Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the potential return on funding for the the supervised brushing scheme in Buckingham and Bletchley constituency.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Supervised toothbrushing is an evidence-based intervention. The most recent assessment suggests that supervised toothbrushing schemes have a five-year return on investment of £3.06 for every £1 spent where the rate of decayed, missing due to decay, and filled teeth is two or greater. Further information is available at the following link:
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the timetable is for the extension of community water fluoridation (a) Buckinghamshire and (b) Milton Keynes.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Water fluoridation at levels recommended in the United Kingdom is a safe and effective intervention to reduce tooth decay and inequalities in dental health.
The Government’s 10-Year Health Plan for National Health Service recovery and reform prioritises prevention.
As part of this strategy, the Government is expanding fluoridation schemes in north east England, aiming to reach 1.6 million more people by April 2030. We will assess further rollout in areas where oral health outcomes are worst.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what resources his Department has provided to facilitate the participation by GP practices in the Advice and Guidance scheme in Buckingham and Bletchley constituency since 1 April 2025.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Integrated care boards (ICBs) were instructed to invite all general practices to participate in the enhanced service specification for General Practice Requests for Advice and Guidance (A&G) 2025/26, which sees practices entitled to claim a £20 fee per request for pre-referral advice and guidance, no later than 13 May 2025. The Government has made £80 million available to fund up to four million A&G requests so general practitioners (GPs) can access advice ahead of making a referral, recognising the importance of their role in ensuring patient care takes place in the most appropriate setting.
NHS England has developed supporting resources to aid continued use of A&G, including a toolkit with guidance for GPs as well as for commissioners and secondary care clinical teams, and an operational delivery framework which sets a roadmap for ICBs to expand and improve their use of A&G across seven themes and with a set of minimum standards for best practice.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of GP practices had signed up to the Advice and Guidance scheme by 30 April 2025 in Buckingham and Bletchley constituency.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The specific information requested is not held centrally by the Department as it is held at individual integrated care board (ICB) level. Buckingham and Bletchley constituency is served by two different ICBs, namely Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire & West Berkshire ICB and Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes ICB.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the average reduction in waiting time achieved through the Advice and Guidance scheme was for patients registered with GP practices in the Buckingham and Bletchley constituency in April 2025.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
No assessment has been made of the average reduction in waiting time as a result of Advice and Guidance in April 2025 for patients in the Buckingham and Bletchley constituency.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many patients will be evacuated under the Gaza Medical Evacuation Scheme; and what his planned timetable is for those evacuations.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
I refer the Hon. Members to My Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care’s Written Statement to the House on 1 September 2025, available at the following link:
https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2025-09-01/hcws899
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what guidance his Department plans to develop to help support life sciences SMEs to prepare evidence dossiers that will be compatible with Innovator Passport standards to enable rapid access to NHS procurement.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department and NHS England are committed to reducing procurement friction to support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The development of the Innovator Passport will include close engagement with industry, including SMEs, to ensure that the approach taken and the implementation reflects the needs of SMEs, including the provision of clear guidance and ongoing support. To support this, the Department is developing a digital product comparison platform called MedTech Compass which will align with the new National Health Service Innovator Passport and provide improved visibility of the products available from SMEs. The Department is also launching Value Based Procurement Standard Guidance early next year, to provide a consistent and transparent approach to assessing medical technology. The guidance includes a bank of questions and model answers which outline the types of evidence that should be provided by bidders, and followed close engagement with industry to develop.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an estimate of the NHS dental workforce that will be required in Buckingham and Bletchley constituency in each of the next five years.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We will publish a 10 Year Workforce Plan and will ensure the National Health Service has the right people in the right places, with the right skills to deliver the best care for patients, when they need it.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
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 ensure that new mental health staff are deployed in areas of greatest demand in Buckingham and Bletchley constituency.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
As part of our mission to build a National Health Service that is fit for the future and that is there when people need it, the Government is recruiting an additional 8,500 mental health workers to help ease pressure on busy mental health services across the NHS, including in the Buckingham and Bletchley constituency. More than 6,700 extra mental health workers have been employed since July, as per the latest data.
We are working with NHS England to deliver a refreshed workforce plan, which will revolve around the three shifts to deliver our 10-Year Health Plan: moving more care from hospitals to communities; making better use of technology in health and care; and focusing on preventing sickness, not just treating it.
Responsibility for the onward commissioning of mental health services sits with integrated care boards (ICB). It is the role of local ICB decision-makers to consider the implications of mental health services, specific to each geography and including the perspectives of healthcare professionals, patient advocacy groups, and local authorities.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what his planned timetable is for ensuring that all NHS Trusts are digitally interoperable with MedTech Compass, in the context of the operation of the Innovator Passport scheme.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We are committed to ensuring that patients benefit from safe and effective innovations more quickly, that National Health Service organisations are supported to make informed, value-based decisions on medical technology, and that we put in place a low-friction procurement environment to support the medical technology (MedTech) industry, and in particular small and medium-sized enterprises in the United Kingdom.
To support this, we’re developing a digital product comparison platform called MedTech Compass. It will align with the new NHS Innovator Passport, making key information visible in one place, in order to avoid suppliers having to submit the same data to every NHS trust.
The current regulatory regime ensures that all medical devices placed in the market are safe, and MedTech Compass will only display products with Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency approval.
The initial development phase of MedTech Compass, to test design concepts, will complete early next year and the findings of this phase will inform the specifics around how the system will operate.
An evaluation plan and metrics will be considered as part of the MedTech Compass development process, which may include measuring the time taken to adoption and other metrics informed by the initial development phase learnings.