Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what level of recurrent funding has been identified by NHS England to fund the recommendations of new treatments considered by NHS England’s next Clinical Priorities Advisory Group Prioritisation meeting in Spring 2026.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England is not able to provide the level of recurrent funding identified at this point to support the next Clinical Priorities Advisory Group prioritisation meeting. This would risk disclosing commercially confidential information.
Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if NHS England Specialised Commissioning will consider a second prioritisation meeting this year of the Clinical Priorities Advisory Group to reduce the 20 treatments currently being considered, in addition to the meeting in Spring 2026.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England’s Clinical Priorities Advisory Group (CPAG) prioritisation meetings are held annually and are aligned to NHS England's annual financial planning cycle.
The next prioritisation meeting is planned for spring 2026, where policies that are ready and require investment decisions will be considered. It is expected that up to 20 such policies will be considered at that meeting. CPAG also meets monthly to consider clinical policies and service specifications that are categorised as cost saving or cost neutral, enabling progress to be made outside of the annual prioritisation round.
There are currently no plans to hold an additional prioritisation meeting this year beyond the meeting scheduled for spring 2026.
Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, when his Department last reviewed the Child Maintenance Service’s policy framework for modern shared‑care arrangements; and whether the Service plans to reform its policies on cases where both parents actively share day‑to‑day parenting responsibilities.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government recognises that shared care arrangements can play an important role in supporting children to maintain relationships with both parents after separation.
In the child maintenance system, shared care is reflected in the maintenance calculation. Where a child stays overnight with the paying parent for at least one night a week on average, the amount of maintenance due is reduced to reflect the care provided.
If the Child Maintenance Service is satisfied that both parents have equal day-to-day care for the child, in addition to sharing overnight care, there is no requirement for either parent to pay child maintenance.
Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what plans his Department has to review the internal complaints process of the Child Maintenance Service.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS), as part of the Department for Work and Pensions, follows the Department’s standard complaints procedure.
The CMS regularly reviews complaint data, including insights from the Independent Case Examiner, to identify key themes and trends, which they use to drive improvements to the complaint handling process. Furthermore, lessons learned are regularly presented to operational teams, supporting them to deliver effective interventions at the initial stage of the complaint and thereby improve the overall customer experience.
The CMS remains focussed on taking pro-active steps to improve the customer experience, developing its customer service strategy to focus on improving current and future service throughout the customer journey.