Asked by: Baroness Coffey (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 20 November (HL11652), what projects for reform of occupational health services are funded through the Small Business Research Initiative; how much funding was provided to each of those projects, and whether they will place a copy of the self-reported outcomes of those projects in the Library of the House.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The fund for stimulating innovation in occupational health (OH) funded five projects in Phase 2. Up to £300,000, inclusive of VAT, was allocated for each contract, to develop a prototype and undertake field testing for up to 12 months. The following table shows the projects to reform OH, their actual spend, and the project participant’s name:
Participant name | Project title | Actual spend |
WELLICS LTD | The enhancement and trialling of an innovative platform to improve SMEs' ability to provide occupational health services to their workforce and measure improved performance in the workplace | £296,200 |
KINSEED LIMITED | SwiftCare - INFORMATION SYSTEMS for HEALTH AND WORK | £299,347 |
| A smart digital OH portal and employee-facing app to bring the benefits of occupational health to individuals, micro and SME companies - initially addressing those employees with Long COVID of the overall total of 2,200,000 patients in the UK. | £262,956 |
LATUS HEALTH LTD | Remote access occupational health support system | £287,945 |
ARMOUR LABS LTD | Digital Healthcare Navigation for the Modern Workforce | £300,000 |
Further details on each of the projects have been published on the Innovate UK transparency page.
Following the normal practice of Innovate UK, projects will not be required to deposit their self-reported outcomes in the Library of the House due to commercial confidentiality considerations.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many (1) appointments, (2) tests, and (3) operations, were delivered by independent providers for NHS patients in 2024–25.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Independent sector providers have a role to play in supporting the National Health Service as trusted partners to recover elective services by using additional capacity to tackle the backlog whilst delivering value for money.
Independent sector providers delivered 5,098,290 outpatient appointments in 2024/25. This includes first and follow-up appointments.
They delivered 2,099,923 tests in 2024/25. This includes only the 15 key diagnostic tests that form the Diagnostics Waiting Times and Activity dataset and excludes activity subcontracted from NHS trusts where responsibility for the pathway remains with the NHS trust.
There were 986,480 inpatient admissions in independent sector providers in 2024/25. This includes ordinary electives and day case electives.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (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 success of research projects funded through the Small Business Research Initiative regarding reform to occupational health services.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Projects funded through the Small Business Research Initiative have submitted self-reported outcomes to the Government for internal assessment. The reports suggest that the fund has helped to stimulate innovation in the occupational health market and encouraged the development of new models of occupational health tailored to the self-employed and small to medium enterprises with better use of technology.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government on which clauses and amendments the Department of Health and Social Care have provided advice on legal and practical workability to the promoters of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government has worked with the sponsors of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill on a range of workability issues and has provided legal and workability advice across the entire bill. Where the Government has provided technical or legal advice to the sponsor on specific amendments, ministers have referred to this within their remarks at the Committee and Report Stage in the House of Commons. Parliamentary Counsel has provided the technical drafting for the amendments tabled by the sponsors.
All advice provided to the sponsor in relation to the bill has been to ensure coherence of the statute book, and to help to ensure the bill is workable. The Government has remained neutral on the matter of assisted dying. The Government will continue to take this approach through the bill’s passage in the House of Lords.
The Department recognises the importance of promoting openness and transparency in Government. However, it is also in the public interest that the Government can engage confidentially with the sponsors of the bill, so that the advice the Department provides in relation to the operability and soundness of the bill can be free and frank, both in relation to this bill and any future private member’s bill where the Government engages closely with the sponsor.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (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 25 September (HL10725), whether abortion statistics for England and Wales for the years (1) 2023 and (2) 2024 will be published in 2025.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The publication dates of the Abortion Statistics for England and Wales publication for the years 2023 and 2024 have not yet been announced. Publication of the 2023 data is provisionally planned for winter 2025/26. We will announce the date of the 2024 data publication in due course.
The statistics have been delayed due to several operational issues. These include issues associated with moving to a new data processing system and an increase in the number of paper abortion notification forms to process.