Asked by: Stuart Andrew (Conservative - Daventry)
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 potential impact of changes to Indicative Action Plans and the introduction of minimum waiting times on patients with ongoing care needs, including those at risk of serious complications such as irreversible sight loss.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Integrated care boards (ICBs) have existing contractual powers to manage activity by providers, which were enhanced in 2025/26 with central support for setting and managing activity. The NHS Standard Contract includes the ability to set indicative activity plans (IAPs) to help providers and commissioners plan demand, capacity and expenditure. Activity management plans (AMPs) allow commissioners and providers to work together to manage elective activity within agreed performance and financial targets.
The setting of IAPs and AMPs must be appropriate, and the designated process needs to be followed. Commissioners’ use of IAPs and AMPs support systems to live within their means and deploy better financial discipline than previous years where systems have overspent.
The provision and use of IAPs and AMPs is designed to deliver the demand and activity levels modelled to achieve the goal of at least 65% of patients waiting no longer than 18 weeks for treatment by March 2026 whilst living within financial budgets set for 2025/26.
Any planning assumptions based on waiting times need to support commissioners’ overall duties to the populations they serve and our waiting time targets, including our commitment to return to the 18-week standard. NHS England have worked with commissioners to ensure services are not planned on the basis of waiting times above this standard.
While IAPs and AMPs are implemented to ensure this financial balance, all providers are expected to have their own safeguards to ensure that patients waiting for planned care are triaged, and that appointments take place according to clinical priority and the length of time patients have waited, avoiding risk of serious complications.
Asked by: Stuart Andrew (Conservative - Daventry)
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 ensure that Integrated Care Boards do not (a) implement minimum waiting times and (b) make reductions to Indicative Action Plans in ways that could risk patient harm.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Integrated care boards (ICBs) have existing contractual powers to manage activity by providers, which were enhanced in 2025/26 with central support for setting and managing activity. The NHS Standard Contract includes the ability to set indicative activity plans (IAPs) to help providers and commissioners plan demand, capacity and expenditure. Activity management plans (AMPs) allow commissioners and providers to work together to manage elective activity within agreed performance and financial targets.
The setting of IAPs and AMPs must be appropriate, and the designated process needs to be followed. Commissioners’ use of IAPs and AMPs support systems to live within their means and deploy better financial discipline than previous years where systems have overspent.
The provision and use of IAPs and AMPs is designed to deliver the demand and activity levels modelled to achieve the goal of at least 65% of patients waiting no longer than 18 weeks for treatment by March 2026 whilst living within financial budgets set for 2025/26.
Any planning assumptions based on waiting times need to support commissioners’ overall duties to the populations they serve and our waiting time targets, including our commitment to return to the 18-week standard. NHS England have worked with commissioners to ensure services are not planned on the basis of waiting times above this standard.
While IAPs and AMPs are implemented to ensure this financial balance, all providers are expected to have their own safeguards to ensure that patients waiting for planned care are triaged, and that appointments take place according to clinical priority and the length of time patients have waited, avoiding risk of serious complications.
Asked by: Stuart Andrew (Conservative - Daventry)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether (a) his Department and (b) NHS England has issued guidance to Integrated Care Boards on the use of minimum waiting times for elective care.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Integrated care boards (ICBs) have existing contractual powers to manage activity by providers, which were enhanced in 2025/26 with central support for setting and managing activity. The NHS Standard Contract includes the ability to set indicative activity plans (IAPs) to help providers and commissioners plan demand, capacity and expenditure. Activity management plans (AMPs) allow commissioners and providers to work together to manage elective activity within agreed performance and financial targets.
The setting of IAPs and AMPs must be appropriate, and the designated process needs to be followed. Commissioners’ use of IAPs and AMPs support systems to live within their means and deploy better financial discipline than previous years where systems have overspent.
The provision and use of IAPs and AMPs is designed to deliver the demand and activity levels modelled to achieve the goal of at least 65% of patients waiting no longer than 18 weeks for treatment by March 2026 whilst living within financial budgets set for 2025/26.
Any planning assumptions based on waiting times need to support commissioners’ overall duties to the populations they serve and our waiting time targets, including our commitment to return to the 18-week standard. NHS England have worked with commissioners to ensure services are not planned on the basis of waiting times above this standard.
While IAPs and AMPs are implemented to ensure this financial balance, all providers are expected to have their own safeguards to ensure that patients waiting for planned care are triaged, and that appointments take place according to clinical priority and the length of time patients have waited, avoiding risk of serious complications.
Asked by: Stuart Andrew (Conservative - Daventry)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the time taken for leukaemia diagnosis; and whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential implications for its policies of the findings of Leukaemia UK’s Count Us In campaign.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Cancer Plan will seek to improve outcomes for all cancers, including non-stageable cancers such as leukaemia. The Department remains committed to the early diagnosis of cancer and to improving outcomes for patients. However, we recognise that there is more to be done to ensure that patients with harder to stage cancers, such as blood cancer, receive fast and early diagnoses.
The National Health Service is implementing non-specific symptom pathways for patients who present with symptoms such as weight loss and fatigue, which do not clearly align to a tumour type. Blood cancers are one of the most common cancer types diagnosed through these pathways.
We have engaged extensively with Cancer 52 and other cancer charities, including Leukaemia UK to inform development of the National Cancer Plan, which will be published shortly. We have listened to concerns about existing early diagnosis targets and considered the feasibility of adopting new metrics to track progress, including suggestions from stakeholders that we track emergency presentation. Further details on our approach to early diagnosis, including how we can improve outcomes for rarer cancers, will be set out in due course.
Asked by: Stuart Andrew (Conservative - Daventry)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has considered including emergency presentation as a metric for tracking early cancer diagnosis across all tumour types, including non-stageable cancers such as leukaemia, in the forthcoming National Cancer Plan.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Cancer Plan will seek to improve outcomes for all cancers, including non-stageable cancers such as leukaemia. The Department remains committed to the early diagnosis of cancer and to improving outcomes for patients. However, we recognise that there is more to be done to ensure that patients with harder to stage cancers, such as blood cancer, receive fast and early diagnoses.
The National Health Service is implementing non-specific symptom pathways for patients who present with symptoms such as weight loss and fatigue, which do not clearly align to a tumour type. Blood cancers are one of the most common cancer types diagnosed through these pathways.
We have engaged extensively with Cancer 52 and other cancer charities, including Leukaemia UK to inform development of the National Cancer Plan, which will be published shortly. We have listened to concerns about existing early diagnosis targets and considered the feasibility of adopting new metrics to track progress, including suggestions from stakeholders that we track emergency presentation. Further details on our approach to early diagnosis, including how we can improve outcomes for rarer cancers, will be set out in due course.
Asked by: Stuart Andrew (Conservative - Daventry)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many removals from elective waiting lists there have been as a result of data validation exercises in 2025-26; and what the cost to his Department has been of those exercises.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Validation is a well-established component for the effective management of waiting lists, ensuring that the patients who are on the list should still be there. While we have significantly reduced the size of the total elective waiting list by over 206,000 since the Government took office, a large list requires consistent validation in order to ensure that all patients on the list still require care, and all appointments are of optimum value for patients and clinicians.
The Department does not hold data centrally on the number of patient pathways removed from the elective waiting list as a result of data validation.
NHS England has paid the system £18,818,566 for validation exercises from April to September 2025. Payments for the most recent validation exercises have not yet been issued to providers. We know validation provides significant benefits for patients by reducing missed appointments, making effective use of clinical time, and ensuring patients are on the best care pathway for their needs.
Asked by: Stuart Andrew (Conservative - Daventry)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether it is his intention to expand Start for Life funding to the 78 local authorities currently without provision.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The 10-Year Health Plan sets out an ambitious agenda on how we will improve the nation’s health by creating a new model of care that is fit for the future.
We recognise that local authorities are ambitious, seeking to deliver universal support to families and prevent escalating need. We are committed to delivering the 10-Year Health Plan’s ambition to match Healthy Babies, formerly Start for Life, to Best Start Family Hubs over the next decade.
From April, this Government is rolling out Best Start Family Hubs to all local authorities, backed by over £500 million to reach up to half a million more children and families. This funding will help embed Hubs within a wider support system, including integrated child health services, enable proactive identification and support for health issues and early developmental delays.
Asked by: Stuart Andrew (Conservative - Daventry)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has held recent discussions with the Scottish Government on the inclusion of data from NHS Scotland in the UK Pelvic Floor Registry; and what his expected timescale is for full UK-wide data integration.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
As a Government department, the Department of Health and Social Care engages constructively and works collaboratively with the devolved administrations on areas of shared interest, including information sharing, coordination, and issues that have United Kingdom wide or cross-border implications.
The NHS England Outcomes and Registries Programme invites relevant health professionals from the devolved nations to participate in monthly clinical steering groups across several clinical registries to foster collaboration and alignment of working practices. Wales and Northern Ireland have participated fully in the Pelvic Organ Prolapse and Stress Urinary Incontinence Clinical Steering Group. Scottish representatives last participated in November 2024, though they continue to be sent minutes of the progress of the NHS England-led Group.
The registry is due to be launched across 50% of English providers in February, with a second wave covering the remaining English providers planned for summer 2026.
Asked by: Stuart Andrew (Conservative - Daventry)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, who his Department plans to consult as part of any review into the prevalence and overdiagnosis of mental health conditions and neurodivergence.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The independent review into prevalence and support for mental health conditions, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and autism will appoint an advisory working group. This will be a multidisciplinary group of leading academics, clinicians, epidemiological experts, charities and people with lived experience to directly shape the recommendations and scrutinise the evidence.
Ahead of launching the independent review, my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, held discussions with a range of mental health, ADHD, and autism stakeholders on the scope of the review.
As this is an independent review, it is therefore for the Chair and vice-chairs to consider who to consult and the relevant forums for engagement, that are relevant to deliver the terms of reference set by the Department.
Asked by: Stuart Andrew (Conservative - Daventry)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care what recent discussions he has had with the mental health sector on diagnoses of mental health conditions.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The independent review into prevalence and support for mental health conditions, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and autism will appoint an advisory working group. This will be a multidisciplinary group of leading academics, clinicians, epidemiological experts, charities and people with lived experience to directly shape the recommendations and scrutinise the evidence.
Ahead of launching the independent review, my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, held discussions with a range of mental health, ADHD, and autism stakeholders on the scope of the review.
As this is an independent review, it is therefore for the Chair and vice-chairs to consider who to consult and the relevant forums for engagement, that are relevant to deliver the terms of reference set by the Department.