Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to build trust in digital healthcare.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government recognises the importance of building trust in digital health systems and how critical this is to retaining public confidence. As part of its 10-Year Health Plan, the Government is providing a digitisation programme that supports National Health Service frontline clinicians and patients in improving outcomes and delivering care efficiently, effectively, and safely across the system.
The Government has also worked with NHS stakeholders and the public to ensure that the changes made respect privacy and confidentiality and maintain trust in the system. To help better understand the public's views, we carried out a series of engagement events, the reports for which were published online.
Our other initiatives include a revised NHS Data Security and Protection Toolkit which allows the NHS to assess their performance against national security standards and the development of secure data environments to help ensure that research and analysis requiring NHS data is done in a way that is protected, auditable, and which maintains privacy.
The training of NHS staff so that they are digitally confident and have skills in modern leadership and innovation, is another priority.
Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they will take to prioritise rare cancers research in the next round of National Institute for Health and Care Research funding allocations; and what proportion of the overall cancer research budget will be allocated to (1) brain, (2) liver, (3) stomach, (4) pancreatic, and (5) oesophageal, cancers.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Government responsibility for delivering cancer research is shared between the Department of Health and Social Care, with research delivered by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, with research delivered via UK Research and Innovation.
The Government will implement the Rare Cancers Act to make it easier for clinical trials on rare cancers to take place in England.
The NIHR welcomes funding applications for research into any aspect of human health and care, including rare cancers. Our approach to funding research is through open and fair competition and peer review to ensure that the highest-quality proposals, most likely to deliver real impact for patients, are funded without imposing financial targets or limits.
Welcoming applications on rare cancers to all NIHR programmes enables maximum flexibility both in terms of amount of research funding a particular area can be awarded, and the type of research which can be funded.
Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to implement the automatic patient contact system for clinical trial participation introduced as part of the Rare Cancers Act 2026 to enable the timely identification and contact of patients diagnosed with less survivable cancers; and what safeguards they will put in place to prevent delays in that contact system that could exclude eligible patients from participation in clinical trials.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department is committed to ensuring that all patients, including those with a rare cancer, have access to cutting-edge clinical trials and innovative, lifesaving treatments.
As set out in our National Cancer Plan, the Government will implement the Rare Cancers Act, including Section 3 of the Act which will involve developing a service to ensure rare cancer patients can be automatically contacted about clinical trials.
The Government is currently scoping the technical requirements for this service and identifying a suitable route for delivery, before a development project is commenced. This will allow data sharing from the National Disease Registration Service to the National Institute for Health and Care Research’s Be Part of Research registry tool. A detailed workplan and continued engagement with the Hon. Member Dr Scott Arthur, the bill sponsor in the House of Commons, will safeguard against delays which could impact the project.
Implementing the provisions of the Rare Cancers Act will make it easier for clinical trials on rare cancers to take place in England.
Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what progress they are making to facilitate data sharing between the NHS and the independent sector.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Information standards relating to information technology will enable the interoperability needed for information to be shared easily between the National Health Service and the independent sector.
The Health and Care Act 2022 made several changes to the information standard provisions of the 2012 act which will strengthen information standards for the health and adult social care system, including extending their scope to include private health and care providers and making compliance with standards mandatory. These provisions have now commenced.
The Single Patient Record will, in the future, be central to our vision for data within the NHS and social care. A seamlessly connected NHS where trusted data flows securely across all care settings, empowering patients, enabling clinicians with real-time insights, and unlocking breakthroughs in genomics, improve outcomes, and reduce inequalities. We will require public and private health and social care providers and their IT suppliers to share health and adult social care information with the Single Patient Record.
Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to address regional disparities in thyroid treatment, particularly variations in prescribing liothyronine between different integrated care boards.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for supporting appropriate prescribing in their areas, taking account of this guidance and individual clinical circumstances.
National Health Service regions cascaded the Items which should not be routinely prescribed in primary care policy guidance, which includes a reference to liothyronine, to ICBs.
Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many notifications NHS England has received under section 4.1.8 of the Data Sharing Framework version 2.03, or equivalent textual clauses in earlier versions, in (1) 2023, (2) 2024, (3) 2025, and (4) 2026.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Since 2023, NHS England has received the following number of data breach notifications from data recipients under section 4.1.8 of the Data Sharing Framework:
- from March 2023, when NHS Digital and NHS England merged, to December 2023 there were zero;
- in 2024 there were three;
- in 2025 there were five; and
- in 2026 there were two.
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 Competition and Markets Authority's finding of excessive and unfair pricing in the supply of liothyronine tablets in the UK; and what progress they have made in discussions with manufacturers to reduce the cost of liothyronine.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
There has been no assessment made of the Competition and Markets Authority’s findings, but no company should exploit the National Health Service. Anti-competitive behaviour, including excessive pricing, is a matter for the Competition and Markets Authority.
There have been no discussions with the manufacturers of Liothyronine regarding the cost of the product because the Government’s policy on generic medicines is to allow suppliers freedom of pricing for their products, relying on competition between suppliers and efficient purchasing by community pharmacies to deliver value for money for the NHS. This also means that companies can increase their prices when supply is low, or demand is high.
Several marketing authorisations for different suppliers have been granted for generic liothyronine since 2016, the NHS reimbursement price in primary care has reduced, and the price remains firmly below its peak from 2018.
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 role the independent sector can play in supporting the development of NHS Online.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS Online, launching in 2027, will be a publicly owned National Health Service organisation, giving patients on certain pathways the choice of getting the specialist care they need from their home. It will offer the latest innovations in digital healthcare, nationally scaled for the benefit of patients in every part of the country, helping to reduce patient waiting times through delivering the equivalent of up to 8.5 million appointments and assessments in its first three years.
The Government recognises the role independent sector providers have in supporting the NHS as trusted partners to recover elective services by using additional capacity to tackle the backlog whilst delivering value for money.
The NHS Online programme is actively engaging with both NHS organisations and the independent sector, including through representative bodies such as the Independent Healthcare Providers Network, to support the development of NHS Online.
Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government how the Keep Britain Working Review will help to incentivise businesses of all sizes to support the health and wellbeing of their employees.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Through the next phase of Keep Britain Working we will work with businesses of all sizes to design solutions which support the health and wellbeing of employees across the UK. Through employer-led sprints, we are developing a Healthy Working Lifecycle Standard, tailored workplace health support, and stronger evidence on the business benefits of investing in employee wellbeing.
Our Vanguard group includes over 120 employers of varying sizes to ensure the approaches developed reflect the needs and realities of both large employers and SMEs. We are also working closely with regional authorities and leadership to connect the programme to smaller employers across the country.
During the Keep Britain Working review, we heard that employers are already bearing the cost of sickness absence and employees leaving the workforce and are therefore highly incentivised to support the health and wellbeing of their employees. Through the next phase of Keep Britain Working we will grow the evidence for what works and where additional incentives could have the greatest impact, ensuring that support is targeted in ways that encourage employers to take-up effective workplace health measures.
Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to include provisions to encourage the adoption of point-of-care testing to support early detection of cardiovascular disease in the Modern Service Framework for Cardiovascular Disease.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
As set out in the 10-Year Health Plan, to accelerate progress on the ambition to reduce premature deaths from heart disease and stroke by 25% within a decade, we will publish a new cardiovascular disease Modern Service Framework (CVD MSF) later this year.
The Department and NHS England are engaging widely throughout the development of the CVD MSF to support consistent, high quality and equitable care whilst fostering innovation across the CVD pathway, including considering the adoption of point-of-care testing.
Beyond action in the CVD MSF, the Government and NHS England have invested heavily in point of care testing; including through the hypertension case-finding service for those over 40 in community pharmacies and the NHS Blood Pressure @Home initiative.