Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people were diagnosed with dementia in (a) 2020 and (b) 2024.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The data requested is not collected centrally.
We can provide a count of patients with a recorded diagnosis of dementia. This is a count of patients with a dementia diagnosis on their general practice record at the specified point in time irrespective of when the diagnosis was made. The data has been published under the Primary Care Dementia Data publication series since April 2022, and under the Recorded Dementia Diagnoses publication series prior to that.
The following table shows the dementia diagnosis figures for all ages for December of each year for 2019, 2020, 2023, and 2024:
Date | Recorded dementia diagnoses for all ages |
December 2024 | 498,221 |
December 2023 | 479,540 |
December 2020 | 438,361 |
December 2019 | 472,890 |
It is worth highlighting that these represent an estimate of the total number of people living with a diagnosis of dementia, and that changes over 2020 and over 2024 do not reflect only new diagnoses.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
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 the number of deaths from late diagnosis of prostate cancer.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department remains committed to diagnosing all cancer types earlier, including prostate cancer. We recognise that there is more to be done to ensure that patients have timely access to diagnosis and treatment.
To combat late diagnosis, the Government is investing £16 million towards the Prostate Cancer UK-led TRANSFORM screening trial, which is seeking to find ways to catch prostate cancer in men as early as possible.
The Department will publish a National Cancer Plan which will include further details on how we will improve outcomes for cancer patients in England, as well as speeding up diagnosis and treatment, and ensuring patients have access to the latest treatments and technology. The overarching goal is to drive up this country’s cancer survival rates and provide a National Health Service that is there when you need it.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what information his Department holds on the number of children recommended to have annual eye tests who have not done so in each of the past five years.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Free National Health Service sight tests are widely available for children under 16 years old and under 19 years old in full time education. It is recommended that all children under 16 years old should have an annual sight test. Sight tests for children under seven years old with binocular vision anomaly or corrected refractive error and children over seven and under 16 years old with binocular vision anomaly or rapidly progressing myopia are recommended every six months.
Although data on the number of NHS sight tests is collected, it is not routinely broken down to be able to identify the numbers of sight tests provided to children. We are therefore unable to estimate the number of children who have not had a sight test.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
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 number of people with dementia in (a) 2025 and (b) 2029.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
No specific estimate has been made for the number of people with dementia in 2029.
The Dementia Surveillance Factsheet estimates that, in May 2025, there were 740,640 people aged 65 years old and over estimated to have dementia in England. Of these, 485,653 have been formally diagnosed.
This factsheet uses Primary Care Dementia Data, which replaced the Recorded Dementia Diagnosis data in October 2022.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what data his Department holds on the current number of people with Activated P13K-delta syndrome.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England does not hold data on the current number of patients diagnosed with activated P13K-delta syndrome.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps is he taking to support national campaigns which (a) raise awareness of glaucoma and (b) encourage regular eye tests for preventable sight loss conditions.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department seeks to support national campaigns where possible, such as national eye health week. The NHS.UK website provides information about glaucoma and the importance of regular sight tests whilst also providing information about entitlement to free National Health Service sight tests.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what funding he plans to provide for the National Institute for Health and Care Research Brain Tumour Research Consortium by 2029.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Brain Tumour Research Consortium was established in December 2024 to bring together researchers from a range of different disciplines and institutions, with the aim of driving scientific advancements in how we prevent, detect, manage, and treat brain tumours in both adults and children. The NIHR is working closely with the consortium to support the development of high-quality funding proposals.
The consortium is in the process of collaboratively developing its programme of work, which will be submitted to the NIHR for independent peer review by 31 July 2025. There is no set funding window for their proposal, which we hope will be ambitious in scope and potential impact.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
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 7 May 2025 to Question 48852 on Diabetes, what his planned timetable is for responding to the (a) research and (b) other recommendations made in the position statement by the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition on the on the World Health Organization’s guideline on Non Sugar Sweeteners.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department welcomed the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN’s) statement on the World Health Organisation’s guideline on non-sugar sweeteners (NSS), published in April 2025.
As a result of these recommendations, we are in the process of updating our consumer advice on the NHS.UK website, which will focus on the long-term goal to reduce both sugar and NSS intake, with NSS being a useful swap for sugar in the short-term.
SACN’s recommendations to Government will be considered as part of our ongoing activities and in discussion with the Food Standards Agency; no timeline has been set.
The Department encourages the research community and industry to take up SACN’s recommendations directed at them.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
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 19 May 2025 to Question 52196 on Prostate Cancer: Preventive Medicine, when he expects to receive the outcome of UK NSCs comprehensive evidence review.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC) has commissioned work to update its recommendation on population screening for prostate cancer screening last made in 2020. The review this time round however has been expanded in response to calls to consider evidence that looks at targeted screening using prostate-specific antigen testing and other high-risk factors, as well as screening specifically Black men of a set age group and looking at other screening tests. To do this comprehensive review, the UK NSC has commissioned a cost effectiveness model to explore these various screening strategies.
It is expected that the model will report back to the UK NSC in early autumn 2025. The committee is in contact with the reviewers and stands ready to review this and consider next steps before opening a public consultation on this.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent discussions he has had with his counterparts in the devolved Administrations on increasing the availability of NHS dental (a) practices and (b) other services in all parts of the UK.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
State funded healthcare is a devolved matter outside of England, and is the responsibility, respectively, of the Scottish, Welsh, and Northern Irish administrations. However, governments across the United Kingdom routinely work together to share best practice and to deliver on our common goals for improving patients’ experience of healthcare services, including access to dentistry.