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 adequacy of care for bladder cancer in each region; and if he will hold discussions with NICE guidelines on the time taken to update its guidelines on bladder cancer care.

Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department is committed to improving cancer care in all regions of England, including for bladder cancer patients. The National Health Service has exceeded their pledge to deliver an extra two million appointments, having now delivered over three million more appointments as the first step to ensuring earlier and faster access to diagnosis and treatment.

The National Cancer Plan, due for publication later this year, will include further details on how the NHS will improve care for bladder cancer patients, as well as speeding up diagnosis and access to treatment. Furthermore, it will ensure that patients have access to the latest treatments and technology. These actions will help bring this country’s cancer survival rates back up to the standards of the best in the world.

Reducing inequalities and variation in cancer diagnosis and treatment is a priority for the Government and will be included as a key area of focus in the plan.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is in the process of updating its guideline on the diagnosis and management of bladder cancer, following the NICE prioritisation board’s decision that this work should proceed. The NICE’s current guideline on the diagnosis and management of bladder cancer is available at the following link:

https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng2

This work will be a partial update of the guideline, to include the recommendations on treating non-muscle invasive bladder cancer and muscle-invasive bladder cancer, and on managing locally advanced or metastatic muscle-invasive bladder cancer. NICE also plans to update the section of the guideline on diagnosing and staging.

NICE will set a provisional timeline for the update in due course and will share updates on its website as the update progresses.

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 a sufficient number of Designated Prescribing Practitioners to mentor all new non-medical prescribers.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

NHS England is investing in training for independent prescribers, as well as initiatives to support the development and safe practice of designated prescribing practitioners (DPPs) and educational supervisors. A DPP is a healthcare professional with legal independent prescribing rights who will mentor and supervise the pharmacist during the period of learning in practice. This will ensure the National Health Service is ready to support and mentor foundation trainee pharmacists from the 2025/26 academic year, alongside training existing pharmacists that are learning to be independent prescribers.

Reforms to pharmacist education and training will allow for the development of prescriber pharmacists from the point of registration from 2026. This will enable a career-long focus on prescriber services and an associated expansion of the DPP workforce, to support multi-professional teams and the expansion of cross-sector prescribing services.

NHS England has funded 3,000 training places for existing pharmacists to become independent prescribers, and is training 1,000 DPP and educational supervisors to support the training of pharmacist independent prescribers.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate his Department has made of the number of (a) hospitalisations and (b) deaths that have been prevented by RSV vaccines administered through the early adopter community pharmacy sites.

Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

People are eligible for the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccination if they are pregnant, from 28 weeks onwards, or if they are aged 75 to 79 years old.

Some people aged 75 to 79 years old have been able to receive the RSV vaccine from a small number of community pharmacy pilot sites in the East of England. Approximately 8,000 individuals received their RSV vaccine in these community pharmacies between October and November 2024. The majority of the programme was delivered in general practice.

Overall, the UK Health Security Agency’s (UKHSA) findings indicate that there were 30% fewer hospital admissions in 75 to 79 year olds, who are eligible for the vaccine under the new programme, than there would have been without vaccination. This was seen after approximately 40% of eligible older people took up the vaccine this winter, and the impact is expected to increase with further vaccine uptake.

A UKHSA-led evaluation of the expansion of the community pharmacy RSV vaccination pilot is underway, covering a further 200 sites.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she plans to include (a) financial and (b) other citizenship education in the school syllabus.

Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)

The national curriculum for citizenship equips pupils to manage their money effectively and provides a framework to explore a range of important concepts to prepare pupils for adulthood, such as democracy, human rights, justice, media literacy, the law, and the need for mutual respect.

The government has established an independent Curriculum and Assessment Review, covering ages 5 to 18, chaired by Professor Becky Francis CBE. During their public consultation, the Review Group heard consistently from parents and children that they want more focus on the applied knowledge and skills that will equip them for later life and work, such as financial education. The Review is considering whether there is sufficient coverage of these skills within subjects, and how content can remain relevant and support young people to thrive in a fast-changing world.

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans his Department has to introduce a national animal welfare labelling scheme.

Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

I refer the hon. Member to the reply given to the hon. Member for Rotheram, Sarah Champion, on 3 July 2025, PQ 62951.

Found: Pinkerton Susan Murray Clive Jones Dr Simon Opher Anna Gelderd Clive Lewis Sarah Edwards Sadik Al-Hassan