Asked by: Alistair Strathern (Labour - Hitchin)
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 the uptake of the Play Well toolkit, as laid out in Action 8 for Children and Young People with Cancer, in the National Cancer Plan 2026.
Answered by Sharon Hodgson - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Cancer Plan, published on the 4 February 2026, sets out several commitments and ambitions on children and young people’s cancer, to be delivered within the next ten years.
This includes commitments to improve the experience of staying in hospital for young cancer patients. The National Health Service and Starlight's Play Well toolkit will help services deliver high-quality play provision for children, while youth support coordinators will help teenagers and young adults with education, emotional support, and fertility concerns
Decisions on funding services are for local commissioners and this toolkit supports those decision makers to establish services that are high quality and effective. NHS England continues to promote the use of the toolkit and the importance of child focussed care within services.
Asked by: Alistair Strathern (Labour - Hitchin)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of the reliability of train services in the East of England.
Answered by Keir Mather - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The December 2025 timetable changes for the East Coast Main Line have increased capacity on the network and improved connectivity. The Rail Minister has met with the Managing Directors of train operators and their Network Rail counterparts in the East of England, to ensure continued focus on delivering good performance.
Asked by: Alistair Strathern (Labour - Hitchin)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he has taken to develop a national diagnostic and treatment pathway for craniocervical instability.
Answered by Ashley Dalton
Craniocervical instability (CCI) is a complex condition managed through existing specialised neurology and spinal pathways. There is currently no single national diagnostic or treatment pathway for CCI and no plan to change that at this time. Instead, care is provided through existing specialised neurology and spinal pathways in centres with the appropriate clinical expertise.
NHS England continues to review emerging clinical evidence through its established specialised commissioning processes. We will continue to monitor developments in this area and work with NHS England to ensure that patients can access the most appropriate care based on the best-available evidence.
Asked by: Alistair Strathern (Labour - Hitchin)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the implications for her Department’s policies of national implementation models of online parenting support in Australia.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The department recognises the importance of parenting support as being critical to a child’s development and aims to help more parents support their child’s communication, language, literacy, social and emotional skills. Parents have the biggest influence on their child’s early learning and many benefit from well-timed support and advice.
Best Start Family Hubs provide both a building that is a welcoming place for families, and a network of services, including virtual and digital support. Help for families will be delivered through open-access parenting programmes via blended delivery of physical, virtual and outreach activities. It will include the Best Start Parent Hub website that brings together trusted advice and guidance parents need in one place, links families to their local Best Start Family Hub, and allows parents to check their eligibility for childcare support. The department is considering how best to implement digital parenting support as part of the national Best Start in Life offer.
Asked by: Alistair Strathern (Labour - Hitchin)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make a comparative assessment of the outcomes for children in the critical 1,001 days in (a) areas with Best Start Family Hubs and Healthy Babies and (b) areas without Best Start Family Hubs and Healthy Babies.
Answered by Ashley Dalton
Children’s early years are crucial to their development, health, and life chances. Prioritising quality support during the critical 1,001 days offers a real opportunity to improve outcomes, reduce health disparities, and deliver on our ambition to raise the healthiest generation of children.
From April 2026, Best Start Family Hubs will expand to every single local authority, backed by over £500 million to reach up to half a million more children. This funding will enable integration of health services in Best Start Family Hubs across all local authorities and is fundamental to improving outcomes for babies, children, and their families and for delivering on neighbourhood health.
The Department has commissioned an independent evaluation to help us understand the effectiveness and impact of Start for Life, now Healthy Babies, services. The final report, expected in 2026, will identify comparison groups where appropriate and will be integral to making evidence-based decisions for improving outcomes for babies and children.
Asked by: Alistair Strathern (Labour - Hitchin)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Chief Medical Officer’s publication entitled Annual report 2025: infections, published on 4 December 2025, if he will set out how the proposed regional infection groups will deliver consistent antimicrobial stewardship standards and infection management across local systems to support optimal patient care and to minimise the future risk of drug-resistant infections.
Answered by Ashley Dalton
The United Kingdom’s 2024 to 2029 National Action Plan (NAP) to confront antimicrobial resistance (AMR) sets out a range of commitments and targets to mitigate the AMR risk, including to reduce antibiotic use in humans. Aligned to the NAP, NHS England is taking a range of steps to embed antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) within professional responsibilities across the National Health Service workforce.
This includes establishing professional accountability and leadership through regional AMS networks, embedding AMS into continuous professional development training programmes, and providing digital decision-support tools and national reporting on antibiotic prescribing targets.
As set out in the Chief Medical Officer’s annual report 2025, the formation of regional infection groups (RIGs) was recently proposed by the NHS England Infectious Disease Clinical Reference Group to embed AMS at a local level. NHS England is committed to introducing RIGs, which would collaborate with the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) to deliver local, data-driven AMS interventions that span community and secondary care settings.
It is envisaged that RIGs would be comprised of senior leaders across NHS Regional Teams, UKHSA, Regional Pathology Networks, Infection, Prevention and Control teams, and NHS Emergency Preparedness, Resilience & Response, organised according to regions or integrated care board (ICB) clusters. RIG initiatives would be shaped and informed by local, regional or ICB cluster priorities.
Through these measures, AMS is embedded in education, clinical practice, and regional governance, ensuring responsible prescribing, and safeguarding the effectiveness of antimicrobials for the future.
Asked by: Alistair Strathern (Labour - Hitchin)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Chief Medical Officer’s publication entitled Annual report 2025: infections, published on 4 December 2025, what steps he is taking to embed antimicrobial stewardship as a professional responsibility across the NHS workforce to prevent the over-prescription of antibiotics and other antimicrobials.
Answered by Ashley Dalton
The United Kingdom’s 2024 to 2029 National Action Plan (NAP) to confront antimicrobial resistance (AMR) sets out a range of commitments and targets to mitigate the AMR risk, including to reduce antibiotic use in humans. Aligned to the NAP, NHS England is taking a range of steps to embed antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) within professional responsibilities across the National Health Service workforce.
This includes establishing professional accountability and leadership through regional AMS networks, embedding AMS into continuous professional development training programmes, and providing digital decision-support tools and national reporting on antibiotic prescribing targets.
As set out in the Chief Medical Officer’s annual report 2025, the formation of regional infection groups (RIGs) was recently proposed by the NHS England Infectious Disease Clinical Reference Group to embed AMS at a local level. NHS England is committed to introducing RIGs, which would collaborate with the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) to deliver local, data-driven AMS interventions that span community and secondary care settings.
It is envisaged that RIGs would be comprised of senior leaders across NHS Regional Teams, UKHSA, Regional Pathology Networks, Infection, Prevention and Control teams, and NHS Emergency Preparedness, Resilience & Response, organised according to regions or integrated care board (ICB) clusters. RIG initiatives would be shaped and informed by local, regional or ICB cluster priorities.
Through these measures, AMS is embedded in education, clinical practice, and regional governance, ensuring responsible prescribing, and safeguarding the effectiveness of antimicrobials for the future.
Asked by: Alistair Strathern (Labour - Hitchin)
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 improve NHS staff (a) training and (b) understanding of tracheobronchomalacia.
Answered by Ashley Dalton
Tracheobronchomalacia is an uncommon condition that may present with unexplained breathlessness, cough and 'difficult' asthma with wheeze.
NHS England has developed free e-learning modules for healthcare professionals focused on respiratory diseases, including early diagnosis and spirometry, chronic breathlessness, and asthma.
Asked by: Alistair Strathern (Labour - Hitchin)
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 address the shortage of the drug pancrelipase for pancreatic exocrine insufficiency patients.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
There are ongoing supply issues with pancrelipase, also known by the brand name Creon, capsules, used by patients with conditions such as cystic fibrosis and certain cancers including pancreatic and neuroendocrine cancer. The Department is continuing to work with the suppliers of Creon and other licensed alternatives to help resolve the supply issues in the short and longer term. Through these discussions supply quantities have improved this year, and we are in regular communication with suppliers on expected volumes for 2026.The Department has also reached out to specialist importers who have sourced unlicensed stock to assist in covering the remaining gap in the market. We have widely disseminated comprehensive guidance to healthcare professionals, including National Health Service trusts, general practices, and pharmacies, about these supply issues, which provide advice on how to manage patients whilst there is disruption to supply. The Department will continue to work closely with the suppliers to resolve the issues as soon as possible, to ensure patients have continuous access to medicines.
Asked by: Alistair Strathern (Labour - Hitchin)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she will take to support children’s media and digital literacy education before 2028.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
Media literacy is covered in the current citizenship, relationships, sex and health education (RSHE), and digital literacy is covered in the computing curriculum.
In July the government published updated RSHE statutory guidance containing new content related to artificial intelligence (AI), online safety and pornography, which will be mandatory from September 2026. The independent Curriculum and Assessment Review’s final report was published on 5 November 2025 and includes recommendations for reform to the curriculum, which the government has accepted. Vital applied knowledge and skills in media and digital literacy will be embedded into the revised curriculum from 2028.
To support schools with teaching in the meantime, Oak National Academy, an independent arm’s length body, provides adaptable, optional and free curriculum support for schools, including resources for computing and secondary citizenship, which can be found here: https://www.thenational.academy/.
The ’Educate Against Hate’ website hosts a series of online media literacy resources to support teachers and school leaders to build resilience to extremist narratives online in children and young people. The website is available at: https://www.educateagainsthate.com/.
The National Centre for Computing Education provides teachers with continuing professional development and resources to support the teaching of computing topics, including digital literacy and AI.