Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
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 ensure people with learning disabilities receive screenings for cervical cancer.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to its ambition to change the National Health Service so that it diagnoses earlier and treats faster. The NHS Cervical Screening Programme plays a vital role in this. Across the NHS, local systems and partnerships are working together to find ways to make cervical screening more accessible for people with a learning disability.
Following the launch of the Reasonable Adjustment Digital Flag Information Standard, NHS England is considering the role this digital flag has in further personalisation in the programme.
Reasonable adjustments can include:
Additionally, in early 2026, the NHS Cervical Screening Programme will be offering a self-testing kit to under-screened women, starting with those who are the most overdue for screening. This will help tackle deeply entrenched barriers that keep some away from screening.
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
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 merits of reinstating the annual health check target of 75% for people with learning disabilities.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department and NHS England have not undertaken a specific assessment of reinstating the 75% annual health check target for people with a learning disability. My Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, wrote to general practitioners (GPs) in October 2025 emphasising the importance of the learning disability register and providing high quality annual health checks. These checks are the first line of defence for people with a learning disability, many of whom live with additional health needs, including long-term conditions. Strong support from GPs to maintain learning disability annual health checks has enabled more people than ever before to receive a health check and health action plan, an increase of more than 20% since 2020.
As of March 2025, 81.5% of eligible people on the GP learning disability register received an annual health check, surpassing the previous 75% National Health Service target.
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
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 ensure that people with learning disabilities do not remain in hospital beds when there is no medical need for them to do so.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Our 10-Year Health Plan sets out to tackle health inequalities and offer people more holistic, on-going support in the community. It is important that people are discharged promptly from hospital with the right support, both for their outcomes, and to free up beds for other patients.
The Department is working to ensure that patients, including people with a learning disability, can leave hospital promptly by strengthening access to appropriate community-based services. Local systems, supported through the £9 billion Better Care Fund, are required to plan jointly for integrated health and social care that supports individuals to live independently. This includes commissioning supported living arrangements, residential care where needed, and tailored packages of domiciliary care.
For 2025/26, National Health Service trusts have been asked to focus on eliminating discharge delays of more than 48 hours caused by issues within acute hospitals, and to work with local authorities on eliminate the longest delays, starting with those of over 21 days.
NHS Operational Planning Guidance also sets an objective to deliver a minimum 10% reduction in the use of mental health inpatient care for people with a learning disability and autistic people in 2025/26. The NHS Medium-Term Planning Framework maintains this focus, with an ambition for a 10% year-on-year reduction up to 2028/29.
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
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 encourage the use of digitalised the Learning Disability Health Passport across ICBs.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England published guidance in June 2024 on health and care passports, which are designed to provide health and social care professionals with essential information about people with a learning disability and other disabled people to ensure appropriate care and treatment. Further information is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/health-and-care-passports/
The guidance makes clear that the passport can be in a physical or digital form, or a combination of formats, and that embedding the passport should take account of local population needs, local digital strategies, and reasonable adjustments.
The National Health Service is working towards a digitally enabled health and social care system to allow information to flow between IT systems, care providers, and settings. However, there remains a significant digital inclusion gap for people with a disability, so digital approaches must remain inclusive and avoid excluding those experiencing digital poverty.
Local systems are therefore encouraged to make both paper and digital versions of the passport available, and to explore ways to convert paper-based passports into digital formats to support interoperability. This aligns with the principles set out in NHS England’s guidance.
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
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 potential merits of commissioning a national framework mandating ICBs to commission NHS community audiology services on a self-referral basis that include wax removal.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Integrated care boards (ICBs) have a statutory responsibility to commission cost-effective healthcare to meet the needs of their local population. This includes the arrangement of services for ear wax removal.
The current availability of self-referral and direct access to audiology services depends on local commissioning arrangements and service protocols, including ICB commissioning. Currently, self-referral to audiology services is usually for those with age related hearing loss.
NHS England is working with ICBs to support greater standardisation of self-referral arrangements and to assess opportunities to bring more of the self-referral process into the NHS App and website in future where appropriate.
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
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 suppliers with extended GP online consultation hours.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
General practices (GPs) have been required to offer and promote an online consultation tool to their registered patients since 2021. The change introduced in October 2025 regarding online access explicitly requires that all modes of contacting the practice are available at least during core hours, from 08:00 to 18:30. This means parity for walk-in, phone, and online access. This requirement builds on policies that have been in place for several years to encourage the shift to modern GPs.
To support suppliers, NHS England sets clear functionality and accessibility standards for digital tools used in primary care. These standards enable suppliers to develop consistent and high-quality digital solutions, including online consultation tools.
The recent online access requirement mainly impacts practices rather than suppliers, as it focuses on ensuring existing online consultation tools remain available during core hours rather than introducing new tools. NHS England provided extensive support to practices in the lead up to the introduction of these requirements and continues to do so. This includes reaching out to any practices that are struggling to help them to prepare, including providing guidance, webinars, case studies, and bringing in GPs and practice staff who are experts in service redesign and improvement in GP services.
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will set a definition of corridor care.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The provision of clinical care in corridors is unacceptable, and we are committed to ending its practice in the National Health Service. Furthermore, our Urgent and Emergency Care Plan for 2025/26 commits to publishing data on the prevalence of corridor care for the first time.
A definition of corridor care is being agreed and will be published once finalised. NHS England has been working with trusts to put in place new reporting arrangements regarding the use of corridor care to drive improvement and data transparency. The data quality is currently being reviewed, and we expect to publish the information shortly.
We are also introducing new clinical operational standards for the first 72 hours of care, setting clear expectations for timely reviews and specialist input, further supporting our efforts to eliminate corridor care and improve patient experience.
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
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 number of people who were treated following female genital mutilation in the (a) 2022–23, (b) 2023-24 and (c) 2024-25 financial years.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
There are a range of services available to support women affected by female genital mutilation (FGM) including treatment, counselling, and further referrals to urology and gynaecology, depending on clinical need.
Data published in the FGM Enhanced Dataset records the number of FGM-related attendances in National Health Service settings. This data is published by NHS England and shows health attendances by patients where FGM was identified or a procedure for FGM was undertaken. The FGM data is collected by NHS healthcare providers in England, including acute hospitals, mental health services, and general practices. The following table shows the number of individual women and girls who had an attendance where FGM was identified, and the number of FGM related attendances for 2022/23, 2023/24, and 2024/25:
Period | Number of individual women and girls who had an attendance where FGM was identified | Number of FGM related attendances |
April 2022 to March 2023 | 6,000 | 12,660 |
April 2023 to March 2024 | 6,695 | 14,395 |
April 2024 to March 2025 | 6,980 | 16,300 |
Source: Female Genital Mutilation, Annual Report - April 2024 to March 2025, published by NHS England, and available at the following link:
https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/female-genital-mutilation/april-2024-to-march-2025
Notes:
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if his Department will release national messaging for patients on the difference between routine and urgent core-hours requirements for GPs.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
As part of the 2025/26 GP Contract, NHS England published You and Your General Practice (YYGP) guidance. YYGP has been developed to help patients understand what to expect from their general practice (GP) and how they can get the best from their GP team. The guidance is based on the contractual requirements that all contractors providing essential GP services must meet and is intended to make patients more informed and to increase practice accountability to patients, with the aim of improving services and patient engagement.
GPs are required to provide a link on their website to the NHS England YYGP document, which can also be found here on the NHS England website at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/you-and-your-general-practice/
The guidance will remain under review and will continue to be updated to reflect changes made to GP contracts.
Anyone who requires treatment that a GP or healthcare professional regards as an emergency, or as immediately necessary, should be provided that treatment free of charge, regardless of whether they are registered with a GP.
There is no set list on what treatment a GP should provide in an emergency, as it is up to the GP’s clinical judgement to decide the correct treatment at the time.
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
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 expand access to community-based NHS hearing health services.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Integrated care boards (ICBs) have a statutory responsibility to commission cost-effective healthcare to meet the needs of their local population, and this includes community-based hearing services.
The Medium-Term Planning Framework sets a clear target for systems to work to in order to reduce long waits for community health services, and this includes community audiology services. By 2028/29, at least 80% of community health services activity should take place within 18 weeks. In addition, Standardising Community Health Services sets out an overview of core community health services that ICBs should consider when planning for their local populations to support improved commissioning and delivery of community health services, including community-based hearing services.