Asked by: Alex Brewer (Liberal Democrat - North East Hampshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to support NHS trusts in managing and removing reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) from hospital buildings; and how this work is prioritised within the New Hospital Programme.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
On 20 January 2025, my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care announced a new, realistic plan to deliver the New Hospital Programme (NHP) and we continue to work to these timelines. As set out in the Plan for Implementation, delivery expectations may be subject to change depending on local and national factors and the programme reserves the right to adjust the delivery plan as schemes develop in the future.
We are prioritising the seven hospitals built wholly or primarily from reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC), as part of Wave 1, with ongoing mitigations in place to ensure patient and staff safety. Priority will be given to the most affected buildings and services.
My Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has commissioned a comprehensive site-by-site report into these seven hospitals, which will help inform individual development plans, which continue to progress at pace.
£1.6 billion will be provided to continue supporting NHS England’s national RAAC programme across the 2025 Spending Review period. The seven NHP RAAC replacement hospitals continue to receive funding and support from NHS England’s national RAAC programme ahead of the delivery of replacement hospitals.
Asked by: Alex Brewer (Liberal Democrat - North East Hampshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps NHS trusts can take to accelerate their eligibility for prioritisation within the New Hospital Programme queue.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
On 20 January 2025, my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care announced a new, realistic plan to deliver the New Hospital Programme (NHP) and we continue to work to these timelines. As set out in the Plan for Implementation, delivery expectations may be subject to change depending on local and national factors and the programme reserves the right to adjust the delivery plan as schemes develop in the future.
We are prioritising the seven hospitals built wholly or primarily from reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC), as part of Wave 1, with ongoing mitigations in place to ensure patient and staff safety. Priority will be given to the most affected buildings and services.
My Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has commissioned a comprehensive site-by-site report into these seven hospitals, which will help inform individual development plans, which continue to progress at pace.
£1.6 billion will be provided to continue supporting NHS England’s national RAAC programme across the 2025 Spending Review period. The seven NHP RAAC replacement hospitals continue to receive funding and support from NHS England’s national RAAC programme ahead of the delivery of replacement hospitals.
Asked by: Alex Brewer (Liberal Democrat - North East Hampshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether processes are in place to ensure (a) that hospitals within the New Hospital Programme are continually assessed and (B) that the prioritisation queue can be adjusted if circumstances change, such as structural safety concerns or urgent capacity needs.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
On 20 January 2025, my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care announced a new, realistic plan to deliver the New Hospital Programme (NHP) and we continue to work to these timelines. As set out in the Plan for Implementation, delivery expectations may be subject to change depending on local and national factors and the programme reserves the right to adjust the delivery plan as schemes develop in the future.
We are prioritising the seven hospitals built wholly or primarily from reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC), as part of Wave 1, with ongoing mitigations in place to ensure patient and staff safety. Priority will be given to the most affected buildings and services.
My Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has commissioned a comprehensive site-by-site report into these seven hospitals, which will help inform individual development plans, which continue to progress at pace.
£1.6 billion will be provided to continue supporting NHS England’s national RAAC programme across the 2025 Spending Review period. The seven NHP RAAC replacement hospitals continue to receive funding and support from NHS England’s national RAAC programme ahead of the delivery of replacement hospitals.
Asked by: Alex Brewer (Liberal Democrat - North East Hampshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessments his Department has made of how to best support patients suffering with overlapping illnesses.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We recognise the growing prevalence and complexity of overlapping and co-existing chronic illnesses and long-term conditions, and the importance of improving diagnosis, management, and support for these patients.
Through the 10-Year Health Plan, we are expanding community diagnostic services, introducing Neighbourhood Health Centres, and deploying multidisciplinary teams to provide holistic support. Patients will benefit from enhanced NHS App functionality, including My Medicines and My Health, and will be able to self-refer to specialist services where appropriate.
Additionally, the 10-Year Health Plan’s commitments on artificial intelligence will give clinicians advanced tools for faster diagnosis, predictive analytics, and personalised care planning. For people with long-term conditions, this means earlier interventions, better monitoring of complex needs, and more time for clinicians to focus on patient-centred care rather than administrative tasks. The plan also commits to 95% of people with complex needs having a personalised care plan by 2027.
The appointment by NHS England of a National Specialty Adviser on multi-morbidity provides expert leadership to improve care for people with multiple long-term conditions, ensuring services are better coordinated, evidence-based, and focused on holistic patient needs.
We also recognise that doctors can find it challenging to diagnose Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS) and postural tachycardia syndrome (PoTS) because these conditions share symptoms with many other disorders.
Resources such as the Royal College of General Practitioners’ Syncope Toolkit for PoTS and the EDS Toolkit, now maintained by Ehlers-Danlos Support UK, are improving clinician awareness of both conditions. The National Institute for Care Excellence provides a clinical knowledge summary on blackouts and syncope to support consistent assessment and diagnosis of PoTS. NHS England commissions a National Diagnostic Service for rare EDS subtypes.
Asked by: Alex Brewer (Liberal Democrat - North East Hampshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department taking to help improve the diagnosis of overlapping illnesses such as PoTs and EDS.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We recognise the growing prevalence and complexity of overlapping and co-existing chronic illnesses and long-term conditions, and the importance of improving diagnosis, management, and support for these patients.
Through the 10-Year Health Plan, we are expanding community diagnostic services, introducing Neighbourhood Health Centres, and deploying multidisciplinary teams to provide holistic support. Patients will benefit from enhanced NHS App functionality, including My Medicines and My Health, and will be able to self-refer to specialist services where appropriate.
Additionally, the 10-Year Health Plan’s commitments on artificial intelligence will give clinicians advanced tools for faster diagnosis, predictive analytics, and personalised care planning. For people with long-term conditions, this means earlier interventions, better monitoring of complex needs, and more time for clinicians to focus on patient-centred care rather than administrative tasks. The plan also commits to 95% of people with complex needs having a personalised care plan by 2027.
The appointment by NHS England of a National Specialty Adviser on multi-morbidity provides expert leadership to improve care for people with multiple long-term conditions, ensuring services are better coordinated, evidence-based, and focused on holistic patient needs.
We also recognise that doctors can find it challenging to diagnose Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS) and postural tachycardia syndrome (PoTS) because these conditions share symptoms with many other disorders.
Resources such as the Royal College of General Practitioners’ Syncope Toolkit for PoTS and the EDS Toolkit, now maintained by Ehlers-Danlos Support UK, are improving clinician awareness of both conditions. The National Institute for Care Excellence provides a clinical knowledge summary on blackouts and syncope to support consistent assessment and diagnosis of PoTS. NHS England commissions a National Diagnostic Service for rare EDS subtypes.
Asked by: Alex Brewer (Liberal Democrat - North East Hampshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to reduce ambulance wait times for Category 2 calls to the national target of 18 minutes.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government recognises that in recent years ambulance performance has not met the high standards patients should expect.
In October, NHS England published the Medium Term Planning Framework which sets out ambitious targets to improve core urgent and emergency care performance to constitutional standards, including by shortening average Category 2 response times to 18 minutes. This is being supported by practical actions, including reducing avoidable ambulance dispatches and conveyances and ambulance handover delays.
The measures being taken are already improving ambulance response times, including in North East Hampshire. The latest National Health Service performance figures for the South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust, which serves North East Hampshire, show that in October, Category 2 incidents were responded to in 31 minutes 54 seconds on average, over six minutes faster than the same period last year.
Asked by: Alex Brewer (Liberal Democrat - North East Hampshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to reduce ambulance response times in North East Hampshire constituency.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government recognises that in recent years ambulance performance has not met the high standards patients should expect.
In October, NHS England published the Medium Term Planning Framework which sets out ambitious targets to improve core urgent and emergency care performance to constitutional standards, including by shortening average Category 2 response times to 18 minutes. This is being supported by practical actions, including reducing avoidable ambulance dispatches and conveyances and ambulance handover delays.
The measures being taken are already improving ambulance response times, including in North East Hampshire. The latest National Health Service performance figures for the South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust, which serves North East Hampshire, show that in October, Category 2 incidents were responded to in 31 minutes 54 seconds on average, over six minutes faster than the same period last year.
Asked by: Alex Brewer (Liberal Democrat - North East Hampshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking with (a) NHS England and (b) integrated care boards to ensure that NHS dental provision is effectively delivered under the Armed Forces Covenant Duty; and whether he has considered increasing levels of (i) guidance and (ii) oversight in this area to help prevent disadvantage for service families following relocation.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We recognise that Armed Forces families may move more frequently than the civilian population in support of our service personnel. Data on dental access does not suggest that Armed Forces families are being disadvantaged when compared to the civilian population. We are taking steps to improve access to dentistry and members of the armed forces community will also benefit from the improved access these changes bring about, in the same way as the civilian population.
NHS England is working proactively with the Ministry of Defence and the Armed Forces Families Federations to provide guidance to integrated care boards in relation to local dental access for families relocating to the area and guidance for families. Signposting for Armed Forces Personnel on dentistry access for their families has been improved through the ‘Discover My Benefits website’, and A “Myth Busting” paper has been prepared by the Armed Forces Families Federation. This includes a link to the Single Point of Contact for NHS England dedicated to Armed Forces access issues.
Free NHS dental care is available to people receiving War Pension Scheme payments, or Armed Forces Compensation Scheme payments, and the treatment is for your accepted disability. We are also supporting more than 1,500 children in British military families overseas through our supervised toothbrushing programme.
Asked by: Alex Brewer (Liberal Democrat - North East Hampshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to reduce waiting times to those seeking psychological therapy to support their employment efforts.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
It is unacceptable that some people are not receiving the mental health care they need. We are determined to change that. We have already taken significant steps to improve National Health Service mental health services, including hiring almost 7,000 extra mental health workers since July 2024, and thanks to an increase in NHS Talking Therapies, more adults with anxiety and depression are getting back into work.
We are continuing to roll out employment advisors in our talking therapies services to support people with common mental health conditions to seek and retain employment. These advisors help people who are in work but are struggling or facing difficulties in the workplace, for instance being off work sick or looking for work, so we can provide the right support at the right time.
We continue to meet the waiting time standard in place for NHS Talking Therapies services. The latest data from June 2025 shows 89.1% of people completing treatment waited less than six weeks for their first appointment against a target of 75%. And 98.6% of people completing treatment waited less than 18 weeks, against a target of 95%.
Asked by: Alex Brewer (Liberal Democrat - North East Hampshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment of the potential impact of GP fees for (a) letters requested to support applications relating to (i) mental health, (ii) housing, (iii) education and (iv) welfare and (b) other non-NHS letters on patients; and whether he plans to issue guidance to GP practices on fee structures for such documentation in cases involving (A) financial hardship and (B) vulnerable people.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
There are some medical evidence letters, certificates, and/or reports that general practices (GPs) may charge for, and others that they must not charge patients for. The legislation that sets this out is the General Medical Services and Personal Medical Services Regulations, which form the basis of the GP Contract with the National Health Service. There is no statutory limit to the level of such fees as this is outside of core NHS work.
The Professional Fees Committee of the British Medical Association suggests guideline fees for such services to help doctors set their own professional fees.
We recognise that there are concerns about some fees GPs charge for letters and the consistency of those charges, as well as the additional burden these requests can place on GPs. Where GPs charge for that evidence, these charges should be clear, fair, and consistent. Where possible and appropriate we would encourage people to use alternative evidence.
We are continuing to work across the Government to cut red tape and improve ways of working, including work to improve the patient experience, such as removing the need to request unnecessary medical evidence where possible.