Asked by: Joe Robertson (Conservative - Isle of Wight East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what funding has been allocated for the improvement and expansion of the primary care estate in each of the last five financial years.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
There is no separate assessment of general practice (GP) premises as part of the Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) assessments of practices. The CQC’s Premises Regulations, primarily Regulation 15, mandate that care locations must be clean, suitable, secure, and properly maintained, ensuring safety for users. As of 15 January 2026, in England there are 5,520 GP surgeries rated as Good, 256 rated as Requires Improvement, and 20 rated as Inadequate. five locations have yet to be rated.
The Government recognises the importance of strategic, value for money investments in capital projects, such as new facilities, significant upgrades, or other targeted capital investments.
In May, we announced schemes which will benefit from the £102 million Primary Care Utilisation and Modernisation Fund to deliver upgrades to more than a thousand GP surgeries across England this financial year. These schemes will create additional clinical space within existing building footprints to enable practices to see more patients, boost productivity, and improve patient care.
NHS England is responsible for funding allocations to integrated care boards (ICBs). This process is independent of the Government, and NHS England takes advice on the underlying formula from the independent Advisory Committee on Resource Allocation (ACRA). The most recent allocations take into account an ACRA-recommended change specifically focused on rurality.
ICBs are responsible for commissioning, which includes planning, securing, and monitoring, GP services within their health systems through delegated responsibility from NHS England. The NHS has a statutory duty to ensure there are sufficient medical services, including general practices, in each local area. It should take account of population growth and demographic changes.
Asked by: Joe Robertson (Conservative - Isle of Wight East)
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 trends in the level of capacity pressures in secondary care, particularly at hospital front doors, including staffing levels and bed availability.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We continue to monitor the impact of winter pressures on the National Health Service over the winter months. The NHS has been preparing for winter this year with the development and thorough testing of winter plans. This includes the surge capacity and escalation plans in place across all NHS and urgent care services.
While pressure has remained high on acute hospitals, performance has been better than in previous years. Accident and emergency four-hour performance was 73.8% in December 2025, an improvement of 2.7% from 71.1%. Provisional data for December 2025 indicates that there were 101,200 General and Acute beds open for all acute trusts, 93,177 of which were occupied, a 92.1% occupancy rate.
There were 431,000 more accident and emergency attendances in year-to-date to December in 2025/26 compared to the same period in 2024/25, a growth rate of 2.1%. This is lower than the average annual growth rate of 3.9% seen between 2021/22 and 2024/25 but still represents an increase in pressure on accident and emergency departments. Growth in attendances at consultant-led type 1 accident and emergency departments was 1.8% in the year to date to December in 2025/26, greater than the average annual growth rate of 1.3% between 2021/22 and 2024/25.
The 10-Year Health Plan aims to expand urgent care capacity through Neighbourhood Health Services and virtual wards, enabling patients to receive care closer to home where clinically appropriate and easing pressure on hospitals.
The responsibility for staffing levels should remain with clinical and other leaders at a local level, responding to local needs, supported by guidelines by national and professional bodies, and overseen and regulated in England by the Care Quality Commission.
Asked by: Joe Robertson (Conservative - Isle of Wight East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many NICE positive recommendations in each year since 2023 were issued as optimised decisions; and what proportion of the eligible patient population was able to access those medicines on the NHS.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The following table shows the number of National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommendations since 2023 that have been issued as optimised decisions:
Year | Number | Percentage of all publications excluding terminations |
2023/24 | 37 | 48% |
2024/25 | 33 | 43% |
2025/26 | 21 | 44% |
Source: NICE
Notes:
The Government does not hold data on the proportion of the eligible patient population able to access those medicines on the National Health Service. Some data may be available via the innovation scorecard and estimates report, avaiable at the following link:
This is a publication which reports on the use of medicines and medicine groupings in the NHS in England which have been positively appraised by NICE, including some NICE optimised decisions.
Asked by: Joe Robertson (Conservative - Isle of Wight East)
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 quality of life for people being diagnosed, treated for or living with cancer under the National Cancer Plan .
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Cancer Plan will have patients at its heart and will cover the entirety of the cancer pathway, from referral and diagnosis to treatment and ongoing care, as well as prevention, and research and innovation. It will seek to improve every aspect of cancer care to better the experience and outcomes for people with cancer.
The plan will aim to improve how the physical and psychosocial needs of people with cancer can be met, with a focus on personalised care to improve quality of life. It will address how the experience of care can be improved for those diagnosed, treated, and living with and beyond cancer. The plan will be published early this year.
Asked by: Joe Robertson (Conservative - Isle of Wight East)
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 month-by-month progress that will be needed to be compliant with the NHS' 92 per cent 18-week target by March 2029; and what progress has been made to date in 2025-26.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
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.
NHS England’s 2025/26 priorities and operational planning guidance sets a national target to:
The NHS Medium Term Planning Framework sets out plans for 2026/27 to 28/29, with the expectation that local NHS organisations improve access and performance standards across core services over the next three years. This includes a target that 70% of patients wait no longer than 18 weeks by March 2027.
A number of providers have already made significant improvements in their referral to treatment performance according to published data, including within 2025/26, which demonstrates the progress we asked the system to deliver is possible.
Asked by: Joe Robertson (Conservative - Isle of Wight East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when he plans to publish data collected by his Department on the use 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.
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 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: Joe Robertson (Conservative - Isle of Wight East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will publish data on how many Activity Management Plans have been issued by NHS Integrated Care Boards to (a) NHS Trusts and (b) independent providers, how many reduced procedures that will cause between November 2025 and March 2026; and what justifications were provided by ICBs for issuing each AMP.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The specific information requested is not held by the Department. Activity management plans are contractual mechanisms within the NHS Standard Contract, used by integrated care boards (ICBs) to manage elective activity and financial control. They can be implemented when providers exceed their indicative activity plans, helping commissioners and providers plan demand, capacity, and expenditure. This information is therefore held at individual ICB level.
Asked by: Joe Robertson (Conservative - Isle of Wight East)
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 equity of access to to Start for Life services, including infant feeding, perinatal mental health and parent-infant relationship support across England.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Delivering integrated, joined-up health, education, and family support is at the heart of our ambition to raise the healthiest generation of children ever.
Healthy Babies, formerly Start for Life, funding is helping families during the critical 1,001 days, and as a result parents have said they are more confident in feeding their babies and have better perinatal mental health because of this support. We continue to assess how we can best support early-years service integration across the country and remain committed to working with delivery partners locally to achieve this.
Healthy Babies is one element of our broader commitment to supporting babies, children and families. From April 2026, Best Start Family Hubs will expand to every single local authority, backed by over £500 million to reach up to half a million more children and families. This funding will help all local authorities to integrate a range of statutory and non-statutory health and family services.
Best Start Family Hubs will form part of the architecture of the Neighbourhood Health Service. Through the shifts from hospital to community and treatment to prevention, we will further strengthen integration and join-up of services, helping to ensure that babies and their families can get the support they need, when and where they need it.
Asked by: Joe Robertson (Conservative - Isle of Wight East)
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 impact on the roll-out of Best Start Family Hubs and wider neighbourhood health integration if local authorities without existing Start for Life funding are unable to establish core services.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Delivering integrated, joined-up health, education, and family support is at the heart of our ambition to raise the healthiest generation of children ever.
Healthy Babies, formerly Start for Life, funding is helping families during the critical 1,001 days, and as a result parents have said they are more confident in feeding their babies and have better perinatal mental health because of this support. We continue to assess how we can best support early-years service integration across the country and remain committed to working with delivery partners locally to achieve this.
Healthy Babies is one element of our broader commitment to supporting babies, children and families. From April 2026, Best Start Family Hubs will expand to every single local authority, backed by over £500 million to reach up to half a million more children and families. This funding will help all local authorities to integrate a range of statutory and non-statutory health and family services.
Best Start Family Hubs will form part of the architecture of the Neighbourhood Health Service. Through the shifts from hospital to community and treatment to prevention, we will further strengthen integration and join-up of services, helping to ensure that babies and their families can get the support they need, when and where they need it.
Asked by: Joe Robertson (Conservative - Isle of Wight East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how the decision to prioritise continuation funding for the existing 75 Start for Life local authority areas aligns with the commitment in the 10-Year Health Plan for England to expand Start for Life services across all communities.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The 10-Year Health Plan sets out an ambitious agenda to how we will improve the nation’s health by creating a new model of care that is fit for the future.
We recognise that local authorities are ambitious, seeking to deliver universal support to families and prevent escalating need. We are committed to delivering the 10-Year Health Plan ambition to match Healthy Babies, formerly Start for Life, to Best Start Family Hubs over the next decade.