Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether the ranking methodology for the proposed single national formulary will include (1) workforce productivity, (2) equitable patient access, and (3) quality of life outcomes.

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

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. The plan details that the SNF will include sequencing of products within clinical pathways based on clinical and cost effectiveness, overseen by a new formulary oversight board supported by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). NICE guidance will be used for the underpinning clinical and cost effectiveness evidence, including resource implications, to guide these decisions. The SNF will be a key enabler to support fair and equitable patient access to NICE-approved medicines across the country.

Work is already underway to deliver the SNF through a phased approach. We are already working closely and collaboratively with key stakeholders including NICE and the pharmaceutical industry and medical royal colleges, to develop and design the implementation of the SNF. We will continue to utilise local expertise to ensure the SNF is successfully implemented, and local system support, particularly from pharmacy and medicines formulary teams, will be essential to successful delivery of the SNF, which is why joint activity has already started early in the process.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of how the principles of the Armed Forces Covenant are being applied by (1) Op COMMUNITY, and (2) local health bodies.

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

No formal assessment has been made to how the principles of the Armed Forces Covenant are being applied by Op COMMUNITY or local health bodies.

Op COMMUNITY was an NHS England funded pilot that concluded in March 2024. Insights from the pilot have been used to shape the new Armed Forces National Training and Education Programme, which aims to strengthen understanding across the National Health Service of the unique needs of the Armed Forces community.

The programme is now being rolled out across the NHS. Dedicated training modules for integrated care boards will be introduced in 2026. These will support local NHS staff in developing a clearer understanding of the specific health needs of the Armed Forces community and the principles underpinning the Armed Forces Covenant.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the cost-effectiveness of increasing the uptake of urine albumin-creatine ratio tests so that all patients with chronic kidney disease have an annual test.

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

The Department has not made a specific assessment. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is the independent body responsible for providing clinical guidance and quality standards. NICE’s guidance on chronic kidney disease includes guidance on the use of annual urine albumin-creatine ratio tests as the preferred method to detect and monitor kidney disease. The guidance is available on NICE’s website.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the merits of including male veterans and service personnel in the next Men’s Health Strategy.

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

On 19 November 2025, to coincide with International Men’s Health Day, we published the first ever Men’s Health Strategy for England. Our vision is to improve the health of all men and boys in England, including male veterans and service personnel.

This strategy is a crucial first step, laying the foundation from which we can learn, iterate and grow to create a society where all men and boys are supported to live longer, healthier and happier lives. As a first step, we will work with the Men's Health Academic Network and the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector to develop and publish a one-year-on report, highlighting the improvements made and where future efforts will need to be targeted.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assistance is available to people who are not sufficiently technologically proficient to use the NHS app.

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

We are working to improve access to digital services, outcomes, and experiences for the widest range of people, based on their preferences. Digital health tools should be part of a wider offering that includes face-to-face support with appropriate help for people who struggle to access digital services.

Centrally built services, such as the NHS App and National Health Service website, are designed to meet international accessibility standards. We are modernising the mobile patient experience within the NHS App, ensuring information is clearly structured and easy to find and understand.

NHS England has successfully run several programmes to support patients, carers, and health service staff with their digital skills. These include:

• the Digital Health Champions programme, a proof of concept to support citizens who have no or low digital skills with understanding how to access health services online;

• the Widening Digital Participation programme, aimed to ensure more people have the digital skills, motivation, and means to access health information and services online; and

• the NHS App ‘Spoken Word’ Pilot project, designed to test the efficacy of promoting NHS digital health products and services in languages other than English.

We have also recruited over 2,000 NHS App ambassadors and 1,400 libraries to help people to learn how to use the NHS App.

NHS England has published a framework for NHS 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.

We are also developing a national proxy service to grant authorised access for people to manage health care on behalf of other people that are unable to use the NHS App.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer the Minister of State for Care on 5 January (HC99433), whether they have considered allowing local authorities to set or amend the means-testing criteria for the mandatory Disabled Facilities Grant scheme that such authorities administer on behalf of the Government.

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

In England, we continue to fund the Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG) which is administered by local authorities. This grant helps eligible older and disabled people on low incomes to adapt their homes to make them safe and suitable for their needs. Practical changes include installing stairlifts, level-access showers, and ramps.

As highlighted in the response to HC99433, local authorities already have a significant amount of flexibility in how they deliver the DFG. This includes setting or amending the means-testing criteria.

We have recently announced an additional £50 million for the DFG in 2025/26. This could fund approximately 5,000 home adaptations supporting older and disabled people to live more independently in their homes, it brings the total DFG amount this year to £761 million.

Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they will take to ensure that an expanded Armed Forces Covenant Duty will be backed by (1) measures of success, (2) methods for monitoring the impact of the Covenant Duty, and (3) regular reporting of the findings of such monitoring.

Answered by Lord Coaker - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)

Officials are currently working on refining the Covenant Annual Report, leveraging this established mechanism to assess the impact of the Covenant and measure its success. This report is a key tool for ensuring transparency and accountability, as it is subject to parliamentary scrutiny. The Secretary of State for Defence is legally required to report annually to Parliament on progress in delivering the Covenant across the UK.

As part of this work, officials are exploring ways to improve data collection and develop more robust methods for measuring the impact and success of the Legal Duty. These efforts aim to provide a clearer understanding of how the Covenant is being delivered, ultimately driving improvements in support for the Armed Forces community. The team will continue to identify opportunities to enhance data collection processes, ensuring that the information gathered is comprehensive, accurate, and reflective of the needs of the Armed Forces community.

Additionally, the Covenant Team actively monitor trends through the Covenant website and a dedicated mailbox to identify areas of disadvantage.

Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by the Minister for Veterans on 23 April 2025 (HC47398), what further progress they have made on the rollout of Programme Cortisone.

Answered by Lord Coaker - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)

The vision for Programme CORTISONE is to deliver a sustainable, integrated, cohesive and enduring information capability to support the delivery of evidence-based medical and dental health and healthcare outputs.

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) has awarded a £7.8 million contract to Leeds software company, The Phoenix Partnership to provide a modern electronic healthcare records system called SystmOne for the Armed Forces. This will digitalise military medical records and integrate MOD systems with the NHS.

Scheduled to begin its roll out in 2027, SystmOne is fully secure and compatible with the NHS, meaning that Service personnel will receive quick and seamless care between Defence and civilian health systems, including both new recruits and Service leavers transitioning in and out of the military.

It will replace outdated time-consuming processes for transfers of information between the NHS and the Defence Medical services, be more user-friendly and increase time to care for patients by improving clinical productivity and reducing the admin burden with a modern IT system.

The contract award aligns with the Defence Industrial Strategy 2025 which outlines a commitment to increase MOD spending with Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether the proposed change to qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain will apply to current and former non-citizen armed forces personnel and their families.

Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)

The Armed Forces Covenant is a national commitment that those who serve or have served in HM Armed Forces should not face disadvantage due to their service. The government recognises the sacrifices made by service personnel and their families — including the loss of civilian freedoms — in defence of the UK.

The government is committed to upholding the Covenant by ensuring fair treatment for all who serve or have served, including non-UK personnel. Any changes to the settlement pathway, including the qualifying period for settlement, will be carefully considered to ensure they remain fully consistent with the principles of the Covenant — meaning service personnel and their dependants must be treated fairly and must not face additional barriers as a result of their service.

The Earned Settlement consultation is open until 12 February and seeks views on the treatment of armed forces members under the earned settlement system. However, we are not proposing that HM Armed Forces, and their family members should have a different pathway to settlement than they do today.

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 estimated £560 million savings arising from the introduction of generic forms of SGLT2 inhibitor treatment in 2025–26 and 2026–27 on cardiovascular health.

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

NHS England has provided guidance and data to systems on how to maximise the savings opportunity associated with the introduction of generic forms of SGLT2 inhibitor treatment, as well as encouraging the assessment and monitoring of SGLT2 inhibitor uptake as a whole. Integrated care boards (ICBs) in their role as strategic commissioners are accountable for determining the extent to which these savings will be reinvested into further improving cardiovascular health.

The adoption of biosimilar and generic medicines is vital for expanding and speeding up access to effective treatments as well as for generating significant savings for the National Health Service, which can be reinvested into innovative treatments. Through NHS England’s Best Value Biologicals Framework, we are ensuring that patients start on the most cost-effective biologics where clinically appropriate, and that existing patients are switched swiftly and safely. The NHS has already achieved £1.2 billion savings over the past three years.

The Life Sciences Sector Plan includes targeted action to improve National Health Service uptake of cost-effective medicines, including off-patent products, with NHS England developing national programmes that promote rapid adoption of biosimilars and best value treatments. Furthermore, through the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s (NICE’s) Whole Lifecycle Approach to guidance development, NICE will continually review what works best, establish where care can be improved, and highlight where treatments should evolve over time. NICE recently updated its guidance on heart failure to recommend that patients receive medicines earlier in the clinical pathway, which could prevent approximately 3,000 deaths and 5,500 hospital admissions in England caused by chronic heart failure each year.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the investment in vaccines for gingivitis or periodontitis by the National Institute for Health and Care Research.

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

We are not aware of any investment from the National Institute for Health and Care Research into vaccines for gingivitis or periodontitis.

The Department funds research on health and social care through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). The NIHR welcomes funding applications for research into any aspect of human health and care including vaccines for gingivitis or periodontitis. These applications are subject to peer review and judged in open competition, with awards being made on the basis of the importance of the topic to patients and health and care services, value for money, and scientific quality.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the cost to the NHS of treating (1) gingivitis, and (2) periodontitis, in the past three financial years.

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

In primary care, dentists do not claim for specific items of treatment, therefore no estimate has been made of the total cost to the National Health Service of treating gingivitis and/or periodontitis, in the past three financial years. However, the tables below show the total secondary care cost to the NHS for gingivitis in England and the total secondary care cost to the NHS for periodontitis in England. The data is derived from the linked Patient-Level Cost Information and Hospital Episode Statistics dataset, submitted annually as part of the National Cost Collection.

The following table shows the total secondary care cost to the NHS for gingivitis in England:

The following table shows the total secondary care cost to the NHS for periodontitis:

Found: Letter Baroness Merron to Lord Kamall, Lord Wolfson, Baroness Finlay, Lord Gove and Lord Harper regarding

Found: Letter dated 10/02/2026 from Baroness Merron to Lord Kamall regarding corrected answers to parliamentary