Asked by: Ian Sollom (Liberal Democrat - St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire)
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 improve access to (a) minimally-processed and (b) nutritious foods for (i) families and (ii) children and young people in food poverty.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Tackling child poverty is at the heart of the Government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and its commitment to raising the healthiest generation of children in history. The Department is working closely with the Child Poverty Taskforce to develop and deliver an ambitious strategy to reduce child poverty, tackle the root causes, and give every child the best start in life. An important part of this will be alleviating the negative experience of living in poverty through supporting families and enhancing public services.
The Department is also working collaboratively across Government to deliver a resilient food system that promotes health and food security. The Food Strategy will work to provide healthier, more easily accessible food to help people live longer, healthier lives.
The Government’s Eatwell Guide advises that people should eat more fruit and vegetables and wholegrain or higher-fibre foods, as well as less processed meat and food and drink that is high in sugar, calories, saturated fat, and salt. The Eatwell Guide principles are communicated through a variety of channels, including the National Health Service website and Government social marketing campaigns; for example, the Better Health Healthier Families website and the Healthy Steps email programme which aims to help families with primary aged children in England to eat well and move more.
Healthy Start aims to support those in greatest need. We recently announced in the 10-Year Health Plan that we will uplift the value of weekly payments by 10%, boosting the ability to buy healthy food for those families who need it most. From April 2026, pregnant women and children aged over one year old and under four years old will each receive £4.65 per week, up from £4.25, and children under one year old will receive £9.30 per week, up from £8.50. The funding for Healthy Start can be used to buy, or be put towards the cost of, fresh, frozen, or tinned fruit and vegetables, fresh, dried, and tinned pulses, milk, and infant formula. In August 2025, Healthy Start supported over 355,000 people.
In relation to processed foods and drinks high in calories, saturated fat, salt and free sugars, work on Government commitments is progressing through: implementing the TV and online advertising restrictions for less healthy food or drink; consulting on plans to ban the sale of high-caffeine energy drinks to children under 16 years old; and giving local authorities stronger, clearer powers to block new fast-food outlets near schools and where young people congregate.
Earlier this year, the Government committed to reviewing the School Food Standards to reflect the most recent government dietary recommendations, in particular this will reduce levels of sugar and increase fibre in school food.
In August 2025, voluntary industry guidelines for commercial baby food and drink were published by the Government. The guidelines challenge businesses to reduce the sugar and salt content and improve marketing and labelling of foods and drinks aimed at children aged up to 36 months old.
Asked by: Ian Sollom (Liberal Democrat - St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire)
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 impact of (a) non-regulated and (b) non-medical practitioners performing aesthetic procedures on the health and safety of people in St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire constituency.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department published its response to the consultation entitled The licensing of non-surgical cosmetic procedures in England on 7 August 2025. The response is available at the following link:
As set out in the response, the Government is committed to protecting public safety by introducing legal restrictions to ensure that cosmetic procedures that are deemed to pose the highest level of risk to the public are classed as Care Quality Commission regulated activities, which can only be performed by specified regulated healthcare professionals. The Government is also committed to developing and implementing local authority licensing for lower risk procedures, using powers granted through the Health and Care Act 2022, and to introducing age restrictions for those undergoing non-surgical cosmetic procedures.
The development of policy in this area will continue to be subject to stakeholder engagement, public consultation, impact assessments, and parliamentary procedures. There are no plans to specifically assess the potential impact of non-regulated and non-medical practitioners performing aesthetic procedures on the health and safety of people in the St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire constituency.
Asked by: Ian Sollom (Liberal Democrat - St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when his Department plans to publish its response to the consultation entitled The licensing of non-surgical cosmetic procedures in England, published on 3 September 2023.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department published its response to the consultation entitled The licensing of non-surgical cosmetic procedures in England on 7 August 2025. The response is available at the following link:
As set out in the response, the Government is committed to protecting public safety by introducing legal restrictions to ensure that cosmetic procedures that are deemed to pose the highest level of risk to the public are classed as Care Quality Commission regulated activities, which can only be performed by specified regulated healthcare professionals. The Government is also committed to developing and implementing local authority licensing for lower risk procedures, using powers granted through the Health and Care Act 2022, and to introducing age restrictions for those undergoing non-surgical cosmetic procedures.
The development of policy in this area will continue to be subject to stakeholder engagement, public consultation, impact assessments, and parliamentary procedures. There are no plans to specifically assess the potential impact of non-regulated and non-medical practitioners performing aesthetic procedures on the health and safety of people in the St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire constituency.
Asked by: Ian Sollom (Liberal Democrat - St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire)
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 Integrated Care Boards on the potential impact of the outsourcing of soft facilities management staff at hospitals on (a) staff pensions, (b) sick pay and (c) annual leave.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Contract award decisions in the National Health Service which may involve the transfer of staff delivering “soft” facilities management services to other suppliers fall directly to individual NHS bodies, who are responsible for running their own procurement exercises. Ministers at the Department do not have general powers in legislation to direct trusts in relation to the exercise of any of their functions, including in relation to specific contractual decisions.
The Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations (TUPE) allow for terms and conditions of service to be protected or frozen as they stand on the date of transfer to a new employer. This includes annual leave entitlement and sick pay. Under the Fair Deal for Staff Pensions policy, employees who are members of the NHS Pension Scheme can retain access to their existing pension arrangements, or be offered a comparable scheme by the new employer. The Government expects that any outsourced services are delivered by trusts in a way that improves quality, ensures greater stability and longer-term investment in the workforce, and delivers better value for money, as part of the broader commitments on procurement, as set out in the Make Work Pay programme, with further information available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/make-work-pay
NHS staff continue to work incredibly hard on delivering the best possible care for patients, and wherever they work across the health service, we expect the highest standards and good terms and conditions.
Asked by: Ian Sollom (Liberal Democrat - St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment his Department made of the adequacy of services provided to the NHS by AJM healthcare.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for the provision and commissioning of local wheelchair services. It is therefore the responsibility of ICBs to review and assess the quality of the provision of their commissioned National Health Service wheelchair services.
As such, we do not currently have any plans to assess the adequacy of the provision of NHS wheelchair services provided by AJM Healthcare. NHS England is taking steps to support ICBs to commission effective, efficient, and personalised wheelchair services. This includes publishing a Wheelchair Quality Framework on 9 April 2025 which sets out quality standards and statutory requirements for ICBs, such as offering personal wheelchair budgets. The framework is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/wheelchair-quality-framework/
Asked by: Ian Sollom (Liberal Democrat - St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire)
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 that healthcare professionals are given training on ensuring that the needs of (a) minority and (b) LGBTQ+ groups are met in healthcare settings; and if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of creating a national regulatory body to (i) oversee training for those groups and (ii) ensure consistency of provision across the healthcare sector.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Employers in the health system are responsible for ensuring that their staff are trained to the required standards to deliver safe and effective treatment for all patients, and to deploy them in the best way to ensure the delivery of health services to their proximal populations. All National Health Service staff are required to undertake mandatory Equality, Diversity and Inclusion e-Learning upon taking up roles in the NHS, which is then refreshed once every three years. This training is produced at a national level to ensure consistency of understanding across all NHS staff.
There are no plans to assess the potential merits of creating a national regulatory body to oversee training and ensure consistency of provision in relation to minority and LGBTQ+ groups. Professional regulators are subject to the Public Sector Equality Duty and other legislation which places on them a legal duty to ensure that those from minority groups are treated equally. The Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care, which oversees the performance of the professional regulators, assesses their performance against its 18 standards of good regulation which includes standard 3 concerning equality, diversity and inclusion.
Asked by: Ian Sollom (Liberal Democrat - St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will (a) take steps to launch an independent public inquiry to assess the effectiveness of the steps taken by Cambridge University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in relation to concerns raised by families about surgery undertaken by Ms Kuldeep Stohr and (b) meet with affected families in St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire constituency.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Andrew Kennedy KC has been appointed as the independent chair of a clinical review taskforce which is undertaking an external, independent, and retrospective clinical review of all surgeries carried out by Kuldeep Stohr while she was employed by the Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CUH) from 2012.
The CUH has commissioned Verita, an organisation specialising in healthcare investigations, to undertake a separate external and independent review of what was known and when it was known, regarding concerns about Ms Stohr’s clinical practice and competence, and any missed opportunities to identify and address concerns earlier.
The CUH is maintaining communication with the affected families. Each family has a named contact and is receiving written updates. We are clear that affected patients and families must continue to be supported throughout the process, so that they can be provided with the answers they deserve.
Asked by: Ian Sollom (Liberal Democrat - St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire)
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 impact of changes to levels of staffing for Integrated Care Boards in St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire constituency on the capacity of those Integrated Care Boards to plan new services for areas of high population growth .
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England has asked the integrated care boards (ICBs) to act as main strategic commissioners of health and care services and to reduce the duplication of responsibilities within their structure to achieve a 50% cost reduction in their running cost allowance. NHS England provided additional guidance to ICBs, National Health Service trusts, and NHS foundation trusts on 1 April 2025, and tasked ICBs with developing plans by the end of May setting out how they will manage their resources to deliver across their priorities.
NHS England will be working closely with ICBs to support the development of these plans, ensuring that their implementation reduces duplication and supports patient care. Further information is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/working-together-in-2025-26-to-lay-the-foundations-for-reform/
In his letter to ICBs, Sir Jim Mackay committed to greater transparency and moving back to a fair shares allocation policy over time. The Cambridgeshire and Peterborough ICB is within range of their fair shares allocation targets.
Asked by: Ian Sollom (Liberal Democrat - St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when he plans to reply to correspondence of 5 February 2025 from the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire on healthcare in Northstowe.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
I replied to the Hon. Member on 28 March 2025.
Asked by: Ian Sollom (Liberal Democrat - St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has had recent discussions with pharmaceutical companies on taking steps to ensure an adequate supply of hormone replacement therapies for women experiencing the menopause.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department manages medicine supply issues at a national level so that stocks remain available to meet regional and local demand. Information on stock levels within Cambridgeshire is not held centrally.
Previously, there have been issues with the supply of a limited number of these products, primarily driven by very sharp increases in demand. Following the Department’s intensive engagement with industry, the supply position has improved considerably. As part of this we have met with suppliers on a very regular basis and have held nine hormone replacement therapy (HRT) supply roundtables since April 2022, with the most recent in September 2024, with suppliers, wholesalers, and community pharmacists, to provide updates on the supply position and the actions being taken to address the issues, share data, and discuss relevant policy developments and their potential impacts.
There are over 70 HRT products, and the vast majority are in good supply. Where there are issues with HRT products, we continue to work closely with suppliers and other stakeholders, such as the National Health Service and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, to expedite resupply dates of disrupted products to resolve the issues as soon as possible