Asked by: Liz Jarvis (Liberal Democrat - Eastleigh)
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 trends in the level of patients previously without access to NHS dental care being able to register with an NHS dentist since July 2024.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Patients in England are not registered with a National Health Service dental practice, although many NHS dental practices do tend to see patients regularly. There is no geographical restriction on which practice a patient may attend. Some dental practices may operate local waiting list arrangements.
We are aware of the challenges in accessing an NHS dentist and we are committed to tackling dental access for patients. The Government plans to tackle the challenges for patients trying to access NHS dental care with a rescue plan to provide 700,000 more urgent dental appointments and recruit new dentists to the areas that need them most. To rebuild dentistry in the long term, we will reform the dental contract with the sector, with a shift to focus on prevention and the retention of NHS dentists.
Asked by: Liz Jarvis (Liberal Democrat - Eastleigh)
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 trends in the level of dental surgery closures in Hampshire since July 2024.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Health Service contracts with independent dental providers, to deliver NHS dental treatment in primary care settings. This means that providers can terminate their contracts within the required terms of the contract, including a notice period. NHS England and the integrated care boards across England work together to ensure that patients who are affected by closures of NHS dental practices will continue to have access to the dental care they need.
The Government plans to tackle the challenges for patients trying to access NHS dental care with a rescue plan to provide 700,000 more urgent dental appointments and recruit new dentists to the areas that need them most. To rebuild dentistry in the long term, we will reform the dental contract with the sector, with a shift to focus on prevention and the retention of NHS dentists.
Patients in England are not registered with an NHS dental practice, although many NHS dental practices do tend to see patients regularly. There is no geographical restriction on which practice a patient may attend. Some dental practices may operate local waiting list arrangements.
Asked by: Liz Jarvis (Liberal Democrat - Eastleigh)
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 access to NHS dentistry in Eastleigh constituency.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government plans to tackle the challenges for patients trying to access National Health Service dental care with a rescue plan to provide 700,000 more urgent dental appointments and recruit new dentists to the areas that need them most. To rebuild dentistry in the long term, we will reform the dental contract with the sector, with a shift to focus on prevention and the retention of NHS dentists.
The responsibility for commissioning primary care services, including NHS dentistry, to meet the needs of the local population has been delegated to the integrated care boards (ICBs) across England. For the Eastleigh constituency, this is the Hampshire and Isle of Wight ICB.
ICBs have been asked to start making extra urgent dental appointments available from April 2025. The Hampshire and Isle of Wright ICB is expected to deliver 30,032 additional urgent dental appointments as part of the scheme.
ICBs have started to recruit posts through the Golden Hello scheme. This recruitment incentive will see up to 240 dentists receiving payments of £20,000 to work in those areas that need them most for three years.
Asked by: Liz Jarvis (Liberal Democrat - Eastleigh)
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 help increase public awareness of (a) frailty of and (b) fall prevention among people aged 65 and over.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Health Service website has public information and advice on fall prevention. The Chartered Society of Physiotherapy’s (CSP) Get up and go – a guide to staying steady is a 32-page guide for the public and patients on how to prevent falls, and was produced by Saga in partnership with the CSP and the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities.
To help healthcare systems support people living with frailty, NHS England has developed a RightCare frailty toolkit. The RightCare toolkit aims to support systems to understand the priorities in frailty care and the key actions to take. It provides a way to assess and benchmark current systems, in order to find opportunities for improvement.
NHS England’s Falls and Fragility Fractures RightCare Pathway defines the core components of an optimal service for people who have suffered from a fall or who are at risk of falls and fragility fractures. It recommends that the commissioners responsible for falls and fragility fractures for their population should work across the system to ensure that schemes to deliver the higher value interventions are in place.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has also recently published guidance in April 2025 on the assessment and prevention of falls in older people and in people aged 50 years old and over who are at higher risk. The guidance aims to reduce the risk and incidence of falls, and the associated distress, pain, injury, loss of confidence, loss of independence, and mortality.
Asked by: Liz Jarvis (Liberal Democrat - Eastleigh)
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 help improve the (a) recruitment and (b) retention of staff in the NHS cancer workforce.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Recruitment to National Health Service roles is managed locally by trusts and systems. However, NHS England is taking a range of actions to support the recruitment and retention of staff in the NHS cancer workforce.
To grow the workforce, NHS England has been expanding specialty training places in key cancer professions, including histopathology, clinical radiology, and gastroenterology. Targeted national campaigns and outreach activities, for example in clinical oncology, also promote cancer career pathways, with a focus on increasing applications.
To improve retention, NHS England is investing in structured career development and education support. The Aspirant Cancer Career and Education Development programme provides a nationally agreed framework for capability, career development, and education for nurses, allied health professionals, and the support workforce working in cancer care.
Asked by: Liz Jarvis (Liberal Democrat - Eastleigh)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he has to include (a) community equipment services and (b) the timely provision of community care equipment in the NHS 10-Year Plan.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government will deliver a National Health Service fit for the future, creating a truly modern health service designed to meet the changing needs of our changing population. Moving care from hospitals into the community and putting the building blocks in place to enable this to happen will be at the heart of the 10-Year Health Plan.
Asked by: Liz Jarvis (Liberal Democrat - Eastleigh)
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 ensure that cancer test results requested by secondary care are routinely shared with patients' GPs in a timely manner.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is supporting NHS England to ensure that information on diagnoses and treatment, including cancer test results, are shared between services routinely and in a timely manner.
NHS England has been supporting National Health Service trusts and foundation trusts in acquiring and developing the effectiveness of their electronic patient records, and support is available to bring trusts to an optimum level of digital maturity which will further reduce barriers to the sharing of information needed to treat patients. Further information can be found at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/data-and-clinical-record-sharing/
The Department supported the NHS’s Connecting Care Records programme which joins up information based on the individual rather than through one organisation. Through targeted investment, local Connecting Care Record systems have been established in all integrated commissioning board areas. 97% of trusts and 92% of primary care networks are now connected, in order to share information such as medications, allergies, test results, and clinical correspondence.
Furthermore, my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has announced the intention for there to be a single patient record which would provide a comprehensive patient record, reducing duplication when patients have to repeat their medical history when interacting with the NHS.
Asked by: Liz Jarvis (Liberal Democrat - Eastleigh)
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 adequacy of waiting times for cardiology services.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The latest data from March 2025 show that 60.9% of waits for cardiology services are within 18 weeks, which is a 1.6% improvement on the same month in the previous year. While this shows progress, we know there is more to do.
That is why, as well as our commitment to returning to the 92% referral-to-treatment standard for elective care by March 2029, the Elective Reform Plan commits to significant elective reform in cardiology. This includes a key milestone for 2025/26, as set out in National Health Service operational planning guidance, that by the end of March 2026, 65% of waits will be within 18 weeks, with the expectation of a 5% improvement from each provider.
Cardiology is one of five priority specialties identified for significant elective reform in the Elective Reform Plan, due to it being a large volume specialty with waiting list challenges and a high proportion of non-surgical care. Reforms will include increasing specialist cardiology input earlier in patient care pathways, and developing standard and efficient care pathways for common cardiology symptoms. It also includes improving access to cardiac diagnostic tests, including through implementing more straight-to-test pathways, where a general practitioner can refer a patient directly to secondary care for a test, which can reduce unnecessary outpatient appointments and improve waiting times even further for patients across England. These improvements to common cardiology pathways help standardise patient care, reduce inequalities, and improve access to care, especially in the early stages of the pathways, for patients across England.
Asked by: Liz Jarvis (Liberal Democrat - Eastleigh)
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 reduce waiting lists for audiology assessments.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England is supporting provider organisations and integrated care boards, who are the commissioners of audiology services, to improve performance and reduce waiting lists. This includes capital investment to upgrade audiology facilities in National Health Service trusts, expanding audiology testing capacity via community diagnostic centres, and direct support through a national audiology improvement collaborative.
Asked by: Liz Jarvis (Liberal Democrat - Eastleigh)
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 staffing shortages in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
This year the Department is investing an extra £688 million in children and young people’s mental health services. This will allow us to hire more staff, deliver more talking therapies, and get waiting lists down through our Plan for Change.
Early interventions in mental health support for young people can have positive ramifications for the rest of their lives. We will deliver on our commitment to get every child who needs it access to mental health support within school, and over the course of this year we will roll that support out to nearly a million extra children. Under Government plans, all pupils will have access to mental health support in school by 2029/30.
As part of our mission to build a National Health Service that is fit for the future and that is there when people need it, we will recruit 8,500 mental health workers across child and adult mental health services to help ease the pressure on busy services. We continue to work with NHS England to consider options to deliver this commitment, alongside publishing a refreshed workforce plan to deliver the transformed health service we will build over the next decade.
In addition, targeted retention work has been undertaken through the NHS Retention Programme which works with trusts to help them understand why staff have left. This has focused on better support for line managers and improved support for new joiners.