Asked by: Jim McMahon (Labour (Co-op) - Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton)
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 cancelled annual leave days as a result of strike action in the NHS since July 2024.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department has made no estimate of the number of cancelled annual leave days as a result of strike action in the National Health Service. Information is not held centrally on the level of cancellation of annual leave of NHS staff, including for the reason of cover of staff who are undertaking industrial action.
Our priority is to keep patients as safe as possible during any industrial action. The NHS makes every effort through rigorous contingency planning to minimise the disruption of industrial action and its impact on patients and the public. Assessments are made by local Trusts about levels of resourcing available, and they can escalate concerns via regions and nationally, where appropriate.
Asked by: Jim McMahon (Labour (Co-op) - Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton)
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 modernise whole system appointments to (a) improve patient access and (b) avoid missed appointments.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Digital transformation is revolutionising access to healthcare by putting patients at the centre of a modern, personalised, and data-driven service. The goal is to empower individuals with greater choice, transparency, and control over their care, while helping to reduce systemic health inequalities and drive digital modernisation across the National Health Service.
There are a range of changes that improve patient access to appointments and avoid missed appointments. Steps that we are taking to improve access include:
To avoid missed appointment we sent over 130 million appointment invitations and reminders via the NHS App in the last year, replacing paper letters and reducing delays. Digital reminders and the ability for patients to reschedule at the swipe of a button are helping to cut Did Not Attend rates, supporting elective recovery, and improving GP access. Analysis shows that these measures are contributing to reductions in hospital waiting lists and improving patient satisfaction.
Asked by: Jim McMahon (Labour (Co-op) - Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton)
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 possible generational links to suicide; and what support is available to children of people who have taken their own lives.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government has not made an assessment of possible generational links to suicide. The Suicide Prevention Strategy for England, published in 2023, identifies eight priority groups, including children and young people, for targeted and tailored support at a national level. Another key priority area is to improve support for people bereaved by suicide.
The purpose of the Suicide Prevention Strategy is to set out our aims to prevent suicide through action by working across Government and other organisations. One of the key visions of the strategy is to reduce the stigma surrounding suicide and mental health, so people feel able to seek help through the routes that work best for them. This includes raising awareness that no suicide is inevitable.
The Government is expanding access to mental health support teams in all schools and colleges to reach all pupils by 2029, ensuring that every pupil has access to early support services. This expansion will ensure that up to 900,000 more children and young people will have access to support from trained education mental health practitioners in 2025/26.
Asked by: Jim McMahon (Labour (Co-op) - Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton)
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 level of cancelled appointments as a result of strike action in the NHS since July 2024.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Health Service met its ambitious goal to maintain 95% of planned care during the November round of strike action, surpassing the 93% protected during action in July, while still maintaining critical services, including maternity services and urgent cancer care. Cancellations have reduced across successive periods of strikes. As a result of industrial action:
Asked by: Jim McMahon (Labour (Co-op) - Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions has he had with Northern Care Alliance on capital funding for additional parking at the Royal Oldham Hospital.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
My Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, has not held discussions with the Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust regarding capital funding for additional parking at the Royal Oldham Hospital. Decisions on the provision and capital funding of car parking are made locally by National Health Service organisations.
The Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust has been allocated over £211 million in operational capital funding for the 2026/27 to 2029/30 period. In addition, the Greater Manchester Integrated Care Board has been allocated over £18 million for this period. This funding may be utilised for additional parking at the Royal Oldham Hospital where this is a local priority.
Asked by: Jim McMahon (Labour (Co-op) - Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans are in place to build medium and long term NHS directly provided capacity to increase appointments in (a) diagnostic tests and (b) elective treatment.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
As set out in the Plan for Change, we are committed to returning by March 2029 to the National Health Service constitutional standard that 92% of patients wait no longer than 18 weeks from referral to consultant-led treatment. Increasing surgical and diagnostic capacity is a key part of our plan to deliver this ambition.
We are providing additional diagnostic and elective capacity through a mixture of investments in new equipment and facilities in acute hospitals and community settings, as well as improving utilising and the productivity of our existing assets.
Dedicated and protected surgical hubs transform the way the NHS provides elective care by focusing on providing high volume, low complexity surgery, as recommended by the Royal College of Surgeons of England. There are currently 123 operational surgical hubs across England, 23 of which have opened since the Government took office. We will expand the number of hubs over the next three years to increase surgical capacity and deliver faster access to common procedures.
Community diagnostic centres (CDCs) provide a broad range of elective diagnostics away from acute facilities, reducing pressure on hospitals and giving patients quicker and more convenient access to tests. CDCs are now delivering additional tests and checks on 170 sites across the country. We will expand existing CDCs, as well as building up to five new ones in 2025/26. We are also committed to opening CDCs 12 hours per day, seven days a week.
This is supported by £6 billion of additional capital investment over five years for diagnostic, elective, urgent, and emergency capacity in the NHS. This includes £1.65 billion of capital funding in 2025/26 to deliver new surgical hubs, diagnostic scanners, and beds to increase capacity for elective and emergency care.
We will create an NHS fit for the future, modernising care so that it takes place efficiently and closer to home, prioritising patient experience and ensuring that wherever you live in England, you will be seen, diagnosed, and treated in a timely way.
Asked by: Jim McMahon (Labour (Co-op) - Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what cross government support is provided to local authorities to identify the location of, and those buried in, historic unmarked mass child graves in England such as those discovered in Royton, Oldham.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government recognises the distress caused to bereaved parents by these historic practices and we commend the work that families and charities have been doing to highlight this issue and support other bereaved parents. We are working across Government to better support parents searching for the final resting place of their child’s remains and will ensure they are given as much help as possible. Ministers from across Government will be meeting shortly to discuss this issue, to ensure effective cross-Government coordination and support for affected families.
Tracing a baby’s grave or a record of cremation can be a very difficult time for people both mentally and emotionally. It is important, therefore, that parents searching for the final resting place of their child’s remains are given as much help as possible. The Government expects all hospitals and burial and cremation authorities to assist by providing all information and records available to them, to any parents that enquire about what happened to their stillborn babies and their final resting place, in a timely manner.
The 2025/26 Local Government Finance Settlement makes available over £69 billion for local government. The majority of funding in the Local Government Finance Settlement is unringfenced, recognising that local leaders are best placed to identify local priorities.
Standards from the mid-1980s onwards brought an end to the historic practice of placing the remains of stillborn babies’ bodies in unmarked graves. The current death certification process means that this historic practice is no longer possible.
Asked by: Jim McMahon (Labour (Co-op) - Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment has been made of the volume, proportion and value of food waste in the NHS.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National standards for healthcare food and drink include instructions on the measurement, reductions, and monitoring of food waste. Production, spoilage, unserved and plate waste are the areas of focus. Further information is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/national-standards-for-healthcare-food-and-drink/
Data on food waste at National Health Service organisations is collected through the Estates Return Information Collection and is published at the following link:
The latest available figures are for 2024/25 and were published on 16 October 2025. As per these figures, there was 11,262 tonnes of domestic waste (food) weight, which represents 3% of the total waste, 377,079 tonnes, disposed of. This domestic waste cost £1,728,839, which represents 0.9% of the total waste disposal costs of £187,804,007.
Over recent years, we have significantly improved how we measure food waste, so any apparent increases are more likely to be due to better measurement rather than an actual rise in waste produced.
Asked by: Jim McMahon (Labour (Co-op) - Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what is the current working assumption for the Casey review into adult social care to start and conclude.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Independent Commission into Adult Social Care (the Commission), chaired by Baroness Louise Casey, formally began in April 2025. The Commission is in two phases: phase one will report in 2026, focusing on medium-term improvements using existing resources; and phase two will conclude by 2028, when the Commission publishes their report setting out long-term recommendations for transforming the system.
Asked by: Jim McMahon (Labour (Co-op) - Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton)
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 recent trends in the level of blood donations by blood type.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) is responsible for blood services in England. Since the amber alert for O group blood was lifted in July 2025, overall collections have remained strong, reaching 98% of the collection target, with an average of 119,500 units per month of blood collected, compared to 116,700 per month in the six months prior.
NHSBT still faces challenges in maintaining stocks of B-, O-, and Ro blood groups. NHSBT currently meets approximately 50% of the demand for Ro type blood, with the remaining demand met by safely substituting, typically with B- and O-. This places further pressure on stocks for these groups.
NHSBT has recently opened new donor centres and expanded the number of donation appointments available to grow its Ro, B-, and O- donor base and increase collections for these blood groups. Up-to-date blood stock statuses are available on NHSBT’s website at the following link:
https://hospital.blood.co.uk/business-continuity/blood-stocks