Asked by: Marie Goldman (Liberal Democrat - Chelmsford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department will take steps to help ensure that health (a) boards and (b) trusts (i) collect and (ii) publish data on the provision of respiratory diagnostics.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Activity and waiting times for the main respiratory tests, for instance spirometry and lung function tests, are not included in the National Diagnostic Activity and Waiting Times Collection.
However, NHS England undertakes a number of internal assurance data collection exercises on activity and waiting times. The National Diagnostic Programme undertakes an annual snap-shot data collection on respiratory diagnostics to understand the levels of activity and waiting times for a range of respiratory tests within trusts across England.
NHS England’s Respiratory Programme, in collaboration with national stakeholders, has also developed a standardised spirometry data capture template. This tool is designed to support integrated care boards in consistently recording and reporting spirometry activity, enabling improved oversight, service planning, and equitable access to respiratory diagnostics.
There are no current plans to publish these collections.
Asked by: Marie Goldman (Liberal Democrat - Chelmsford)
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 (a) increase capacity and (b) reduce inequalities in accessing respiratory diagnosis.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to increasing the capacity of respiratory services and is improving access to these services through new community diagnostic centres (CDCs).
All standard and large CDCs are required to offer diagnostic respiratory tests such as spirometry and full lung function tests as part of their core testing offer.
The 2025/26 capital guidance confirmed that £1.65 billion of capital funding is being allocated to support National Health Service performance across secondary and emergency care across 2025/26 more broadly. This includes funding to enable the completion of 2024/25 CDC schemes, as well as to expand existing and build new CDCs.
Asked by: Marie Goldman (Liberal Democrat - Chelmsford)
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 the NHS is sufficiently staffed over summer holiday periods.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Individual NHS Trusts and other providers are responsible for ensuring that there are sufficient staff to provide safe care.
Trusts already have a duty to regularly review the number of staff and range of skills needed to safely meet the needs of people using their services.
Asked by: Marie Goldman (Liberal Democrat - Chelmsford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when his Department plans to publish (a) the full impact assessment and (b) equality impact assessment of the changes to the length of time between cervical cancer screenings.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Both the impact assessment and the equality impact assessment on the changes to the frequency of cervical screening have been published and are available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cervical-screening-risk-stratification-impact-assessments
Asked by: Marie Goldman (Liberal Democrat - Chelmsford)
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 tackle staff shortages in cancer care.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We will continue to ensure that we train the staff we need to ensure patients are cared for by the right professional, when and where they need it, and the cancer plan will reflect this. We will publish a new National Cancer Plan, which will include further details on how we will improve outcomes for cancer patients. The Government recognises that a cancer-specific approach is needed to meet the challenges in cancer care, and to improve outcomes for people living with cancer.
NHS England is currently improving the recruitment of radiographers and radiologists to improve earlier diagnosis and treatment of cancer, through a range of different initiatives. This includes increasing priority medical specialities, including clinical oncologists. We are also supporting employers to train new radiographers through the apprenticeship pathway. Furthermore, we will ensure that imaging training academies can increase training capacity in addition to reforming training to support rapid development for both radiologists and radiographers.
Asked by: Marie Goldman (Liberal Democrat - Chelmsford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will implement localised reporting of CAMHS (a) funding and (b) performance.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Every local integrated care board (ICB) has a legal duty to produce an annual report on how it has discharged its functions in the previous financial year. This provides the opportunity for ICBs to demonstrate the full breadth of their work with people and communities and involves people and communities in decision-making, and includes working with children and young people.
Asked by: Marie Goldman (Liberal Democrat - Chelmsford)
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 therapy waiting times for young people with mental health challenges.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is investing an extra £688 million this year to transform mental health services by hiring more staff, delivering more early interventions, and getting waiting lists down so children can have the best possible start in life. We are delivering on our commitment to recruit an additional 8,500 staff across children and adult mental health services by the end of the Parliament, with 6,700 of these extra workers having been recruited since July 2024.
We also want to intervene much earlier to support better outcomes for children and young people. That is why the 10-Year Health Plan sets out how we will work with schools and colleges to better identify and meet children's mental health needs by expanding mental health support teams in schools to cover 100% of pupils by 2029/30, and by embedding mental health support in the new Young Futures hubs, to ensure there is no 'wrong front door' for people seeking help.
Additionally, we are continuing to provide top-up funding of £7 million to 24 existing early support hubs to expand their services and to take part in an ongoing evaluation of these services in 2025/26. This funding will enable the supported hubs to deliver at least 10,000 additional mental health and wellbeing interventions, so that more children and young people are supported.
Asked by: Marie Goldman (Liberal Democrat - Chelmsford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the adequacy of provisions for involuntary mental health interventions for children and young adults.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Our aim is to ensure that children and young people are only detained under the Mental Health Act for involuntary mental health interventions when it is absolutely necessary.
The Mental Health Bill, currently being considered by the House of Commons, will strengthen the rights of children and young people detained under the act so they are involved in decisions about their care and so they can challenge these decisions. This includes statutory care and treatment plans, the right to choose a ‘Nominated Person’ to look after their interests, and expanded access to independent mental health advocates.
As part of our mission to build a National Health Service fit for the future, we are focussing treatment away from hospital and inpatient care and improving community and crisis services, so that fewer children and young people need to be detained in hospital.
We will also take action to ensure that young people in mental health inpatient settings are supported through a safe and effective transition to adult mental health services, to ensure they are treated with more dignity, given a greater say in their care, and that their health, education, and social needs are appropriately met.
Asked by: Marie Goldman (Liberal Democrat - Chelmsford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will take legislative steps to ensure vapes have a minimum number of refill options to be defined as reusable.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs introduced a ban on single use vapes on 1 June, which ensures that all products must be designed and intended to be reused. To be refillable, a product should have a replaceable pod or a tank that a user can add liquid to.
To compliment this and tackle youth vaping, the Department for Health and Social Care is also taking powers through the Tobacco and Vapes Bill to enable regulation of many features of the design of a vape. This may include regulations on the size of a tank or refill container, the amount of liquid that can be included, as well as powers to standardise the size and shape of vapes, and to further restrict liquid availability.
The Government will consider this issue further as part of its secondary legislation programme following Royal Assent of the bill.
Asked by: Marie Goldman (Liberal Democrat - Chelmsford)
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 impact of the Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework funding settlement for 2024-25 and 2025-26 on future levels of pharmacy closures.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework funding settlement for 2024/25 and 2025/26 provides the largest uplift in funding of any part of the National Health Service representing a 19.7% increase, with the total of £3.073 billion committed to community pharmacies.
The individual financial positions of pharmacy contractors are not visible to the Government. It is therefore not possible for the impact on pharmacy closures to be quantified. However, we expect that this significant increase in funding will support contractors and begin to stabilise a sector that has been neglected for too long. This settlement was agreed with Community Pharmacy England as the representatives for the community pharmacy sector.