Oral Answers to Questions

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Tuesday 14th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Minister—welcome.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Mrs Sharon Hodgson)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Embedding Healthy Babies services in a system that prioritises prevention is central to this Government’s ambition to raise the healthiest generation of children ever. We are starting by investing £200 million to maintain Healthy Babies services in 75 local authorities with high levels of deprivation, and we will deliver the 10-year health plan ambition to roll out Healthy Babies nationally over the next 10 years.

[John Whitby]

Sure Start delivered long-term health benefits, with the Institute for Fiscal Studies finding that it reduced the number of hospitalisations of young people with mental health-related causes by 50%. It is therefore appropriate for the Department of Health and Social Care to support our Best Start family hubs. Healthy Babies funding enables that and ensures that family hubs can deliver sessions on topics such as parent and infant relationships. Will the Minister confirm when Derbyshire will be able to benefit from Healthy Babies funding?

[Mrs Hodgson]

Despite the huge success of Sure Start, which my hon. Friend details, the Tory-Lib Dem Government disastrously cut Sure Start centres, leaving parents and babies without any support. That is why this Government are investing £200 million as part of an almost £1 billion package for Best Start family hubs and Healthy Babies. This funding will help all areas to integrate neighbourhood-based health services in hubs, and it will roll out to his area during the next decade.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

May I welcome the Minister to her new post? The Government’s support for Healthy Babies is very welcome, but the best way to keep babies who have type 1 spinal muscular atrophy healthy and help them to lead normal lives is by screening them at birth, because they can then access transformative gene therapy. My constituent little Charlie, who will soon be two, would be walking now instead of learning to use a wheelchair if he had been diagnosed at birth through screening, rather than when he was a few months old. Will the Minister consider adding SMA type 1 screening to the newborn screening schedule?

[Mrs Hodgson]

I thank the hon. Lady for her good wishes. She may be aware that on 19 January, the Secretary of State met Jesy Nelson and Giles Lomax, the CEO of the charity SMA UK, to discuss the very issue of newborn screening for SMA. The NHS is planning an in-service evaluation offering SMA screening to newborn babies in England. The ISE is being brought forward to October 2026—it was originally planned for January 2027—so there will be more information to follow in October.

[Tom Rutland (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Lab)]

10. What steps his Department is taking to reduce the number of people waiting for NHS treatment.

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[Ms Polly Billington (East Thanet) (Lab)]

14. What steps his Department is taking to support the treatment of cancer patients.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Mrs Sharon Hodgson)]

We are backing cancer patients with a plan to end the postcode lottery that was baked in by the previous Tory Government due to chronic underfunding. We have already announced that more cancer specialists will be allocated to rural and coastal areas, increasing capacity where it is most needed. Over the past year, around 39,000 more people started their cancer treatment within 62 days, compared with the 12 months prior to the 2024 election.

[Dan Aldridge]

Weston-super-Mare is a growing, thriving town with a population comparable to the city of Bath, yet cancer patients regularly make a round trip of 90 minutes by car or more than three hours by public transport to Bristol to get their treatment. After his own difficult battle with cancer, my constituent John Kiely is leading an inspiring campaign to finally bring a radiotherapy machine to Weston general hospital. A feasibility study is under way, so can Ministers outline how we can secure the support that we need to make his campaign a reality and improve the treatment experience for my constituents?

[Mrs Hodgson]

Too many patients experience issues in accessing radiotherapy treatment, and I am sorry to hear about the experience of my hon. Friend’s constituent, John Kiely. We are determined to change that. After the previous Government’s chronic underfunding, this Government have invested £70 million of central funding on 28 new radiotherapy machines across the country to replace the older, less efficient machines. Providers have been allocated £15 billion in operational capital for local priorities and £5 billion to support a return to constitutional standards on waiting times. We expect local systems to use that capital to deliver further investment, and I encourage my hon. Friend to meet his local ICB to discuss this issue.

[Ms Billington]

I welcome my hon. Friend to her place and congratulate her on her appointment. I noticed in the cancer plan the commitment to fill NHS workforce gaps in coastal towns such as mine—Margate, Broadstairs and Ramsgate—and to end the postcode lottery that means many patients in coastal communities are missing out on the best possible cancer care. Can my hon. Friend update the House on progress in closing workforce gaps in coastal areas?

[Mrs Hodgson]

I commend my hon. Friend on her great work campaigning for her coastal community in East Thanet. The national cancer plan sets out how we will make sure that everyone has timely access to high-quality diagnostic and treatment services by increasing medical training places in rural and coastal areas. The national cancer plan will save 320,000 lives over the next decade and deliver the fastest improvement in cancer survival in UK history.

[Seamus Logan (Aberdeenshire North and Moray East) (SNP)]

Cancer patients, like so many other patients, are worried and concerned about the resident doctors strike in England, which is reportedly costing around £50 million a day, not to mention its impact on waiting lists. Meanwhile, in Scotland, we have a Health Secretary and a Government who are competent in negotiations and have none of this industrial action. The final bill for this industrial relations shambles could be as high as £3 billion. What can the Secretary of State reveal to the House about the special skills he has in dealing with the BMA?

[Mrs Hodgson]

Patients are 30 times more likely to wait two years for care in Scotland than in England. Labour has ended austerity and provided Scotland with the biggest funding increase since devolution. The question is: where has the money gone?

[Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

May I pursue the point about coastal communities and cancer care? A young dad in Withernsea, a coastal town in my east Yorkshire constituency, went to the doctor repeatedly saying that there was something wrong with him and was repeatedly told that he was fine, before being diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. He survived, but only just. What, in real terms, will happen to ensure that communities such as those in Withernsea can see decent cancer care and proper diagnosis, especially given that, as was pointed out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis), Hull university teaching hospitals NHS trust is one of the worst-performing trusts in the country?

[Mrs Hodgson]

The national cancer plan is a key part of our work to build an NHS fit for the future, and it explains how we will make England a world leader in cancer outcomes. The right hon. Gentleman’s constituents will now be able to see a GP much sooner than they could before the 2024 election, which will ensure that they can get that earlier diagnosis, which is the only thing that will help them to survive and live longer.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

I welcome the Minister to her post.

To provide cancer care of the best quality, we need the right workforce. Before the election, the Secretary of State said that he would double the number of medical school places, but he now appears to be quietly dropping that plan. He said that he would provide thousands more medical training jobs, but now he is rowing back on that promise. He said in 2024 that he would publish a comprehensive NHS workforce plan, which was promised for summer 2025 and then for autumn 2025. We are now in spring 2026. When will the workforce plan be published, and does the Secretary of State still intend to double the number of medical school places?

[Mrs Hodgson]

We are well aware that there are issues with the workforce across the NHS, which is why we are working on a new workforce plan that will be published in the spring—very soon.

[Dr Johnson]

I hope that it will be published very soon, because for people with cancer, being seen quickly is key.

Let me return to what the Minister for Care said to my hon. Friend the Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans). The Government appear to have decided that referrals will no longer be triaged by a consultant, and that a set proportion will be rejected. What evidence do the Government have that it will be safe for others to provide this triage? If a set proportion are to be rejected, does that mean that the Government will ask doctors to change their clinical thresholds, and if so, what evidence do they have that that is safe? Surely the Minister would not compromise patient safety for a short-term improvement in figures.

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[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Wes Streeting)]

No, it wasn’t—not at all.

[Mrs Hodgson]

Unlike the Conservative party, we trust our GPs. This will be consultant-led advice and guidance, on which GPs will then decide.

[Matt Bishop (Forest of Dean) (Lab)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

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[Daniel Francis (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Lab)]

My constituent Harley Harris is 15. He has spondylocarpotarsal synostosis syndrome, which has caused his spine to curve 120° and damaged his lungs, leaving him with significantly reduced lung function and in continual pain. Harley needs lifesaving surgery, but his family have been unable to get a referral to have it performed in the UK. Will the Minister commit to urgently reviewing Harley’s case to ascertain what support can be provided to him and his family?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Mrs Sharon Hodgson)]

I am very sorry to hear about Harley’s condition, and my thoughts are with him and his family. I am sure my hon. Friend understands that neither the Department nor NHS England can comment on the clinical appropriateness of suggested treatments for an individual. I understand that Harley and his family have already been in touch with the Department, and would suggest that my hon. Friend continues to raise this case with NHS England. We are committed to improving the lives of those living with rare diseases, including Harley’s condition of SCTS.

[Gareth Davies (Grantham and Bourne) (Con)]

In 2022, Grantham saw the opening of one of the country’s first community diagnostic centres; since then, more than 100,000 tests have been completed for the local population. Now, I want the same for the town of Bourne. Will the Minister meet me, so that I can make the case for a new community diagnostic centre in Bourne?