Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Hanson of Flint on 4 August (HL9915), which Government department has lead responsibility for the authorisation, oversight and governance of training provided by Durham Constabulary to Bahraini law-enforcement bodies.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office is not directly involved in the delivery of training between Durham Constabulary and Bahrain.
Non-operational police assistance is authorised by Section 26 of the Police Act 1996, and administered by the International Police Assistance Service (IPAS). This is a joint National Police Chiefs’ Council and Home Office unit.
Section 26 is only required when England and Wales Police Officers or staff provide international assistance, not for visiting delegations. For any engagement not covered by the statutory requirements of Section 26, an Engagement Notification may voluntarily be completed by a hosting Force.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Hanson of Flint on 4 August (HL9915), whether training provided by Durham Constabulary to Bahraini law-enforcement bodies is funded in whole or in part by the government of Bahrain or Bahraini public bodies; and which UK Government department authorises such arrangements.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office does not provide funding or direct governance of training provided to Bahrain.
Non-operational police assistance overseas (provided by England and Wales Police Forces) is authorised through S26 of the Police Act 1996 and the Overseas Security and Justice Assistance process.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Hanson of Flint on 4 August (HL9915), whether any Government department provides funding for training delivered by Durham Constabulary to Bahraini law-enforcement bodies; and if so, from which departments and funding streams.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office does not provide any funding for training delivered by Durham Constabulary to Bahraini law enforcement bodies, and is not aware of funding being provided to Durham Constabulary from any other UK Government Departments.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the proposal to require prior approval introduced by the Black Country Integrated Care Board for ADHD and autism assessments; and what steps they are taking to ensure that such schemes do not infringe upon the statutory right to choose established in the NHS Constitution, particularly where referrals to independent providers are being paused or restricted.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
It is the responsibility of integrated care boards (ICBs) in England to make appropriate provision to meet the health and care needs of their local population, including providing access to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism assessments, in line with relevant National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines.
NHS England issued advice to systems on ADHD service delivery and prioritisation on 7 October 2025. This advice includes guidance on managing service provisions, reviewing waiting lists and providing patient support. The advice can be found on NHS England’s website.
The Medium-Term Planning Framework, published 24 October, was explicit that ICBs and providers are expected to optimise existing resources to reduce long waits for ADHD and autism assessments and improve the quality of assessments by implementing existing and new guidance, as published.
The NHS Black Country ICB has a prior-approval process to make sure referrals meet clinical criteria and that providers meet required quality and governance standards. This applies to all Right to Choose providers offering ADHD and autism assessments. This does not affect patient choice, as people will still be able to choose their preferred provider when their general practitioner makes a referral.
Patients already have the legal right to choose the provider and team who will provide their elective care in certain cases. These rights extend to any provider in England who holds a contract with an ICB, or NHS England, for the service/s the patient requires, as per the NHS Choice Framework. This includes independent sector providers. ADHD services are already in scope of this legislation.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - 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 activity management plans on the financial viability of independent providers of ADHD and autism services; and whether they plan to review the national system of spending controls to prevent Integrated Care Boards from pausing referrals to providers who have reached their contracted capacity but have the clinical capacity to treat more patients.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
It is the responsibility of integrated care boards (ICBs) in England to make appropriate provision to meet the health and care needs of their local population, including providing access to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) assessment and treatment, in line with relevant National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines.
Patients already have the legal right to choose the provider and team who will provide their elective care in certain cases. These rights extend to any provider in England who holds a contract with an ICB, or NHS England, for the service/s the patient requires, as per the NHS Choice Framework. This includes independent sector providers. ADHD services are already in scope of this legislation.
The Medium-Term Planning Framework, published 24 October, was explicit that ICBs and providers are expected to optimise existing resources to reduce long waits for ADHD assessments and improve the quality of assessments by implementing existing and new guidance, as published.
The NHS Standard Contract, used for the commissioning of all non-primary National Health Service healthcare services in England, includes provision for an indicative activity plan to be agreed between providers and commissioners for each contract year.
This plan provides both parties with a useful tool to plan for the expected demand, capacity, and expenditure for any service. An indicative activity plan is not binding on either party, but if activity carried out is higher or lower than the plan, then either party can work through an activity management process and agree a binding activity management plan to bring activity back in line with the indicative activity plan.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what guidance they have provided to Integrated Care Boards regarding the definition of exceptional clinical grounds for neurodiversity assessments and weight management treatments; and how they intend to ensure that the prioritisation of maximum health gain does not lead to the exclusion of patients with moderate symptoms who may deteriorate without early intervention.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Integrated care boards (ICBs) are legally required to fund and make available medicines recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), including obesity medicines. These are available in specialist weight management services and recently one of these medicines, tirzepatide, under the name Mounjaro, has started to become available in primary care. NHS England has been supporting ICBs with a phased rollout for tirzepatide, prioritising those with the highest clinical need first to manage National Health Service resources and allow time to establish new obesity care pathways. NHS England worked with experts, patient and public representatives, and relevant organisations to develop the prioritisation approach.
Neurodiversity does not exclude patients from clinical assessment, and decisions about treatment are clinically led. NHS England’s interim commissioning guidance to ICBs on tirzepatide states that people with severe mental health conditions, a learning disability, or who are autistic, are at higher risk of cardiometabolic disease and will potentially benefit from weight management support and/or treatment through weight loss therapies. It states that these patients should be actively supported to access treatment, unless there is a clinical reason not to do so.
Where a patient is assessed as likely to benefit from treatment but does not fall within the scope of primary care management, they may be referred by their clinician to specialist services and secondary care to receive more individualised, multidisciplinary support. As part of a holistic assessment, clinicians consider the risk of deterioration and the benefits of earlier intervention when determining the most appropriate care pathway.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is the total number of senior managers at NHS England who have left since 1 March and received a payment in lieu of notice, and what is the total amount of these payments; and how many senior managers received a payment in lieu of annual leave, and what is the total amount of those payments.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Five executive senior managers at NHS England have left since 1 March 2025 and received a payment in lieu of notice. These payments total £553,252.15. 12 executive senior managers at NHS England have left since 1 March 2025 and received a payment in lieu of annual leave. These payments total £124,015.62.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the withdrawal of the Learning Disabilities Mortality Review (LeDeR) report 2023 due to data quality issues; what were the specific data technicalities or defects that were not identified by NHS England or the Department of Health and Social Care; and what steps they plan to take to strengthen data collection and validation protocols during future LeDeR publications to ensure timely and reliable reporting.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We know that families and stakeholders will be frustrated by the withdrawal of the most recent 2023 Learning from Lives and Deaths of People with a Learning Disability and Autistic People (LeDeR) report, published in September 2025 by King’s College London. We apologise for the upset this has caused to families and loved ones, and we will make sure lessons are learned so that this cannot happen again. We remain committed to ensuring learning from LeDeR is shared and used to drive tangible service improvements.
The report was temporarily withdrawn after a technical issue was identified by NHS England after its publication. Some data used in the LeDeR report comes from Medical Certificate Cause of Death data. This was due to a technical issue related to a new automated process introduced in spring 2023, which meant that some of this data was not updated properly in the LeDeR dataset. This means that some data on cause of death was not included in the 2023 LeDeR report when it should have been, which has subsequently impacted some of the published analysis in the 2023 LeDeR report.
In line with ethical research and statistical practice, King’s College London has now withdrawn the report and has issued a notice setting out the reason why. An updated version is being prepared for publication in January 2026.
A correction has been applied to ensure that the specific automated processing error cannot happen again. NHS England is working with King’s College London to implement a more robust data checking protocol for the next LeDeR report, which will be an analysis of reviews of deaths for people who died in 2024 and whose deaths were notified to LeDeR in that year.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - 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 4 December (HL12450), what timetable has been set for the completion of the review by NHS England of the issues raised by the Health Services Safety Investigations Body regarding electronic patient records, and the implementation of the safety standards and best practices that arise from that review.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England is not currently doing a review of the issues raised by Health Services Safety Investigations Body regarding electronic patient records. NHS England will not manage the timetable for implementation of safety standards and best practices, as this falls to trusts, each of whom have their own statutory duty to deliver safe care.
Asked by: Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the British Medical Association's allegations of bullying and harassment of Dr Tim Noble by Doncaster and Bassetlaw Teaching Hospitals Foundation Trust.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Whilst it would not be appropriate for ministers to comment on individual cases, the Government is clear that bullying is unacceptable in any workplace and has no place in the National Health Service. All employers across the NHS should have a robust policy on bullying outlining how it should be handled and the support available to staff.
NHS England has developed an NHS Civility and Respect programme which provides national guidance, training, and resources to help organisations build positive workplace cultures, tackle bullying and harassment, and ensure staff feel safe and supported in all work environments.
NHS staff should have the confidence to speak out and come forward if they have concerns. There is support in place for staff who wish to raise concerns, including a network of more than 1,200 local Freedom to Speak Up Guardians across healthcare in England, whose role is to help and support NHS workers.