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 established (a) regulatory oversight and (b) quality assurance processes to ensure that innovations distributed under the Innovator Passport meet (i) safety and (ii) effectiveness standards in all adopting NHS trusts.
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.
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 plans to take to evaluate the potential impact of the Innovator Passport scheme on the average time taken for new health technologies to reach routine NHS use.
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.
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 his Department has made of the number of people from groups that have previously been less likely to have had cervical screening who will be offered self-sampling kits under the NHS Cervical Screening Programme in its first year in (a) Milton Keynes and (b) Buckinghamshire.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
This information is not held at the requested geographical level.
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 assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of self-sampling on levels of uptake for cervical screening among (a) socioeconomic and (b) ethnic groups.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department undertook an Equality Impact Assessment (EQIA) into the introduction of human papillomavirus (HPV) self-sampling in under-screened populations, which will be published shortly. The findings of this EQIA, which considered national and international evidence, suggest that there is potential for HPV self-sampling for under-screened groups to improve participation in cervical screening by reducing some of the barriers to participation experienced by people with different protected characteristics, leading to improved participation and ultimately preventing more cervical cancers and associated deaths.
The self-testing kits which detect HPV, which is a group of viruses that can lead to cervical cancer, allow women to carry out this testing in the privacy and convenience of their own homes.
The programme specifically targets those groups consistently missing vital appointments, with younger women, ethnic minority communities facing cultural hurdles, people with a disability, and LGBT+ people all set to benefit.
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 set specific targets for the number of (a) self-sampling cervical screening tests distributed and (b) samples received from self-sampling cervical screening tests among different (i) socioeconomic and (ii) ethnic groups.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Target setting is currently under consideration by NHS England.
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 discussions he has had with NHS England on the steps it plans to take to evaluate the clinical effectiveness of self-sampling for cervical screening compared with clinician-taken samples.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department is guided on screening policy by the UK National Screening Committee. The committee is working with National Institute for Health and Care Research and NHS England to develop an In Service Evaluation that will evaluate the clinical effectiveness of self-sampling for cervical screening compared with clinician-taken samples, as well as looking at how self-sampling would impact the routine cervical screening programme if offered to all eligible women.
From January 2026, screening providers in the NHS Cervical Screening Programme in England will be able to offer self-sampling kits to women if they have not attended their appointment for six months or more following routine invitation.
Self-sampling will help detect high-risk human papillomavirus, prevent cancer, and save lives in those who currently do not access clinician led screening. However, for those attending clinician testing, a shift to self-sampling might result in a programme that is not yet proven to be of equal efficacy. Further studies to consider whether self-sampling could be used across the whole population are being developed.
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 Department's timetable is for the national rollout of self-sampling kits to people who have previously been less likely to have had cervical screening under the NHS Cervical Screening Programme.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England will roll out human papillomavirus self-sampling from early 2026.
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 governance arrangements will oversee the (a) reporting lines and (b) accountability mechanisms of the National Maternity and Neonatal Taskforce.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is establishing a National Maternity and Neonatal Taskforce, chaired by my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, and made up of a panel of experts as well as family, charity, and staff representatives. Bringing family voices to the heart of this work, the taskforce will co-produce a national plan to drive improvements across maternity and neonatal care.
The terms of reference are still under development with stakeholders and families, and will be released in due course.
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 plans to take to (a) monitor and (b) evaluate the potential impact of advertising restrictions on rates of childhood obesity following their implementation.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is taking bold action to tackle the childhood obesity crisis and create the healthiest generation of children ever. We are progressing with the implementation of the advertising restrictions for less healthy food or drink products on television and online. This includes a 9pm watershed on television and a 24-hour restriction on paid-for advertising of these products online. These restrictions are expected to remove up to 7.2 billion calories from children’s diets in the United Kingdom per year.
We will publish a post-implementation review within five years of implementation. We have commissioned various studies through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) to feed into this review, which will allow us to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness and impact of the restrictions.
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 improve the provision of elective care in Milton Keynes.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
As of March 2025, performance against the 18-week standard stood at 59.8% nationally. For Milton Keynes University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, it stood at 47.79%.
The Government has committed to achieving the NHS Constitutional standard that 92% of patients should wait no longer than 18 weeks from referral to treatment by March 2029. In January 2025, the Government published the Elective Reform Plan, which sets out the productivity and reform efforts needed to return to this standard.
Milton Keynes University Hospital has received additional regional and national support from NHS England across electives. This has included site visits and funding to support additional capacity. The Lloyds Court Community Diagnostic Centre, which started activity from its final site in October 2024, has significantly increased elective and cancer diagnostic capacity. NHS England is working closely with Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes Integrated Care Board to develop an appropriate elective hub solution for the system.
Milton Keynes University Hospital has also been confirmed as a Wave 1 scheme of the New Hospital Programme, with construction expected to start in 2027/2028. This will provide significant additional elective capacity to cope with the growing needs of residents.
Milton Keynes University Hospital is focusing on all areas of efficiency to ensure that it makes the most of its facilities and continues to achieve progress on reducing waiting lists, including a focus on outpatient transformation, Getting It Right First Time, implementing Patient Initiated Follow Ups, minimising Did Not Attend and improving theatre productivity.
Other work to improve the provision of elective care includes: referral optimisation, with Advice & Guidance implementation in primary care to improve and maximise pre-hospital pathways; diagnostic pathways, with two community diagnostic centres operational in Milton Keynes, namely Whitehouse Park and Lloyds Court, which will support growing diagnostic demand and improve elective pathways; waiting list validation and clinical prioritisation, ensuring that the waiting list is up to date and accurate, with Milton Keynes University Hospital being in the first wave for this; and patient choice, with provider accreditation process in place across Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes giving the opportunity for providers to seek a contract for healthcare services where patient choice applies and thus improves elective provision.