Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
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 effectiveness of the Yorkshire Outreach Programme for leukaemia monitoring; and whether he plans to roll that programme out nationally.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department commends the Yorkshire Outreach Programme for leukaemia monitoring, which supports more than 3,500 people across the region, and will consider the programme as we develop a new National Cancer Plan to improve patient outcomes.
For early-stage blood cancers, including leukaemia, early treatment is not always beneficial, with national and international clinical guidelines advising life-long monitoring to enable prompt intervention in the small group of patients who eventually need treatment. Models for monitoring these patients differ across England, with cancer alliances and integrated care boards rolling out programmes they have evaluated and have shown to improve benefits to patients, with oversight from NHS England.
The National Health Service is committed to ensuring that cancer patients have access to personalised care, including a needs assessment, a care plan, and health and wellbeing information and support. Personalised care includes provision of information, empowering people to manage their care and the impact of their cancer, ensuring that each person’s care is planned holistically, covering mental and physical health as well as any practical or financial concerns.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to take steps to enable all patients to book primary care appointments through the NHS app.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Currently, patients can book general practitioner (GP) appointments via the NHS App. Availability of GP appointments is dependent on practices making their appointments available online. Many practices use triage processes to make an initial assessment of patients’ needs, rather than making online appointments available with a GP on a ‘first come first served’ basis. Routine or planned appointments that do not require prior assessment, such as cervical screening, asthma reviews or regular B12 injections, are more likely to be made available in the NHS App.
Work is underway to understand how the NHS App can support patients, who have been triaged and assessed as needing an appointment, with the ability to find and book an appropriate appointment.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
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 potential implications for his policies of variations in commissioning by integrated care systems of digital solutions for primary care.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Integrated care boards (ICBs) are the responsible commissioning bodies for digital technology in general practice. ICBs support practices to source the digital tools and services they need to deliver the requirements of the GP contract, as set out in the GP IT Operating Model. They also help practices with business change, training and optimisation to help practice staff use new technology safely and effectively.
NHS England provides commercial and procurement support to help ICBs ensure all digital solutions in general practice meet nationally specified clinical safety and technical standards, and minimum capabilities to support the digitally enabled shift to modern general practice. Within this, practices have flexibility, working with their ICB, to deploy different solutions to best meet their local patient care needs.
Within the community pharmacy sector, funding of up to £8 million has been secured to support digital developments as part of the recently agreed Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework (CPCF) for 2025/26. Through the CPCF, the Department and NHS England have expressed their commitment to continuing to work with the pharmacy sector and IT suppliers to streamline the ‘Manage Your Service’ claim process through using payment and data APIs, for all national clinical services.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has taken steps to provide forums for (a) officials and (b) Ministers to learn from international examples of best practice in the delivery of healthcare.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department routinely engages with partners from overseas to share knowledge and best practice, to support strategy and policy development across the Department.
As part of the 10-Year Health Plan engagement exercise, we have been working with international experts to understand different countries’ approaches to delivering healthcare, and the three shifts at the centre of the plan, from hospital to community, from analogue to digital, and from sickness to prevention. In March, the Department jointly hosted two ministerial led roundtables with WHO EURO and Kings College London, where international experts shared experiences of implementing the three shifts. Attendees from around the world included former ministers, government officials, academics, and health system experts, to provide expert insight into international best practice.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much funding his Department has provided for suicide prevention (a) nationally and (b) locally in each financial year since 2015-16.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Funding for suicide prevention is included in baseline National Health Service funding for mental health services, and is not separately identified.
Between 2019/20 and 2023/24, additional funding of £57 million was provided through the NHS Long Term Plan to embed local suicide prevention activity and suicide bereavement support services in every local authority area.
In addition, the Department provided £5.4 million of funding in 2021/22 and £10 million from 2023 to 2025 through grant schemes targeted at national and local voluntary community and social enterprise sector organisations delivering suicide prevention activity.
A further £550,000 of funding was also provided to the Local Government Association in 2021/22 for a support programme to help local authorities strengthen their suicide prevention plans.
Integrated care boards, previously clinical commissioning groups, are responsible for providing health and care services to meet the needs of their local populations, and it is up to them to decide how much funding to allocate to suicide prevention services in 2025/26.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much funding his Department has committed to suicide prevention in the 2025-26 financial year.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Funding for suicide prevention is included in baseline National Health Service funding for mental health services, and is not separately identified.
Between 2019/20 and 2023/24, additional funding of £57 million was provided through the NHS Long Term Plan to embed local suicide prevention activity and suicide bereavement support services in every local authority area.
In addition, the Department provided £5.4 million of funding in 2021/22 and £10 million from 2023 to 2025 through grant schemes targeted at national and local voluntary community and social enterprise sector organisations delivering suicide prevention activity.
A further £550,000 of funding was also provided to the Local Government Association in 2021/22 for a support programme to help local authorities strengthen their suicide prevention plans.
Integrated care boards, previously clinical commissioning groups, are responsible for providing health and care services to meet the needs of their local populations, and it is up to them to decide how much funding to allocate to suicide prevention services in 2025/26.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 10 March to Question 34747, when responsibility for oversight and funding of the National Lung Screening Programme will transfer from NHS England to his Department.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Ministers and senior Department officials will work with the new executive team at the top of NHS England, led by Sir Jim Mackey, to jointly lead this transformation. This reform is about devolving resources and responsibility to the frontline, thereby empowering staff to focus on delivering better care for patients.
As we work to return many of NHS England’s current functions to the Department, we will ensure that we continue to evaluate impacts of all kinds, and will put plans in place to ensure continuity of care. We recognise the importance of lung cancer screening and are committed to ensuring its continuity during the transformation.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will ensure that the planned reductions in headcount in NHS England and his Department do not result in disruption to the implementation of lung cancer screening.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Ministers and senior Department officials will work with the new executive team at the top of NHS England, led by Sir Jim Mackey, to jointly lead this transformation. This reform is about devolving resources and responsibility to the frontline, thereby empowering staff to focus on delivering better care for patients.
As we work to return many of NHS England’s current functions to the Department, we will ensure that we continue to evaluate impacts of all kinds, and will put plans in place to ensure continuity of care. We recognise the importance of lung cancer screening and are committed to ensuring its continuity during the transformation.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 10 March to Question 34747, whether it remains his Department's policy to reach full rollout of lung cancer screening to the eligible population by 2029.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Health Service is taking crucial steps to improve cancer outcomes across England, including for lung cancer. The NHS Lung Screening Cancer Programme is designed to catch more cancers earlier when they are more treatable, with the hope of saving more lives. The target is to be available to 100% of the population by the end of 2029/30.
Asked by: Paul Davies (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 7 March 2025 to Question 32628 on Parkinson's Disease: Medical Treatments, what steps he is taking to improve access to treatment for people with (a) advanced and (b) complex Parkinson's.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We have delivered an additional two million appointments in England, seven months ahead of schedule. This includes operations, consultations, diagnostic tests, and treatments. These additional appointments have taken place across a number of specialities, including neurology.
Once diagnosed, and with a management strategy in place, the majority of people with Parkinson’s disease can be cared for through routine access to primary and secondary care. NHS England commissions the specialised elements of Parkinson’s care that patients may receive from 27 specialised neurology centres across England. One of these neurological centres is based at the Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust in Greater Manchester.
Within specialised centres, neurological multidisciplinary teams ensure patients can access a range of health professionals, including Parkinson’s disease nurses, psychologists, and allied health professionals such as dieticians and speech and language therapists, and that they can receive specialised treatment and support, according to their needs.
The service specification for neurology, which is in the process of being updated and published later this year, sets out the requirements for specialised neurology services, as well as the expectations of non-specialised neurology services, to support a system-wide approach.
Service specifications must be included in all future provider contracts for specialised services. This is agreed in jointly signed delegation agreements between integrated care boards (ICBs) and NHS England regional teams. ICBs are responsible for monitoring provider compliance with service specifications and may periodically carry out more detailed compliance exercises with providers, as a means of ensuring and improving the quality of care.