Asked by: Lauren Edwards (Labour - Rochester and Strood)
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 ensure that hospice contracts reflect (a) the cost of the services they provide and (b) the needs of their local populations.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for the commissioning of palliative care and end of life care services, to meet the needs of their local populations. To support ICBs in this duty, NHS England has published statutory guidance and service specifications. NHS England has developed a palliative care and end of life care dashboard, which brings together all relevant local data in one place. The dashboard helps commissioners understand the palliative care and end of life care needs of their local population.
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 that voluntary sector organisations, including hospices, also play in providing support to people at the end of life and their loved ones.
Most hospices are charitable, independent organisations which receive some statutory funding for providing NHS services. The amount of funding each charitable hospice receives varies both within and between ICB areas. This will vary depending on the demand in that ICB area but will also be dependent on the totality and type of palliative and end of life care provision from both NHS and non-NHS services, including charitable hospices, within each ICB area.
The Government and the NHS will closely monitor the shift towards the strategic commissioning of palliative care and end of life care services to ensure that services reduce variation in access and quality, although some variation may be appropriate to reflect both innovation and the needs of local populations.
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.
Additionally, 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 can also now confirm the continuation of this vital funding for the three years of the next Spending Review period, from 2026/27 to 2028/29 inclusive. This funding will see approximately £26 million, adjusted for inflation, allocated to children and young people’s hospices in England each year, via their local ICBs and on behalf of NHS England, as happened in 2024/25 and 2025/26. This amounts to approximately £80 million over the next three years.
Asked by: Lauren Edwards (Labour - Rochester and Strood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what general training all hospital and general practice staff are expected to receive in order to understand the needs of neuro-divergent and autistic patients; and what plans he has to improve the quality of such training in the future.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Under the Health and Care Act 2022, all Care Quality Commission registered providers are required to ensure their staff receive specific training on learning disability and autism, appropriate to their role. This training will ensure staff can provide safe, informed care which caters for the needs of people with a learning disability and autistic people. The Oliver McGowan Code of Practice has been published to guide providers on how to meet the statutory requirement on learning disability and autism training under the Health and Care Act 2022. The Code became final on 6 September 2025. The Code sets out four standards which outline minimum training requirements including: expectations on training content at different levels; that training is co-produced and co-delivered with people with lived experience; and how training should be monitored and evaluated. The Code is available at the following link:
We are rolling out the Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on Learning Disability and Autism (Oliver’s Training) to the health and adult social care workforce, which is the government’s preferred training package. Over three million people have completed the first part of this training, which is freely available on the NHS elearning for health hub. A long-term independent evaluation conducted by the University of Leicester is underway to assess the delivery and impact of Oliver’s Training.
Asked by: Lauren Edwards (Labour - Rochester and Strood)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to extend mental health education in schools to (a) colleges and (b) post-16 institutions.
Answered by Janet Daby
The department has made health education compulsory in all state-funded schools, helping pupils to make good decisions about their health and wellbeing and seek support when needed.
While there is no national curriculum in post-16, the government encourages a whole-institution approach to mental health and wellbeing. This includes supporting the Association of Colleges in their goal for 100% sign-up to their Mental Health Charter and to align it with the University Mental Health Charter.
All further education (FE) colleges are funded to provide health and wellbeing tuition as part of their extra-curricular personal development activities. Many FE colleges have counselling services providing mental health support and 41% of learners in post-16 institutions are now covered by NHS-funded mental health support teams.
The government is committed to continuing the higher education (HE) Mental Health Implementation Taskforce. The Taskforce includes students, parents, mental health experts and the HE sector, and the government will soon appoint a new HE Student Support Champion as chair.
Asked by: Lauren Edwards (Labour - Rochester and Strood)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to support older people to remain in work.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Government knows that work helps everyone play active and fulfilling roles in society while building financial security for retirement. The Department is therefore committed to supporting older workers through a wide-ranging strategy that promotes inclusion, flexibility, and progression. This includes promoting age-inclusive practices, supporting workplace health, policy and service reform and removing age related barriers to employment. The Department has also signed up to and actively promotes the Age-Friendly Employer Pledge, encouraging employers to adopt flexible working, age-positive hiring, and career development.
Our Jobs and Careers service will enable everyone to access support to find good, meaningful work, and help them progress in work or increase their earnings. The Jobs and Careers Service will incorporate principles of accessibility and inclusivity, acknowledging diverse support needs, including those of older individuals.
The Government also acknowledges the key role employers play in helping older individuals to remain in the workforce, and the importance of embracing policies conducive to this support. In recognition of employer's vital role, we have asked Sir Charlie Mayfield to lead an independent ‘Keep Britain Working’ review. This review is considering recommendations to support and enable employers to promote healthy and inclusive workplaces. This includes the perspectives of older people themselves, as well as input from organisations like the Centre for Ageing Better. Recommendations are expected in autumn 2025.
Asked by: Lauren Edwards (Labour - Rochester and Strood)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of the causes of economic inactivity related to poor health.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
There were 2.8m people who were economically inactive with long-term sickness as their main reason in the UK in April to June 2025.1 This group accounts for 30.7% of the total inactive population and is the most common reason given for inactivity; this percentage has increased by 5.6 percentage points since December to February 2020 but had been increasing since before the pandemic. The largest absolute increases have been for women, people with a long-term mental health condition and proportionately for people aged 18 to 34.2
At present, there is no conclusive evidence on the causes of poor health related economic inactivity. A range of complex and interacting factors could be driving the rise in economic inactivity due to long-term sickness including NHS waiting lists3,4, long COVID5 and changes in the demographics6 and health of the population7,8,9.
1 A01: Summary of labour market statistics - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)
2 The employment of disabled people 2024 - GOV.UK
5 Self-reported long COVID and labour market outcomes, UK: 2022 - Office for National Statistics
6 Population changes and economic inactivity trends, UK: 2019 to 2026 - Office for National Statistics
9 What we know about the UK’s working-age health challenge - The Health Foundation
Asked by: Lauren Edwards (Labour - Rochester and Strood)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has any plans to reopen Senior Mental Health Lead training grants.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The government has committed to expand coverage of mental health support teams (MHSTs) to cover every school, and one of the functions of an MHST is to support mental health leads to introduce or develop a whole school or college approach in their setting.
Training grants for mental health leads in education settings were available from October 2021 until December 2024.
Demand for training grants fell in the final months of the scheme and education staff surveys identified a different need, for practical resources. The department now provides a mental health lead resource hub, a targeted support toolkit for schools and colleges.
There are no plans to re-open the scheme providing mental health lead training grants.
Asked by: Lauren Edwards (Labour - Rochester and Strood)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps his Department is taking to improve (a) transparency and (b) awareness of health support in workplaces.
Answered by Justin Madders
To support health in the workplace, the landmark Employment Rights Bill will boost access to Statutory Sick Pay and make it more likely that flexible working requests are accepted. We have published our Plan for Small Businesses, which provides positive and practical support to small and medium size businesses and employers across the UK.
In recognition of employers’ vital role in workplace health, the Secretaries of State for Work and Pensions and Business and Trade have commissioned the Keep Britain Working independent review, led by Sir Charlie Mayfield, who is expected to produce a final report with recommendations in autumn 2025.
Asked by: Lauren Edwards (Labour - Rochester and Strood)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps he is taking to incentivise businesses to support the health of their workforce.
Answered by Justin Madders
To support health in the workplace, the landmark Employment Rights Bill will boost access to Statutory Sick Pay and make it more likely that flexible working requests are accepted. We have published our Plan for Small Businesses, which provides positive and practical support to small and medium size businesses and employers across the UK.
In recognition of employers’ vital role in workplace health, the Secretaries of State for Work and Pensions and Business and Trade have commissioned the Keep Britain Working independent review, led by Sir Charlie Mayfield, who is expected to produce a final report with recommendations in autumn 2025.
Asked by: Lauren Edwards (Labour - Rochester and Strood)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps he is taking to ensure SMEs can access (a) robust and (b) high-quality mental health training for staff.
Answered by Justin Madders
To support health in the workplace, the landmark Employment Rights Bill will boost access to Statutory Sick Pay and make it more likely that flexible working requests are accepted. We have published our Plan for Small Businesses, which provides positive and practical support to small and medium size businesses and employers across the UK.
In recognition of employers’ vital role in workplace health, the Secretaries of State for Work and Pensions and Business and Trade have commissioned the Keep Britain Working independent review, led by Sir Charlie Mayfield, who is expected to produce a final report with recommendations in autumn 2025.
Asked by: Lauren Edwards (Labour - Rochester and Strood)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she plans to implement recommendation 1 of the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel national review into safeguarding children with disabilities and complex needs in residential settings, published in October 2022.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel’s recommendations for safeguarding children with disabilities and complex health needs in residential settings were set out in their phase 2 report published in April 2023. Recommendation 1 concerned the provision of specialist non-instructed advocacy services.
The department is determined to improve the provision of advocacy services. We will publish updated statutory guidance on the provision of effective advocacy services under the Children Act 1989 and updated national standards for children’s advocacy services, later this year. The latter will include a new standard on non-instructed advocacy for children with complex needs and learning disabilities and new requirements for advocacy services in the safeguarding of children.
The government set out this information, including its commitment to publishing revised National Standards on Children’s Advocacy, in the report ‘Tackling child sexual abuse: progress update’ which was published on 8 April 2025 and is available on the government’s website.