Services: Employment
Tuesday 4th February 2025

Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what are the diagnosis codes that will be used in the Office for National Statistics' assessment announced in the press release issued by NHS England on 5 December 2024 entitled "World leading NHS trial to boost health and support people in work”; and whether that analysis linking health and tax records will respect the National Data Opt Out.

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

The research plan is not complete yet, but it will consider what data should be used, including diagnosis codes, and how people's choices to opt-out will be respected.


Written Question
Social Services: Annuities
Monday 27th January 2025

Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, following their decision to cancel the cap on social care costs, what plans they have to raise public awareness of the availability of 'immediate needs annuity' and 'deferred needs annuity' policies offered by insurance companies to allow individuals to fund their later life social care costs.

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

The Government inherited an undeliverable commitment to implement charging reforms in October 2025, as funding was not guaranteed and preparations for full rollout were not on track. Whilst there are no current plans to promote specific private insurance products for funding future social care costs, we have announced the independent Casey Commission into adult social care as part of our critical first steps towards delivering a National Care Service.

The Commission will consider the long-term transformation of adult social care, including what long-term and sustainable funding solutions should look like. It will build on the expert proposals of other reviews, including that of Sir Andrew Dilnot, into care funding and support.


Written Question
Ambulance Services and Hospital Beds: Standards
Tuesday 14th January 2025

Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of whether there are enough hospital beds and ambulances for this winter; and what steps are they taking to increase them.

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

The national approach on priorities for winter planning were issued by NHS England on 16 September 2024, setting out the key steps to be taken to support the delivery of high-quality care for patients this winter. Provisions for resourcing of hospital beds and ambulances for this winter are an operational matter for the National Health Service.

The NHS is managing extra demand over the winter period, by strengthening same day emergency care, offering more falls services for older people, and with upgraded 24-hour live data centres.


Written Question
Hospitals: Admissions
Wednesday 8th January 2025

Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - 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 the cut in the winter fuel payment on hospital admissions this winter.

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

An impact assessment of the cut in winter fuel payment on hospital admissions this winter has not been produced. The Government has taken action to ensure low-income households are protected this winter.


Written Question
Hospitals: Discharges
Wednesday 8th January 2025

Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many people as of 1 December who were medically fit to be discharged from hospital had not been.

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

On 1 December 2024, the number of patients in England remaining in hospital who were medically fit to be discharged was 12,086.


Written Question
Patients: Safety
Tuesday 7th January 2025

Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the state of patient safety monitoring this winter.

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

The Department works closely with NHS England to monitor a variety of metrics relevant to patient safety, including four-hour accident and emergency performance, Category 2 ambulance response times, bed occupancy, and rates of seasonal infectious disease. NHS England publishes monthly statistics that can be found on the NHS.UK website.

Additionally, during the winter period, NHS England publishes additional weekly situational reports. This data can also be found on the NHS.UK website. My Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care also recently met with hospital trusts and social care organisations to reiterate the importance of maintaining patient safety over winter.


Written Question
GP Connect: Medical Records
Friday 3rd January 2025

Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they will place in the Library of the House a copy of any findings or outcomes of the exploratory work completed by NHS England that is described in the National Data Guardian’s Annual Report for 2023–2024 on the topic of adding a patient-facing function to GP Connect to enable people to see who has accessed their health records.

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

Following the initial discussion with the National Data Guardian, NHS England decided not to pursue the topic of adding a patient-facing function to GP Connect. It would have had a limited application and been technically and legally complex to implement, as noted in section 6.7.4 of the National Data Guardian 2023-2024 report, and would not have provided sufficient benefit, additional to the existing function of Subject Access Requests. There was, therefore, no exploratory work completed on this subject.

There are multiple ways for a patient’s record to be accessed. Any patient-facing feature needs to take all these different routes into account and, as noted by the National Data Guardian, NHS England is considering whether this functionality might be possible in the Government’s plans for a single care record.


Written Question
General Practitioners: Employers' Contributions
Friday 27th December 2024

Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the rise in employer National Insurance contributions on the ability of GP surgeries to prepare for winter pressures.

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

We have made necessary decisions to fix the foundations of the public finances in the Autumn Budget. Resource spending for the Department will be £22.6 billion more in 2025/26 than in 2023/24, as part of the Spending Review settlement. The employers’ National Insurance rise will be implemented in April 2025. We will set out further details on allocation of funding for next year in due course.

We recently announced a proposed funding uplift for general practice for 2025/26 of £889 million, representing a 7.2% cash growth, estimated at approximately 4.8% real terms growth. This is the largest uplift to general practice (GP) funding since the beginning of the five-year framework and means we are reversing the recent trend with a rising share of total National Health Service resources going to GPs.

We committed to restoring the front door of the NHS by shifting the focus of the NHS out of hospitals into the community. We know when patients are not able to get a GP appointment, they end up in accident and emergency, which is worse for the patient, and more expensive for the taxpayer. That is why it is key that we increase the capacity of appointments for GPs. We have already committed to recruiting over 1,000 newly qualified GPs from this October through an £82 million boost to the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme which will increase the number of appointments delivered in general practice.

Primary care providers, including GPs, are valued independent contractors that provide almost £20 billion worth of services in the NHS. Every year we consult with each contracted sector about the services it provides, and the money providers are entitled to in return. As in previous years, this issue will be dealt with as part of that process. We have recently begun discussions on the annual GP contract.


Written Question
Bread and Flour (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2024
Thursday 19th December 2024

Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the remarks by Baroness Merron on 11 December (HL Deb col 1760), what assessment they have made of the length of time taken to lay the Bread and Flour (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2024; and what steps they intend to take in future to shorten the process for food supplements without compromising consumer and patient safety.

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

In England, the Department of Health and Social Care is responsible for nutrition legislation including food supplements, fortified foods, nutrition and health claims, foods for specific groups, and nutrition labelling.

The Government has been working closely across all four nations to implement the policy to fortify non-wholemeal flour with folic acid to reduce the risk of neural tube defects in babies. In England, this change has been implemented via amendments to The Bread and Flour Regulations 1998 alongside other changes and will come into force in December 2026.

This is a complex policy, which has required careful consideration of the evidence, advice from scientific committees and involved much scientific debate. It has been taken forward as a measure across the United Kingdom and has involved two consultations and coordination across the four nations and across successive governments in each nation.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs published responses to the second public consultation in January 2024. The Government has prioritised swift action to protect unborn babies and moved rapidly to reach agreement with the other nations and lay the legislation in England on 14 November 2024.

The length of time needed to develop policies varies depending on the complexity of the policy and other factors.