Asked by: Samantha Niblett (Labour - South Derbyshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what support is available to patients where tapering off of Mirtazapine has been unsuccessful and subsequently they find themselves taking a drug that they know is causing them harm.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England encourages integrated care boards (ICBs) to address inappropriate antidepressant prescribing and to consider commissioning services for patients wishing to reduce or stop prescribed medicines that can cause dependence and withdrawal.
In March 2023, NHS England published Optimising personalised care for adults prescribed medicines associated with dependence or withdrawal symptoms: Framework for action for ICBs and primary care. The framework includes actions, resources and case studies to help systems develop plans that can support people who are taking medicines associated with dependence and withdrawal symptoms. The framework is available at the following link:
ICBs are responsible for planning health services for their local population. This includes consideration of services for patients taking medicines associated with dependence and withdrawal symptoms based on local population needs.
An increasing number of non-pharmacological alternatives have become available on the National Health Service, including significant investment in NHS Talking Therapies for common conditions like anxiety and depression, with 1.26 million referrals starting a course of treatment in 2023/24. There has also been considerable investment in social prescribing, which can help people with mental health problems, and there are now over 3700 full-time equivalent trained social prescribing link workers, and over 2.5 million people have been referred to a social prescribing link worker.
Additionally, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has published guidelines, Medicines associated with dependence or withdrawal symptoms: safe prescribing and withdrawal management for adults, which is available at the following link:
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/NG215
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency is currently leading a project to improve the information supplied with dependency-forming medicines. The project aims to improve risk minimisation measures and better inform and educate healthcare professionals and patients about the risk of dependence, addiction, tolerance and withdrawal related to a wide range of medicines including antidepressants in the United Kingdom.
Asked by: Samantha Niblett (Labour - South Derbyshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress his Department has made on the The Getting It Right First Time programme.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) programme is a national NHS England programme designed to improve treatment and care by reviewing health services in England.
The GIRFT team is working with systems and regions to help the National Health Service embed best practice in elective care, to reduce waiting times, improve patient outcomes and, ultimately, to support delivery of the commitment to return to the NHS constitutional standard that 92% of all patients will wait no longer than 18 weeks from referral-to-treatment, by March 2029.
Surgical hubs are part of the GIRFT High Volume Low Complexity programme and mainly focus on driving improvement in six high volume specialties. With GIRFT support, there are currently 114 elective surgical hubs that are operational across England as of March 2025. These surgical hubs help separate elective care facilities from urgent and emergency care, improving outcomes for patients and reducing pressures on hospitals. GIRFT’s role also includes delivering an accreditation scheme for surgical hubs. To date, 44 surgical hubs have been accredited for clinical and operational excellence.
Within the Elective Reform Plan, the Government has committed to providing quicker access for patients to common surgical hub procedures by opening 17 new and expanded surgical hubs by June 2025 and ramping up the number of hubs over the next three years, so more operations can be carried out.
Through the GIRFT Further Faster programme, a cohort of 20 trusts, and their integrated care systems (ICS), chosen in areas of the greatest economic inactivity, are being given support to improve and streamline pathways for patients and spread good practice in areas with high levels of economic inactivity. All 20 trusts are working to deliver ‘High Flow Theatre’ lists and super clinics, not only to deliver rapid impact, but also to build into ‘business as usual’ pathways.
Asked by: Samantha Niblett (Labour - South Derbyshire)
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 encourage Integrated Care Boards to commission Referral Management Systems to reduce the significant time taken by primary care in chasing secondary care referrals and appointments.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to cutting waiting times for secondary care appointments, which in turn should minimise the time that general practitioners spend chasing referrals. As a first step, we have seen the waiting list reduce by over 190,000 and have provided 2.5 million extra appointments since July 2024.
The Government is also committed to optimising referrals through more effective models of triage which allow patients with the most urgent health needs to be prioritised and can be used to redirect referrals to an alternative service better suited to the patient’s needs (including in primary or community services where that is best for the patient). Referral management systems are one model of triage. The Elective Reform Plan (ERP), published in January 2025, commits to developing an implementation toolkit for triage services, by March 2026, and to working with integrated care boards to put in place clinical triage standard operating procedures for high-volume specialties.
The NHS Electronic Referral System (e-RS) is a national digital platform for referring patients from primary care into elective secondary care service. The ERP commits to improving e-RS throughout 2025/26 and beyond, to enhance information sharing between primary and secondary care and will help referrers in general practice know sooner what care their patient will receive and where, including whether their referral has been accepted in hospital.
Asked by: Samantha Niblett (Labour - South Derbyshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the 2025/26 NHS Payment Scheme Consultation removes the right to choose for families with ADHD.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The proposed 2025/26 NHS Payment Scheme does not remove a patient’s right to choose. The Government is committed to patients having the right to choose their provider when referred to consultant-led treatment, or to a mental health professional, for their first appointment as an outpatient.
Asked by: Samantha Niblett (Labour - South Derbyshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has issued guidance on the adequate travel distance for accessing out of hours pharmacy provision.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Local authorities are required to undertake a pharmaceutical needs assessment every three years, to assess whether their population is adequately served, and keep these assessments under review. These assessments inform integrated care boards (ICBs) when reviewing applications from prospective National Health Service pharmacy contactors. In addition, ICBs have powers to direct and fund pharmacies to open for longer than their core contractual hours if there is an unmet need. Patients can also choose to access medicines and pharmacy services through any of the over 400 NHS online pharmacies that are contractually required to deliver prescription medicines free of charge to patients.
Asked by: Samantha Niblett (Labour - South Derbyshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what additional (a) funding and (b) other resources his Department plans to provide to primary care providers to support preventative healthcare in South Derbyshire constituency.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The 10-Year Health Plan will describe a shared vision for the health and care system in 2035, drawing directly from the extensive engagement underway with the public, patients, and staff. It will set out how the National Health Service will deliver the shift from sickness to prevention, which will be one of the central tenets of the plan. This includes a working group focused on the preventative healthcare model for the future.
We have announced a proposed £889 million uplift for general practices (GPs) in 2025/26 and set out the proposed areas of reform which will help us to deliver on our commitments. This is the largest uplift to GP funding since the beginning of the five-year framework and means that we are reversing the recent trend, with a rising share of total NHS resources going to GPs.
To shift care from sickness to prevention, the Government has also proposed providing financial incentives to reward GPs who go above and beyond to prevent the most common killers, like heart disease, for the next contract year. This is subject to the contract consultation currently underway with the General Practitioners Committee England.
We have already started hiring an extra 1,000 GPs into the NHS and uplifted a monthly payment to practices by 7.4%. We will also be resuming our consultation with Community Pharmacy England regarding funding arrangements.
The most common reason children aged five to nine are admitted to hospital is for tooth decay. We will work with local authorities and the NHS to introduce supervised tooth brushing for children aged between three and five years old in the most deprived communities. These programmes are proven to reduce tooth decay and to boost good practices at home.
Integrated care boards have delegated responsibility for planning and commissioning healthcare services to meet the reasonable needs of the people for whom they are responsible. In South Derbyshire, our Regional Director of Public Health is working with local government and the Joined Up Care Derbyshire Integrated Care System to support the shift to prevention.
Asked by: Samantha Niblett (Labour - South Derbyshire)
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 3 February 2025 to Question 27349 on Vaccination, what steps his Department is taking to ensure contemporaneous vaccine delivery across all regions.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England is responsible for the operational delivery of the vaccination programmes, including the respiratory syncytial virus programme, in line with recommendations from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), and considering local population needs.
General practices (GPs) are commissioned as a component of essential services, with practices required to offer and provide vaccinations to eligible patients, including their registered patients residing in care homes. NHS England’s regional teams monitor operational data to ensure that all providers are vaccinating those eligible.
Routine and seasonal vaccination programmes are commissioned in a nationally consistent way across all regions through inclusion in the GP Contract, GP and community pharmacy advanced and enhanced services, and National Health Service standard contracts. Regional commissioners are also able to stand up vaccination programmes in response to local pressures and outbreaks to supplement this core offer.
Asked by: Samantha Niblett (Labour - South Derbyshire)
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 waiting times for mental health services in South Derbyshire constituency; and what steps he is taking to reduce those times.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Waiting times for those referred to mental health services are too high all across England, including in the South Derbyshire constituency.
Too many people with mental health issues are not getting the support or care they need, which is why we will fix the broken system to ensure we give mental health the same attention and focus as physical health and that people can be confident in accessing high quality mental health support when they need it.
Nationally, we plan to recruit an additional 8,500 mental health workers across child and adult mental health services in England to reduce delays and provide faster treatment. We will also introduce access to a specialist mental health professional in every school and roll out Young Futures hubs in every community.
In addition, people of all ages who are in crisis or who are concerned about a family or loved one can now call NHS 111, select the mental health option, and speak to a trained mental health professional. National Health Service staff can guide callers with next steps such as organising face-to-face community support or facilitating access to alternative services, like crisis cafés or safe havens, which provide a place for people to stay as an alternative to accident and emergency or a hospital admission.
It is the responsibility of the integrated care boards to commission care to meet the needs of their local population.
Asked by: Samantha Niblett (Labour - South Derbyshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to his Department's press release GP reforms to cut red tape and bring back family doctor, published on 20 December 2024, whether GPs will be able to determine how to spend the additional funding to best meet local needs.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
On 20 December 2024, we announced a proposed £889 million uplift for general practice (GP) in 2025/26 and set out the proposed areas of reform which will help us to deliver on our commitments. This is the largest uplift to GP funding in years and means we are reversing the recent trend with a rising share of total National Health Service resources going to GPs.
Details on how funding will be allocated is subject to the ongoing GP Contract consultation with the General Practitioners Committee England, and will be announced ahead of April.
Asked by: Samantha Niblett (Labour - South Derbyshire)
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 (a) modernise NHS IT infrastructure and (b) ensure value for money in upgrading IT systems.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Through the Frontline Digitisation programme, we will work to level up National Health Service trusts to a baseline level of digital capability. Our investment in digitising the frontline will ensure value for money and that health and care staff have access to health-related information when and where it is needed, supporting them to deliver care efficiently, effectively, and safely, thereby reducing variation and improving outcomes.
Currently 91%, or 187 out of 206, of Secondary Care Trusts have an Electronic Patient Record (EPR) in place, with work underway to provide tailored support to the remaining 19 trusts that do not yet have an EPR. Our ambition is for all trusts to meet our stated core digitisation standards, including having EPRs in place by March 2026.
The programme is forecasting to achieve 96% EPR coverage by its end in March 2026, with the remaining 4% of trusts having advanced in their plans for an EPR.