Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much the Food Standards Agency has spent on translation and interpretation services in each of the last five years.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The following table show how much the Food Standards Agency spent on translation and interpretation services in each of the last five years:
| 2020/21 | 2021/22 | 2022/23 | 2023/24 | 2024/25 |
Expenditure on translation and interpretation services | £8,000 | £5,000 | £4,000 | Nil | Nil |
Data in the table relates to the Food Standards Agency’s Westminster budget. Expenditure in Wales and Northern Ireland, funded by the respective devolved administrations, has been excluded. Figures have been rounded to the nearest thousand.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps he has taken to train more GPs in Lincolnshire.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
As of 30 September 2025, there were 115 full-time equivalent general practitioners (GPs) in training grade in practices in Lincolnshire county. The Lincolnshire Integrated Care Board (ICB) reports that it has a very good track record of training GPs. This includes:
The Lincolnshire Training Hub, working alongside the ICB’s primary care team, has developed a comprehensive recruitment and retention programme, which has delivered projects including the Future Doctor Programme, an entry level pipeline schools’ initiative across Lincolnshire.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will list the titles of all the events organised by Civil Service networks in his Department since 2017.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The information is not held centrally by the Department and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many (a) single sex and (b) gender neutral bathroom facilities his Department provides in its premises.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department’s premises have 187 single sex cubicles, 62 urinals, and 11 non-gendered universal toilets which are individual self-contained lockable toilet rooms which contain a toilet, a washbasin, and hand-drying facilities. This is in addition to 34 wheelchair accessible toilets.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
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 increasing funding for palliative care services in (a) South Holland and the Deepings constituency and (b) Lincolnshire.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Palliative care services are included in the list of services an integrated care board (ICB) must commission, including the NHS Lincolnshire ICB, which covers the South Holland and The Deepings constituency. This promotes a more consistent national approach and supports commissioners in prioritising palliative care and end of life care. To support ICBs in this duty, NHS England has published statutory guidance and service specifications.
The statutory guidance states that ICBs must work to ensure that there is sufficient provision of palliative care and end of life care services to meet the needs of their local populations, which can include hospice services available within the ICB catchment.
We are supporting the hospice sector with a £100 million capital funding boost for eligible adult and children’s hospices in England to ensure they have the best physical environment for care.
We are also providing £26 million in revenue funding to support children and young people’s hospices for 2025/26. I am pleased to confirm the continuation of circa £26 million, adjusted for inflation, for the next three financial years, 2026/27 to 2028/29 inclusive, to be distributed again via ICBs. This amounts to approximately £80 million over the next three years.
More widely, the Department and NHS England are currently looking at how to improve the access, quality, and sustainability of all-age palliative care and end of life care in line with the 10-Year Health Plan.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what information his Department holds on the number of men treated for prostate cancer in (a) South Holland and the Deeping constituency and (b) Lincolnshire in 2024.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department holds information on the number of patients treated for prostate cancer broken down into trusts rather than constituencies. However, using data from the three main trusts in South Holland and the Deeping constituency and Lincolnshire, it is possible to provide the number of patients treated for prostate cancer in 2024 at these trusts.
The three trusts that the data comes from are the North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust, the Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust, and the United Lincolnshire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. The number of patients treated for prostate cancer at each trust was 1,170, 532, and 1,333 respectively.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what quantity of illegal meat was seized from (a) shops and (b) restaurants in England in each of the last five years.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) does not hold United Kingdom-wide local authority seizure data centrally. This data is held by individual local authorities.
Where a non-compliant product, for example illegal meat, is identified in-land, the FSA works closely with local authority partners. These partners are responsible for this aspect of enforcement and for the removal of non-compliant products from potential sale in the UK market. This work is supported by the FSA’s National Food Crime Unit, in conjunction with wider FSA teams.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
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 children's palliative care services in Lincolnshire.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Palliative care services, including children’s palliative care services, are included in the list of services an integrated care board (ICB) must commission. To support ICBs, including the Lincolnshire ICB, in this duty, NHS England has published statutory guidance and a service specification for children and young people. The statutory guidance states that ICBs must work to ensure that there is sufficient provision of care services to meet the needs of their local populations.
The Department and NHS England are currently working at pace to develop plans on how best to improve the access, quality, and sustainability of all-age palliative care and end of life care in line with the 10-Year Health Plan.
Whilst the majority of palliative care and end of life care is provided by National Health Service staff and services, we recognise the vital part charitable hospices play as well. This is why we are supporting the hospice sector with a £100 million capital funding boost for eligible adult and children’s hospices in England to ensure they have the best physical environment for care. St Andrew’s Hospice, which serves children in Lincolnshire, is receiving £370,356 from this funding.
We are also providing £26 million in revenue funding to support children and young people’s hospices for 2025/26. St Andrew’s Hospice is receiving £372,000 from this funding.
I am pleased to confirm the continuation of approximately £26 million, adjusted for inflation, for the next three financial years, from 2026/27 to 2028/29 inclusive, to be distributed again via ICBs. This amounts to approximately £80 million over the next three years.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans NHS England Digital has in place to ensure that critical services continue to operate in the event of a major internet outage.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England ensures that its digital services are built with resilience and redundancy at their core. Critical systems are supported by robust technical architecture designed to maintain continuity where possible during disruptions. We have resilience in our internet access by having multiple connections and we are resilient to local and regional outages. However, a national internet outage would put all digital systems under pressure.
There are comprehensive business continuity plans and disaster recovery processes in place to mitigate digital service disruptions, which are regularly tested and reviewed to aid recovery from significant events.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
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 help support men to access PSA blood tests on the NHS to check for early warning signs of prostate cancer.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department continues to work with NHS England in the ongoing Help Us Help You Campaigns to raise awareness of prostate cancer and ensure men have access to the information and services they need to make informed decisions about their health.
Men who are concerned about their risk of prostate cancer, or who are experiencing symptoms, are encouraged to discuss prostate specific antigen (PSA) testing with their general practitioner (GP). The National Institute for of Health and Care Excellence has developed guidance for referring patients if prostate cancer is suspected after a physical examination using the suspected cancer referral pathway. The guidance advises clinicians to consider PSA testing only for those with certain symptoms outlined in the guidance.
The Government also published guidance for GP’s on advising men without symptoms of prostate cancer who ask about the PSA test. The guidance advises GPs should use their clinical judgement to manage asymptomatic men and those who they consider to be at increased risk of prostate cancer.