Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, in the light of the report by the Health Services Safety Investigations Body Insulin: supporting safe self-administration for patients in the community with a mental health problem, published on 26 February, what assessment they have made of the risks to patient safety of inadequate assessment of a patient's ability to self-administer insulin prior to discharge from hospital
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England is considering the Health Services Safety Investigations Body’s report and will respond to the recommendation in the report in due course.
To reduce insulin related harm, the NHS Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) programme published guidance in April 2025 to support trusts to establish Diabetes Safety Boards. GIRFT is also undertaking a pilot across 20 integrated care systems as part of a Community and District Nurse Insulin Programme, which works to empower community diabetes nurses and district nursing teams to support patients at home requiring insulin administration.
To further support services to provide high quality personalised care for all patients needing secondary mental health services, including those with diabetes, NHS England has shared new draft guidance with systems, the Mental Health Personalised Care Framework, sets out how services must effectively assess, plan, and manage people's care in collaboration with all relevant teams, including how they assess safety and risks of harm.
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 effectiveness of the NHS Health Check programme in identifying chronic kidney disease; and what steps they are taking to increase uptake of that programme.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Blood pressure is a risk factor for chronic kidney disease (CKD) and cardiovascular disease (CVD). Each year, the NHS Health Check, which is a core component of England’s CVD prevention programme, engages over 1.4 million people and identifies over 340,000 cases of high blood pressure.
Individuals who are identified with high blood pressure during their NHS Health Check are referred to their general practice for further clinical investigation who determine whether an individual should be tested for CKD. Data is currently not collected on the number of individuals who are subsequently tested for CKD.
To improve access and engagement with the NHS Health Check, we are developing the NHS Health Check Online service that people can use at home, at a time convenient to them, to understand and act on their CVD risk. The NHS Health Check Online is being piloted in multiple local authorities across England.
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 Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 19 January (HL13473), whether the department has considered allowing the term probiotic to be used in mandatory product labelling, notwithstanding its current treatment as a health claim.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The information that must be provided and can be provided on food labels is set out in legislation. The use of specific terms and statements that can be made on food labels is also subject to nutrition and health claims legislation. ‘Probiotic’ is a term commonly used to describe the effect of one or more strains of live bacteria used in food and food supplements. The Department considers the term ‘probiotic’ to constitute a health claim, as it implies that consuming a food or food supplement containing these bacteria may provide a health benefit. The term ‘probiotic’ could only be used on food labels if a specific authorised health claim existed for the particular strain of live bacteria used, which have been scientifically substantiated and authorised in accordance with nutrition and health claims legislation.
There are currently no authorised health claims for probiotics or specific bacterial strains.
Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, in the light of the report by the Health Services Safety Investigations Body Insulin: supporting safe self-administration for patients in the community with a mental health problem, published on 26 February, what steps they plan to take to ensure that vulnerable patients are appropriately supported to administer insulin safely after discharge from hospital.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England is considering the Health Services Safety Investigations Body’s report and will respond to the recommendation in the report in due course.
To reduce insulin related harm, the NHS Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) programme published guidance in April 2025 to support trusts to establish Diabetes Safety Boards. GIRFT is also undertaking a pilot across 20 integrated care systems as part of a Community and District Nurse Insulin Programme, which works to empower community diabetes nurses and district nursing teams to support patients at home requiring insulin administration.
To further support services to provide high quality personalised care for all patients needing secondary mental health services, including those with diabetes, NHS England has shared new draft guidance with systems, the Mental Health Personalised Care Framework, sets out how services must effectively assess, plan, and manage people's care in collaboration with all relevant teams, including how they assess safety and risks of harm.
Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how the neighbourhood health framework will support the early identification and prevention of chronic kidney disease.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Neighbourhood Health Framework is designed to provide clarity and consistency to integrated care boards (ICBs), local authorities, and their partners, in developing and scaling neighbourhood health.
It is important that reforms are locally led, as ICBs and local authorities are best placed to design services that make sense for their local populations. Local systems can choose to go further than the minimum aims set out in the framework, and this could include a focus on chronic kidney disease.
Early diagnosis of chronic kidney disease is supported through widespread access to blood and urine tests across the National Health Service, including in primary care and community diagnostic services.
Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many active users the GOV.UK App has, as of the most recent date for which data exists; what targets they have set for user growth in 2026-27; and what assessment they have made of the digital skills support required to increase uptake among digitally excluded groups.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
As of 16 March 2026, the GOV.UK App has an estimated total of over 230,000 active users. Analytics tracking captures only those who opt in, so this figure is higher than the number of users providing consent. To date, approximately 135,000 users have consented to analytics tracking, averaging around 23,000 consented users per month.
While the Government has not set formal numerical targets for 2026–27, the strategic aim is to drive sustained growth by making the GOV.UK App the most convenient and trusted way for people to access government services. Growth is expected as new features and services are introduced, alongside improvements in personalisation and ongoing focus on user needs, in line with the Government Digital Service’s roadmap for modern digital government.
The Government is also committed to addressing digital exclusion. The GOV.UK App has been designed to be simple and accessible, informed by user research conducted during its public beta and in line with GOV.UK accessibility standards. Alongside this, the Government will continue to assess the digital skills support needed, including understanding barriers faced by digitally excluded groups and working with departments, local authorities and delivery partners to provide assisted digital support and signposting to digital skills training. Services will continue to be available through multiple channels, ensuring that those who are unable to use digital services can still access government support.
Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to introduce a further phase of the Digital Inclusion Innovation Fund from April 2026; what budget has been allocated for any such phase; and when they will announce the outcome of any such phase.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Digital Inclusion Innovation Fund was designed as a one-year programme to understand what works in digital inclusion, and how best practice or innovative approaches can be scaled to maximise local impact across the UK.
We remain committed to building a digitally inclusive society where no one is left behind, and plans for future support for digital inclusion are still in development.
Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the Digital Inclusion Innovation Fund’s November 2025 to March 2026 delivery window and payment-in-arrears model on application rates and project viability.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Digital Inclusion Innovation Fund is about testing new ideas, learning what works, and supporting the best approaches so they can grow and benefit more communities across the UK. The Fund received 1016 applications from organisations across the country, amounting to a total request of over £170m for the £11.9m available.
Payment-in-arrears is the standard Government approach for grants. However, we recognise some stakeholders were concerned about payments-in-arrears and the short delivery window of the Fund. These issues are considerations we are taking forward as we continue policy development in this area.
Despite this, projects are continuing to deliver important outcomes for the people they support, such as supporting people to access the internet and building their digital skills.
We have appointed external evaluators who are working with grant recipients to understand the impact of the Fund. This will also involve assessing the process, including grant management and deliverability within the timescale.
We expect to receive their report in April 2026.
Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government what proportion of successful applications to the Digital Inclusion Innovation Fund were from grassroots or voluntary sector organisations with an annual income of less than £1 million.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
We know that digital inclusion works best when it's delivered in local places by trusted people and organisations. The Digital Inclusion Innovation Fund is about backing local communities to close the digital divide, and grassroots organisations are fundamental to that process.
The Digital Inclusion Innovation Fund had 85 successful applications in England: a mix of charities, research organisations and local and combined authorities.
Around 73% of the organisations funded by the Digital Inclusion Innovation Fund are charities, many of which are local, grassroots voluntary organisations. We don't hold specific data on the annual income of organisations.
Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government how much they have spent on the development, testing, marketing and maintenance of the GOV.UK App to date, broken down by financial year.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The GOV.UK app is in public beta with expenditure met from within the overall budgets of the Government Digital Service (GDS) as part of the wider GOV.UK modernisation activity.
In 25/26 c.£6.2m has been attributed to GOV.UK app and related programme of personalisation and modernisation - this relates to spend on design, build, test and running. There has been no significant spend on marketing of the app, with less than £2k related to reaching private beta testing audiences.