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 ensure annual statutory reviews for people in care are undertaken.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Under the Care Act 2014, local authorities must keep care and support plans under review, respond to reasonable requests for review, and update plans when circumstances change, involving the individual drawing on care and support, and their carer, if applicable, throughout.
Local authorities should establish systems that allow the proportionate monitoring of both care and support plans to ensure that needs are continuing to be met. In the absence of any request of a review, or any indication that circumstances may have changed, the local authority should conduct a periodic review of the plan. It is the expectation that local authorities should conduct a review of the plan no later than every 12 months after the plan is first agreed or last reviewed.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is assessing how local authorities in England are meeting the full range of their duties under Part 1 of the Care Act 2014, including how local authorities assess the needs of individuals who draw on care and support. The assessments identify local authorities’ strengths and areas for improvement, facilitating the sharing of good practice and helping us to target support where it is most needed. If the CQC identifies that a local authority has failed or is failing to discharge its duties under the Care Act to an acceptable standard, my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, has powers to intervene. Reports are made available on the CQC’s website, at the following link:
www.cqc.org.uk/care-services/local-authority-assessment-reports
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 implications for its policies of the Adult Oral Health survey published on 9 December 2025.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Adult Oral Health Survey 2023 provides the first picture of adult oral health in England for more than a decade. It provides further evidence of the need for dental contract reform.
We are taking forward significant changes to the National Health Service dental contract. The reforms will prioritise patients with urgent dental needs and those requiring complex treatments, and will come in from April 2026. We are committed to fundamental reform of the NHS dental contract by the end of this Parliament, with a focus on improving access, promoting prevention, and rewarding dentists fairly.
The Government is also focussed on prevention of poor dental health through our supervised toothbrushing programme to reach up to 600,000 children in the 20% most deprived areas of England, and by expanding community water fluoridation to the North East of England. This intervention will reach an additional 1.6 million people and will reduce tooth decay and inequalities in dental health, particularly in children and vulnerable adults.
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 embedding routine and cross-system commissioning and provision of post-pregnancy contraception in post-partum care.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
No assessment has been made. The renewed Women’s Health Strategy will set out how the Government will take the next steps to improve women's healthcare as part of the 10-Year Health Plan and create a system that listens to women. Steps to improve contraception access are being fully considered as part of the renewal.
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 ensure the NHS, ICBs and local authorities collaboratively commission women’s health and contraceptive services.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Local integrated care systems are responsible for the collaborative commissioning of women’s health and contraceptive services.
The Women’s Health Programme Board provides direction and strategic oversight to NHS England’s Women’s Health Programme.
The board monitors progress and delivery of the Women’s Health Programme, and delivers the ambitions of the Women’s Health Strategy, reflecting the vision to improve health outcomes, reduce disparities, and amplify women’s voices in healthcare.
The board is also responsible for ensuring alignment with wider interdependencies, including the 10-Year Health Plan, and neighbourhood health models, as well as ensuring the delivery, oversight, and performance management of women’s health provision are consistent across the seven regions of England.
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 creating a permanent and protected ICB role for the appointed Women’s Health Champion in every Integrated Care System.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Integrated care boards are responsible for the planning, commissioning, and delivery of women’s health services, including oversight of the dedicated Women’s Health Champion role.
The network of women’s health champions brings together senior leaders in women’s health from integrated care systems and local authorities to share best practice to improve women’s health outcomes across the life course and reduce health inequalities. The role is a voluntary commitment, and the Government has no plans to change this.
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 making patient records owned by the patient.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Health records are not owned by patients, as the providers of care who create and maintain the records are the data controllers, although all patients have the right to access their records under the Data Protection Act 2018. Patients also have the legal right to ask for factual inaccuracies to be amended.
The general practice (GP) record can be viewed online on the NHS App, or by logging onto the National Health Service website. Individuals can alternatively contact their practice to view their record. To view a hospital record, individuals can ask the trust where they are a patient.
As part of the 10-Year Health Plan, we are developing a single patient record which will give patients greater control over their records, and act as a patient passport to seamless care. It will provide a single, secure, and authoritative account of their data by bringing together all of a patient’s medical information from different records in one place, for example GP and hospital data, and patients will be able to view the record securely on the NHS App and add their own data, for example from a wearable device.
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 improve the discharge process for patients in Surrey who are medically fit to leave hospital.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Urgent and Emergency Care plan for 2025/26 identifies reducing delays in hospital discharge as a key priority. Further information on the Urgent and Emergency Care plan for 2025/26 is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/urgent-and-emergency-care-plan-2025-26/
Hospitals are expected to eliminate discharge delays of more than 48 hours caused by in-hospital issues, to work with local authorities to tackle the longest delays, starting with those over 21 days, and to profile discharges by pathway to support local planning. In addition to this, we published a new policy framework on 30 January 2025 for the £9 billion Better Care Fund policy framework 2025 to 2026, which requires the National Health Service and local authorities to jointly agree local goals for reducing discharge delays. Further information on the Better Care Fund policy framework 2025 to 2026 is available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/better-care-fund-policy-framework-2025-to-2026
We are working with trusts, integrated care systems, and local authorities to share and embed best practice and to help them to use performance data more effectively to address their discharge delays. The Local Government Association has published a range of guidance documents and high impact change models to support improvements to hospital flow and discharge processes, which can be found at the following link:
Officials held a call on 18 July 2025 with the Epsom and St. Helier Trust regarding the trust’s discharge challenges and proposed actions to improve the situation.
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 the unit cost per day is for NHS (a) elective, (b) non-elective, (c) high dependency and (d) standard ward beds.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The following table shows the bed day cost for elective and non-elective admissions, for 2024/25:
Financial year | Question | Point of delivery description | Bed day cost |
2024/25 | Elective | Elective Inpatient | £1,198 |
2024/25 | Non elective | Non Elective Long Stay | £791 |
2024/25 | Non elective | Non Elective Short Stay | £806 |
Source: National Cost Collection Patient Level Cost dataset for admitted patient care. Point of delivery, cost and length of stay data submitted to the dataset by National Health Service providers in the latest financial year, 2024/25.
NHS England does not hold the data to calculate the bed day cost for high dependency and standard ward beds.
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, how many patients were admitted to A&E in England and seen within a) four hours and b) 12 hours after 5pm in the (a) 2021-22, (b) 2022-23, (c) 2023-24 and (d) 2024-25 financial years.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
I refer the Hon. Member to the answers provided on 11 November to Questions 87614 and 87615. Otherwise, we do not hold data at this level of granularity.
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, how many patients were admitted to A&E in England and seen within a) four hours and b) 12 hours at the weekend in the (a) 2021-22, (b) 2022-23, (c) 2023-24 and (d) 2024-25 financial years.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
I refer the Hon. Member to the answers provided on 11 November to Questions 87614 and 87615. Otherwise, we do not hold data at this level of granularity.