Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what guidance is provided to NHS Mental Health Trusts on involving families and carers in the care and support of mental health patients.
Answered by Preet Kaur Gill
The Community Mental Health Framework makes clear that families and carers should be involved in the design of services and in the assessment and delivery of care. It emphasises that assessment should be a collaborative, biopsychosocial process involving the individual, their families, carers and wider support network, based on communication, respect and shared understanding.
NHS England is also developing further guidance through the Mental Health Personalised Care Framework, which will support services to involve families, carers and support networks appropriately in care planning and delivery, as part of effective personalised care. In addition, the Culture of Care Standards highlight that high-quality inpatient mental health care should actively involve families and carers wherever possible, recognising the important knowledge they bring and the positive impact this can have on safety, continuity and recovery.
We have also launched a call for evidence to shape the new mental health strategy, which closes on 10 July 2026. The call for evidence is available at the following link:
https://consultations.dhsc.gov.uk/informing-the-mental-health-strategy-for-england
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, pursuant to the answer of 22 May 2026, to question 477 titled ICT: Public Sector, whether Open Source software is used at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport)
DSIT makes extensive use of open source software. The Government Digital Service within DSIT uses open source software in the delivery and operation of citizen-facing digital services, in line with the government’s “Be open and use open source” guidance. Services are built using open-source technologies including programming languages such as Java, Python and Ruby, alongside widely adopted platforms and tools, for example, PostgreSQL and Grafana to support data management, monitoring and observability.
We also follow the government’s “Making source code open and reusable” guidance and develop code in the open to encourage transparency, reuse and community collaboration. A well-known example is the open-source GOV.UK Frontend project, which is publicly available on GitHub.
Separately, the Incubator for AI is working with world-class AI researchers through the Open-Source AI Fellowship to demonstrate the real-world potential of open-source AI, tackling public sector challenges spanning transport, education, and policing.