Asked by: Anna Gelderd (Labour - South East Cornwall)
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 for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services in South East Cornwall constituency.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Through our Plan for Change, we’re determined to give children and young people the best start in life, including in the South East Cornwall constituency.
The Government is expanding access to mental health support teams in all schools and colleges to reach all pupils by 2029, ensuring that every pupil has access to early support services.
More widely, we are investing £26 million in new crisis centres, rolling out young futures hubs, and hiring 8,500 more mental health staff to reduce waiting times.
Asked by: Anna Gelderd (Labour - South East Cornwall)
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 provide support for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services to improve early intervention for children with emerging mental health difficulties.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Through our Plan for Change, we’re determined to give children and young people the best start in life.
The Government is expanding access to mental health support teams in all schools and colleges to reach all pupils by 2029, ensuring that every pupil has access to early support services.
More widely, we are investing £26 million in new crisis centres, rolling out young futures hubs, and hiring 8,500 more mental health staff.
Asked by: Anna Gelderd (Labour - South East Cornwall)
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 facilities for healthcare workers.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The NHS Health and Wellbeing Framework highlights the importance of getting the basics right such as providing access to good quality rest areas, food, and drink options.
As set out in the 10-Year Health Plan, we will work with the Social Partnership Forum to introduce a new set of staff standards for modern employment, covering issues such as access to healthy meals and support to work healthily and flexibly.
The New Hospital Programme will mandate that staff welfare spaces must occupy at least 6% to 7% of the total net internal area footprint for schemes that are fully compliant with the new standardised designs. This 6% to 7% minimum allocation will continue to be protected and maintained through the full life cycle of the building.
Asked by: Anna Gelderd (Labour - South East Cornwall)
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 help support the (a) health and (b) wellbeing of the NHS workforce.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The health and wellbeing of National Health Service staff is a top priority. Local employers across the NHS have arrangements in place for supporting staff including occupational health provision, employee support programmes, and a focus on healthy working environments. At a national level, NHS England has made available additional emotional and psychological health and wellbeing support.
As set out in the 10-Year Health Plan, we will roll out staff treatment hubs to ensure all staff have access to high quality occupational health support, including for mental health. To further support this ambition, we will work with the Social Partnership Forum to introduce a new set of staff standards for modern employment, covering issues such as access to healthy meals, support to work healthily and flexibly, and tackling violence, racism, and sexual harassment in the workplace.
Asked by: Anna Gelderd (Labour - South East Cornwall)
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 help support (a) the Echo Centre in Liskeard and (b) other community-based neuro-rehabilitation services.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Integrated Care Board (ICB) is currently funding a community neuro-rehabilitation group meeting in the Echo centre in Liskeard. This has supported 48 people since January 2025, via a thirteen-week course, in a supportive group environment, to develop the skills, strength, and confidence to manage their condition independently and reduce their need for wider health and care services.
A community neurorehabilitation and stroke therapy team is funded by the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly ICB and provided by the Cornwall Partnership NHS Foundation Trust to provide assessments, treatment, and management for people with stroke and complex neurological conditions. This includes physiotherapy, occupational therapy, and supporting people with complex hospital discharges.
Further work is underway to understand the impact of the group course held at the Echo centre, the need for wider services, and how the people receiving, or waiting for, neurorehabilitation are using the health and care services. This will be used to inform the longer term commissioning of health and care services in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, and ensure they best meet the needs of residents.
Additionally, in line with the 10-Year Health Plan, the National Health Service in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly is investing in services to prevent, where possible, conditions which require neurorehabilitation, such as strokes, and to reduce and delay the symptoms of conditions such as acquired brain injuries.
In August, NHS England updated its service specification for adult specialised neurology services. It states that neurology patients should have timely access to the full range of inpatient and outpatient specialised neurorehabilitation services. Service specifications are important in clearly defining the standards of care expected from organisations funded by NHS England to provide specialised care.
In October, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence also published new guidance on rehabilitation for chronic neurological disorders, including acquired brain injury. The guideline covers rehabilitation in all settings for children, young people, and adults with a chronic neurological disorder, neurological impairment, or disabling neurological symptoms due to acquired brain injury.
Asked by: Anna Gelderd (Labour - South East Cornwall)
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 adoption of new technologies for the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
As set out in our 10-Year Health Plan, the Government is supporting NHS England to actively adopt new technologies for cancer diagnosis, with focus on artificial intelligence (AI), liquid biopsies, and advanced genomic testing to speed up diagnosis and improve patient outcomes. As part of the plan, we have also committed to the expansion of the National Institution of Clinical Excellence’s technology appraisal process to cover devices, diagnostics, and digital products.
We have invested £146 million in a partnership with pharmaceutical companies and universities to harness science and innovation to detect and treat cancer sooner through trials for new technologies, including those using AI, two of which are developing technology for the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.
Additionally, initiatives using digital technology to improve the identification of cancer symptoms in primary care include a new £2 million National Health Service programme, funding 300 general practices (GPs) to identify pancreatic cancer early by screening high-risk patients over 60 years old with new diabetes diagnoses and unexplained weight loss for urgent testing. More than 300 GPs across England will begin using the initiative, with the roll out having already begun, and the rest to be up and running by the end of the year.
Asked by: Anna Gelderd (Labour - South East Cornwall)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department plans to take account of the age profile of communities in Cornwall when allocating resources for health and social care in that area.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Integrated care boards (ICBs), including the Cornwall Isles of Scilly ICB, receive funding allocations from NHS England to pay for the services they commission. Most funding is allocated as a non-ringfenced budget, informed by a calculation of what would constitute a ‘fair share’ of funding based on a formula that takes account of population, age, need, deprivation and health inequalities considerations.
NHS England published a ‘Technical Guide to Allocation Formulae and Convergence’ that sets out the methodology; the formula takes into account age profiles in the modelling of the need for health care services by recognising that older populations typically have a higher need per capita. The guide is available at the following link:
Asked by: Anna Gelderd (Labour - South East Cornwall)
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 tackle health inequalities in coastal communities, in the context of the Chief Medical Officer’s annual report 2021: health in coastal communities, published on 21 July 2021.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Chief Medical Officer in his 2023 Annual Report made clear that future health and care needs will vary significantly, with the populations of rural, semi-rural and coastal areas more likely to experience worse health outcomes. In the 10-Year Health Plan, the Government commits to reducing the gap in healthy life expectancy between the richest and poorest areas by tackling health inequalities and the social determinants of health.
The Department will address under performance in areas with the worst health outcomes, including coastal communities, where access is often poor. National Health Service regions are compiling action plans for each provider in these areas to begin improvements.
Asked by: Anna Gelderd (Labour - South East Cornwall)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to introduce (a) additional funding and (b) policy changes to expand (i) therapeutic and (ii) foster care options for young people over 16.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to raising the healthiest generation of children ever and giving mental health the same importance as physical health.
The Department of Health and Social Care set out in the 10-Year Health Plan how we will work to better identify and meet children's and young people’s mental health needs. We will continue to roll out Mental Health Support Teams to schools and colleges in England, to reach full national coverage by 2029/30.
The Department for Education has announced £25 million in transformation funding to recruit hundreds more new foster families and strengthen support to retain existing carers to improve the life chances of thousands of children. This will ensure that children in foster care experience greater stability. This is additional to the £15 million announced at the Autumn Budget 2024, which aims to recruit more foster carers. This will include foster care recruitment for older children and those with more complex needs.
The 2025 Spending Review also included capital funding to provide more foster care placements, by renovating and extending foster care homes.
Asked by: Anna Gelderd (Labour - South East Cornwall)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to increase the availability of defibrillators in (a) South East Cornwall constituency and (b) other (i) rural and (ii) coastal areas.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
To improve patients' survival rates following out-of-hospital cardiac arrests, the Government committed to improving access to automated external defibrillators (AEDs) in public spaces and reducing inequalities in access to these life saving devices. Following the depletion of the existing AED fund, launched in in September 2023, the Government approved a further £500,000 in August 2024 to fulfil existing applications to the Fund.
Funding was allocated where there was the greatest need, for example, remote communities with extended ambulance response times, places with high footfall and high population densities, hotspots for cardiac arrest including sporting venues and venues with vulnerable people, and deprived areas. There are no plans to undertake further work on improving access or provide additional support for AEDs, in light of the rapid expansion of AEDs across the UK.
We recognise the important work the British Heart Foundation (BHF) has undertaken in identifying communities with limited access to a defibrillator. The BHF undertook this work as part of its 2025 community defibrillator fund programme. The BHF is urgently encouraging areas eligible to apply to its 2025 scheme to do so. Further information is available at the following link:
Across the South West, there are currently over 12,000 public access defibrillators registered on The Circuit, with most being privately owned. Approximately 1,000 of these defibrillators are owned and managed by the South Western Ambulance Service (SWAST).
SWAST is working to improve the availability, accessibility and emergency readiness of all public accessible defibrillators across the South West. SWAST is currently contacting guardians of defibrillators which have not had a status check registered on The Circuit for more than three months. This proportion has, as a result, reduced from one third of all defibrillators to 17% over the past year.
SWAST is also working with all schools across the South West to encourage them to register their defibrillator on The Circuit, with 90% of schools across the South West now having a defibrillator registered, the highest percentage in the country. SWAST is also promoting the labelling of public access defibrillators using stickers produced by The Circuit to reduce the time taken for a defibrillator to return to its cabinet after allocation, reducing the time that it is unavailable.