Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 21 October 2025 to Question 905924 on Health Services: Rehabilitation, what the percentage numbers were for causes of delayed discharge for (a) Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and (b) Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust in each month of 2025.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
There is no data on discharge delays relating to rehabilitation alone, but information on the reasons for delayed discharges are published monthly by NHS England and are available at the following link:
The tables attached show the proportion of delayed discharges where the primary reason for the delay was related to securing rehabilitation, reablement, or recovery services, for patients with a length of stay of 14 days or over, each month between January 2025 and September 2025 for the Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and the Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust. These delays were either linked to capacity constraints or occurred during the brokerage processes at the interface between the National Health Service, local authorities, social care and/or housing partners.
Please note that unlike the response to Question 905924, we have provided data for patients with length of stays of 14 days or more, as the seven day or more length of stay data is only available from the September 2025 publication.
To support trusts with reducing delayed discharges, the Government published a new policy framework in January 2025 for the £9 billion Better Care Fund, which provides the NHS and local authorities accountability for setting and achieving joint goals for reducing discharge delays and preventing avoidable emergency admissions and care home admission. Some challenged systems in need of additional support are also receiving a programme of improvement support.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to the Answer of 21 October 2025 to Question 78098 on Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation and Responsible Technology Adoption Unit, how many full time equivalent staff there were in the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation by grade at the end of the 2022-23 financial year.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Full Time Equivalent Staff for the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation by Grade at the end of the 2022-23 Financial year is shown below.
Grade | FTE Total |
A | 13 |
A(U) | * |
B | 9 |
C | * |
Senior Civil Service Pay Band 1 | * |
Senior Civil Service Pay Band 2 | * |
Grand Total | 29.9 |
*data exempted under Section 40(2)
Some personal information has been withheld under section 40(2) (personal information) of the Act. Section 40(2) is an ‘absolute’ exemption and the department is not obliged to consider whether the public interest favours disclosing the information. Section 40(2) exempts personal information from disclosure if that information relates to someone other than the applicant, and if disclosure of the information would, amongst other things, contravene one of the data protection principles in Article 5 of the UK GDPR. In this case, I believe disclosure would contravene the first data protection principle, which provides that personal data must be processed fairly and lawfully. This information has been withheld as there were a small number of staff who met the criteria of your request . The department does not release information that affects a low number of staff as this would make them easily identifiable to the wider public.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of trends in the seasonality of demand patterns for community hospital beds for elderly people in the last three years.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Our 10-Year Health Plan sets out our vision for a neighbourhood health service that will embody our new preventative principle that care should happen as locally as it can: digitally by default, in a patient’s home, if possible, in a neighbourhood health centre when needed, and only in a hospital if necessary.
We have not analysed trends in the seasonality of demand patterns for community hospital beds for elderly people in the last three years because we do not have sufficient data to enable us to make an accurate assessment.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to his Answer of 21 October 2025 to Question 905924, what the equivalent percentage numbers were for other causes of delayed discharge in (a) Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and (b) Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Information on the other causes of delayed discharge has been published by NHS England, and is available at the following link:
The following table shows the proportion of delayed discharges for patients with a length of stay of seven days or longer in September 2025, by primary reason for discharge delay, for the Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and the Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust:
| Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust | Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust |
Hospital Process | 24% | 7% |
Wellbeing Concerns | 5% | 7% |
Care Transfer Hub Process | 19% | 16% |
Interface Process | 40% | 43% |
Capacity | 13% | 26% |
Weekly average snapshot of the total number of people per day with a length of stay of seven or more days who no had criteria to reside but who weren’t discharged | 142 | 222 |
Note: proportions do not add up to 100% due to rounding.
To support trusts with reducing delayed discharges, the Government published a new policy framework in January 2025 for the £9 billion Better Care Fund, which provides the National Health Service and local authorities with accountability for setting and achieving joint goals for reducing discharge delays, preventing avoidable emergency admissions and care home admission. Some challenged systems in need of additional support are also receiving a programme of improvement support.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
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 average cost per night of care (a) in an acute hospital, (b) in a community hospital and (c) at home with visiting nursing support (i) for NHS England, (ii) in the Hampshire and Isle of Wight ICB area and (iii) in the Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust area.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England don’t routinely collect expenditure data against the categories requested but we do for the following categories in the table below.
For (a) and (b) rather than share data by acute or community ‘hospital’, we have broken this down by acute or community ‘trust’ for the national and integrated care board (ICB) level requests, except for Portsmouth Hospital University NHS Trust which is acute only.
We are not able to provide the costs of (c), at home with visiting nurse support as we don’t collect this level of cost information.
The costs we have provided are fully absorbed, i.e. they include not only the medical care of the patients but also all other costs incurred in the trusts. The costs are taken from the National Cost Collection for 2023/24, the latest year for which data is currently available. This is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/2023-24-national-cost-collection-data-publication/
To derive the average cost per bed day we have divided the total cost by the total length of stay for all Admitted Patient Care delivered in:
a. (i) – All acute NHS trusts and NHS foundation trusts | Total Costs | Total length of stay for all Admitted Patient Care (days) | Average cost per day |
£45,409,702,984 | 52,414,320 | £866.36 | |
|
| ||
a. (ii) – All acute trusts in the Hampshire and Isle of Wight ICB area | Total Cost | Total length of stay for all Admitted Patient Care (days) | Average cost per day |
£1,426,531,392 | 1,815,334 | £785.82 | |
|
| ||
a. (iii) - Portsmouth Hospital University NHS Trust (to note - this is specifically this trust, not the Portsmouth 'area') | Total Cost | Total length of stay for all Admitted Patient Care (days) | Average cost per day |
£451,003,686 | 675,437 | £667.72 | |
|
| ||
b. (i) – All community NHS trusts and NHS foundation trusts | Total Cost | Total length of stay for all Admitted Patient Care (days) | Average cost per day |
£481,873,973 | 842,354 | £572.06 | |
|
| ||
b. (ii) – All community NHS trusts and NHS foundation trusts in the Hampshire and Isle of Wight ICB area (to note - Solent NHS Trust are the only community trust in this ICB) | Total Cost | Total length of stay for all Admitted Patient Care (days) | Average cost per day |
£21,140,773 | 36,855 | £573.62 |
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential implications for her policies of the role of SIM farms in facilitating authorised push payment fraud; and what steps her Department is taking to help tackle their misuse.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
The Home Office recognises the serious role SIM farms play in enabling authorised push payment (APP) fraud, allowing criminals to send mass scam messages and impersonate trusted organisations.
Following extensive consultation, the Government is introducing a new offence in the Crime and Policing Bill to ban the possession and supply of SIM farms without a legitimate reason. This will disrupt fraud operations and protect the public, while safeguarding lawful uses such as broadcasting and network maintenance.
This measure is aimed at reducing fraud and strengthening enforcement against those who exploit technology to target victims.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the trends of mental health disorders in children and young people in England compared to other comparator countries.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Whilst there has not been a formal assessment of the trends in children and young people’s mental health problems in England compared to other countries, work continues with partners across the United Kingdom and internationally on a range of issues relating to mental health, including mental health disorders in children and young people.
Through resources such as the Global Burden of Disease study, we closely monitor international policy developments in mental health to harness insights. For example, the six new 24/7 neighbourhood mental health centres being piloted across England are inspired by the community model of mental health care originally pioneered in Trieste, Italy.
Estimates of the rates and trends in the prevalence of adults’ and children and young people’s mental health problems are reported in the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey series and the Mental Health of Children and Young People Survey series.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of working with comparator countries to understand causal factors in trends of mental health disorders in children and young people.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Whilst there has not been a formal assessment of the trends in children and young people’s mental health problems in England compared to other countries, work continues with partners across the United Kingdom and internationally on a range of issues relating to mental health, including mental health disorders in children and young people.
Through resources such as the Global Burden of Disease study, we closely monitor international policy developments in mental health to harness insights. For example, the six new 24/7 neighbourhood mental health centres being piloted across England are inspired by the community model of mental health care originally pioneered in Trieste, Italy.
Estimates of the rates and trends in the prevalence of adults’ and children and young people’s mental health problems are reported in the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey series and the Mental Health of Children and Young People Survey series.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the trend of mental health disorders in children and young people in England in relation to the trend in poor mental health in adults.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Whilst there has not been a formal assessment of the trends in children and young people’s mental health problems in England compared to other countries, work continues with partners across the United Kingdom and internationally on a range of issues relating to mental health, including mental health disorders in children and young people.
Through resources such as the Global Burden of Disease study, we closely monitor international policy developments in mental health to harness insights. For example, the six new 24/7 neighbourhood mental health centres being piloted across England are inspired by the community model of mental health care originally pioneered in Trieste, Italy.
Estimates of the rates and trends in the prevalence of adults’ and children and young people’s mental health problems are reported in the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey series and the Mental Health of Children and Young People Survey series.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of changes to funding levels on the language hubs programme.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The government is continuing to fund the National Consortium for Languages Education (NCLE). NCLE is delivering a new model of support for schools that can potentially reach a greater number of schools nationally. The new programme, which replaces Language Hubs, has national reach as it is not constrained by geography or limited by the number of schools it can support.
NCLE launched Language Educators Online (LEO) on 16 September 2025. LEO provides free continuous professional development to all language teachers in England. This is supported by 14 Strategic Learning Networks and locally responsive National Priority Projects. It is research-informed, helping teachers collaborate and tackle key challenges in language education. Language teachers can join the NCLE Language Network in their area and sign up to LEO to keep up to date with current and evolving teaching practice in language education.