Asked by: Lee Dillon (Liberal Democrat - Newbury)
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 adequate supporting services to enable swift discharges from hospital in winter 2025-26.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Urgent and Emergency Care plan for 2025/26 identifies reducing delays in hospital discharge as a key priority. Hospitals are expected to eliminate discharge delays of more than 48 hours caused by in-hospital issues, to work with local authorities to tackle the longest delays, starting with those over 21 days, and to profile discharges by pathway to support local planning. Further information on the Urgent and Emergency Care plan for 2025/26 is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/urgent-and-emergency-care-plan-2025-26/
In addition, the 2025/26 policy framework for the £9 billion Better Care Fund requires the National Health Service and local authorities to jointly agree local goals for reducing discharge delays. This can include intermediate care and reablement support services which primarily focus on providing individuals with a short-term period of rehabilitation or reablement to maximise independence. These services can either follow a discharge from hospital, known as step-down, or provide an alternative to hospital or care home admission, known as step-up. Further information on the Better Care Fund policy framework is available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/better-care-fund-policy-framework-2025-to-2026
Asked by: Lee Dillon (Liberal Democrat - Newbury)
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 reduce the number of patients waiting for longer than 12 hours in A&E.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government recognises that urgent and emergency care performance has fallen short in recent years. We are committed to restoring accident and emergency waiting times to the NHS Constitutional standard.
Provisional NHS England data for November 2025 shows that 7.2% of patients in England waited over 12 hours from arrival, an improvement from 10.8% in November 2024. Please note that these figures are provisional and may be subject to revision with finalised data published the following month. Both provisional and finalised data can be accessed at the following link:
Our Urgent and Emergency Care Plan for 2025/26 sets out a fundamental shift in the approach to urgent and emergency care, aiming to reduce the number of patients waiting over 12 hours for admission or discharge to less than 10%. This is supported by nearly £450 million of capital investment to expand urgent and emergency care services across the country.
Asked by: Lee Dillon (Liberal Democrat - Newbury)
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 reduce gynaecology waiting lists.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Reducing waiting lists is a key part of the Government’s Health Mission, and we are committed to cutting waiting times across all specialities, including gynaecology. We have committed to return to the National Health Service constitutional standard, that 92% of patients wait no longer than 18 weeks from referral to treatment, by March 2029.
We are making good progress, with waiting lists cut by over 230,000 since the Government came into office, including nearly 14,000 fewer waits for gynaecology treatment.
We also delivered 5.2 million additional appointments between July 2024 and June 2025, exceeding our pledge of two million. However, we know there is more to do, and have confirmed over £6 billion of additional capital investment to expand capacity across diagnostics, electives, and urgent care. This includes expanding the number of surgical hubs, which provide valuable and protected capacity across elective specialities, including gynaecology. As of November 2025, over half of the 123 operational elective surgical hubs in England provide gynaecology services.
The Elective Reform Plan, published in January 2025, also committed to:
Asked by: Lee Dillon (Liberal Democrat - Newbury)
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 reduce public stigma surrounding age-related hearing loss.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government recognises the impact that age-related hearing loss can have on people’s lives, and that the challenges they face can be exacerbated by stigma surrounding the condition.
It is important that people with age-related hearing loss are actively supported and empowered to lead the lives they want for themselves and their families, and NHS England is working with partners to support people in England to age well. In 2017, NHS England published a guide for commissioners and health and social care providers to support older people with hearing loss to maintain health, wellbeing, and independence. This guide is available at the following link:
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has also published guidelines, titled Hearing loss in adults: assessment and management, which aims to improve the lives of adults with hearing loss by advising healthcare staff on assessing and managing hearing loss in primary, community, and secondary care settings. This guide is also available at the following link:
The Government recognises the pivotal role that local authorities, and adult social care specifically, play in nurturing local communities and helping people to live as independent and fulfilling lives as possible. We are progressing towards a National Care Service based on higher quality of care, greater choice and control, and better joined-up services, with over £4 billion of additional funding available for adult social care by 2028/29.
Asked by: Lee Dillon (Liberal Democrat - Newbury)
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 potential impact of South Central Ambulance Service’s decision on crew break arrangements on ambulance wait times in Newbury.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
No specific assessment has been made. Operational arrangements such as scheduling and management of crew breaks is the responsibility of individual ambulance trusts which are required to comply with United Kingdom employment law and National Health Service contractual standards.
The South Central Ambulance NHS Foundation Trust is currently piloting a new approach to ambulance crew breaks. The change is designed for the benefit of both staff and patients, supporting crews to take their meal breaks at allocated times alongside responding effectively to patient demand by maintaining coverage over the region during peak periods.
Asked by: Lee Dillon (Liberal Democrat - Newbury)
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 tackle health inequalities affecting women.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to building a fairer Britain, to ensure people can live well for longer. Our reimagined National Health Service will tackle inequalities in both access and outcomes, as well as give everyone, no matter who they are or where they come from, the means to engage with the NHS on their own terms. This financial year the Department has invested approximately £53 million in direct research awards on research to support the health of women. This includes conditions that are unique to women, such as endometriosis, and health topics that are relevant to women, such as violence and abuse.
Significant progress has been made towards delivering the ambitions in the 2022 Women’s Health Strategy, for example improving women and girls’ awareness and access to services and driving research to benefit women’s health, but we know there is more to do.
That is why we are renewing the Women’s Health Strategy, to assess the progress that has been made so far, and to continue progressing delivery.
The renewed strategy will update on the delivery of the 2022 Women’s Health Strategy and set out how the Government is taking further steps to improve women’s health as we deliver the 10-Year Health Plan. It will also address gaps from the 2022 strategy and drive further change on enduring challenges, such as creating a system that listens to women and tackling health inequalities.
Asked by: Lee Dillon (Liberal Democrat - Newbury)
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 with the South Central Ambulance Service to reduce ambulance wait times for people in Newbury constituency.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government recognises that in recent years ambulance response times have not met the high standards patients should expect.
We are determined to turn things around and have taken serious steps to achieve this. Our Urgent and Emergency Care Plan for 2025/26, backed by almost £450 million of capital investment, commits to reducing ambulance response times for Category 2 incidents to 30 minutes on average this year. The South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SCAS) has a dedicated Category 2 performance team driving improvements through targeted interventions.
We have already seen improvements in ambulance response times in SCAS, which serves Newbury. The latest NHS performance figures for SCAS show that Category 2 incidents were responded to in 31 minutes 54 seconds on average, over six minutes faster the same month last year.
Asked by: Lee Dillon (Liberal Democrat - Newbury)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what support he is providing to the Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire Integrated Care Board to ensure that people are receiving timely treatment for brain cancer.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department recognises that there are currently limited treatment options available for people who have been diagnosed with brain tumours, and the significant impact that rarer forms of cancer can have on patients, carers, and their families. The Government is invested in driving new lifesaving and life-improving research, supporting those diagnosed and living with brain tumours.
We have already invested £70 million in replacing outdated radiotherapy machines across the National Health Service with new cutting-edge technology that will speed up treatment for thousands of patients, and this includes a new machine to be situated in the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust.
Additionally, the Government supports Scott Arthur’s Private Members Bill on rare cancers which will make it easier for clinical trials into rare cancers, such as brain cancers, to take place across England by ensuring the patient population can be easily contacted by researchers. This will ensure that the NHS will remain at the forefront of medical innovation and is able to provide patients with the newest, most effective treatment options and ultimately boost survival rates.
Early next year, the Government will publish a National Cancer Plan which will set out targeted actions to reduce lives lost to cancers and improve the experience of patients, including those with brain cancer.
Asked by: Lee Dillon (Liberal Democrat - Newbury)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to update guidance to GPs on beginning conversations with men at risk of prostate cancer.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
My Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care will consider the final recommendation of the UK National Screening Committee on screening for prostate cancer when it is received. At that point, he will make a decision on implementation, including any resources that may be required for general practitioners and other healthcare professionals to support his decision.
It is anticipated that the final recommendation will be provided in early 2026 after the conclusion of a 12 week consultation which opened on 28 November 2025. This seeks views on an evidence review and a draft recommendation to:
Asked by: Lee Dillon (Liberal Democrat - Newbury)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what support is available to the Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire Integrated Care Board to increase community audiology services across West Berkshire.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Integrated care boards (ICBs) have a statutory responsibility to commission cost-effective healthcare to meet the needs of their local population. This includes the arrangement of community audiology services.
The Medium Term Planning Framework – delivering change together 2026/27 to 2028/29 sets a clear target for systems to work to, in order to reduce long waits for community services. By 2028/29, at least 80% of community health services activity should take place within 18 weeks. In addition, to support the shift to neighbourhood health, systems have been asked to increase community health service capacity to meet the growth in demand and to work to standardise the provision of core services.
Systems have also been asked to improve productivity across community health services, by identifying and acting on productivity opportunities, including ensuring teams have the digital tools and equipment they need to connect remotely to health systems and patients, and to expand point-of-care testing in the community.