Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many children under the age of 10 have been diagnosed as deaf across the UK.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
I refer the Hon. Member to the answer I gave on 21 October 2025 to Question 77507.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
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 workplace catering and break facilities for healthcare workers.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Good physical working environments are important for staff wellbeing and retention. Staff need to be given the time and space to rest and recover from their work, particularly when working on-call or overnight. This is recognised as a priority in the NHS People Promise which sets out the importance of employers prioritising spaces for staff to rest and recuperate, and ensuring access to hot food and drinks.
In May 2024, NHS England and NHS Charities Together launched a £10 million Workforce Wellbeing Programme to support National Health Service staff in England. It will provide tailored health and wellbeing support to NHS staff, including grants to improve facilities. A three-year programme of work named Great Food, Good Health, led by NHS England, aims to improve the experience and quality of nutritious food that patients, staff, and visitors receive in hospital. As part of this, the NHS made clear that NHS organisations must be able to demonstrate they have suitable 24/7 food service provision.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
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 reduce regional inequalities in the (a) access to and (b) quality of palliative and end of life care.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for commissioning palliative care services to meet the reasonable needs of their population. To support ICBs in this duty, NHS England has published statutory guidance and service specifications.
This further clarified in the recently published Strategic Commissioning Framework and Medium Term Planning Guidance, which makes clear the expectation that ICBs should understand current and projected service utilisation and costs, creating an overall plan to more effectively meet these needs through neighbourhood health.
The Government is developing a Palliative Care and End of Life Care Modern Service Framework for England. I refer the Hon. Members to the Written Ministerial Statement HCWS1087, which I gave to the House on 24 November 2025.
NHS England has developed a palliative and end of life care dashboard, which brings together all relevant local data in one place. The dashboard helps commissioners understand the palliative and end of life care needs of their local population, enabling ICBs to put plans in place to address and track the improvement of health inequalities, and ensure that funding is distributed fairly, based on prevalence.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
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 update healthcare professional regulation.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to modernising the regulatory frameworks for all healthcare professionals in the United Kingdom.
As a first step, we aim to consult on secondary legislation to modernise the General Medical Council’s regulatory framework in early 2026 and to lay this legislation before Parliament in the same year. We also plan to update the governing legislation of the Nursing and Midwifery Council and the Health and Care Professions Council, as well as introducing a statutory barring system for National Health Service managers in England, within the current parliamentary period.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
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 address the rising legal costs of clinical negligence.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The rising costs of clinical negligence claims against the National Health Service in England are of great concern to the Government. Costs have more than doubled in the last 10 years and are forecast to continue rising, putting further pressure on NHS finances.
As announced in the 10-Year Health Plan for England, David Lock KC is providing expert policy advice on the rising legal costs of clinical negligence and how we can improve patients’ experience of claims. The review is ongoing, following initial advice to ministers and the recent National Audit Office’s report.
The results of David Lock’s work will inform future policy making in this area. No decisions on policy have been taken at this point, and the Government will provide an update on the work done and next steps, in due course.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people have been admitted to hospital for self injecting botox in the last five years.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The requested data is not held centrally. NHS England does not routinely collect hospital admissions data specifically related to Botox or self-injected Botox.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people have been diagnosed with cardiovascular disease in the last year for which figures are available.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department does not hold information in the format requested. The cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention audit provides a count of the number of people with a general practice record of CVD. This information is available publicly at the following link:
https://www.cvdprevent.nhs.uk/