Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Care if he will bring forward proposals for reducing hospital waiting lists in Cumbria.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
As set out in the Plan for Change, we will ensure that 92% of patients return to waiting no longer than 18 weeks from referral to treatment by March 2029, a standard which has not been met consistently since September 2015. The Government is clear that reforming elective care must be done equitably and inclusively for all adults, children, and young people across all regions, including Cumbria.
Work to reduce waiting lists in Cumbria is already underway, with the National Health Service implementing the Elective Reform Plan to increase capacity and improve patient access as quickly as possible.
The region of Cumbria is covered by two integrated care boards (ICBs). The NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria ICB is reducing waiting times in the Cumbria region through a dedicated programme on referral and demand management. It is also transforming care pathways to ensure patients receive high-quality treatment in the most appropriate setting, prioritising community and neighbourhood care to reduce hospital pressures.
The NHS North East and North Cumbria ICB is also implementing a range of demand management strategies to reduce waiting lists in Cumbria. These include redesigning outpatient pathways with community-based services, virtual clinics, straight-to-test models, and focusing on one-stop clinics. It is also prioritising workforce training to improve referral quality, and meeting regularly with the trust to monitor progress towards meeting the constitutional standard.
As of August 2025, 18-week Referral-to-Treatment performance for the NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria ICB was 60.7% and for the NHS North East And North Cumbria ICB was 70.2%.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will provide additional funding for social care services to help support patients to (a) leave hospitals and (b) be treated at home.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to ensuring that people can leave hospital promptly and receive care in their own homes where appropriate.
For 2025/26 approximately £9 billion has been made available through the Better Care Fund (BCF) to enable integrated care boards and local authorities to deliver better joined-up care. One of the objectives of the BCF is to support the shift of services from hospital to home.
From 2026/27, the BCF will be reformed to provide consistent joint funding for services that are essential for integrated health and social care, including rehabilitation and recovery support.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
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 help reduce travel times for cancer patients in rural areas requiring radiotherapy treatment.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We recognise that for those in rural communities, the particular treatment they need may not be available at their local hospital, which would mean that travel to a specialist centre or specialist centres would be required, in order to receive the best care possible. The Government aims to ensure that each radiotherapy treatment centre is accessible to the highest number of patients possible, as well as being easily reached by the staff who work there.
The National Health Service runs schemes to provide financial assistance for travel to a hospital, or other NHS premises, for specialist NHS treatment or diagnostics tests, when referred by a doctor or other primary healthcare professional.
This includes the NHS Healthcare Travel Costs Scheme, which provides financial assistance to patients who do not have a medical need for transport, but who require assistance with the costs of travelling to receive certain NHS services.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the number of people who are on NHS waiting lists for radiotherapy in South Cumbria.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We do not routinely publish data on current waiting list levels broken down to the level of specific treatment types, and so we cannot provide an estimate of the number of people who are on National Health Service waiting lists for radiotherapy in South Cumbria.
However, the Government is aware that patients in all parts of the country, including South Cumbria, can be waiting too long for their treatment. That is why the Government is taking decisive action to get the NHS diagnosing cancer earlier and treating it faster.
We have invested £70 million in replacing outdated radiotherapy machines across the NHS with cutting-edge technology that will speed up treatment for thousands of patients. These new machines are being rolled out across the country.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
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 13 October 2025 to Question 77309 on Cancer, when the Cancer Operational Taskforce was established; what its remit is; who the members of the Taskforce are; and who it reports to.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department does not hold the information requested as the Cancer Operational Taskforce is a local initiative.
The National Cancer Plan will include further details on how the National Health Service will improve care for cancer patients in all parts of England. Having consulted with key stakeholders and patient groups, the plan will be published early in the new year.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department has taken to deliver 50 new neighbourhood health centres by the end of this Parliament; and whether any will be built in Cumbria.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to delivering a National Health Service that is fit for the future, and we recognise that delivering high quality NHS healthcare requires the right infrastructure in the right places.
That is why over the course of our 10-Year Health Plan, we aim to establish a Neighbourhood Health Centre in every community, transforming healthcare access by bringing historically hospital-based services into communities and addressing wider determinants of health through services like debt advice, employment support, and obesity management programmes.
Nationwide coverage will take time, but we are starting in the areas of greatest need where healthy life expectancy is lowest, including rural towns and communities with higher deprivation levels, using public capital to update and refurbish existing, under-used buildings.
We recently announced the places that will form wave 1 of the National Neighbourhood Health Implementation Programme (NNHIP), after a rigorous assessment of applications against the core criteria. The first wave of the NNHIP covers 43 sites across England, from Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly in the south-west to Sunderland in the north-east, ensuring that communities nationwide benefit from this new model of care.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he has taken to train more GPs in Cumbria.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government has committed to training thousands more general practitioners (GPs) and has increased the number of available GP training places by an additional 250 from September 2025. This brings the total number of GP training places to 4,250 per year.
As of 31 August 2025, there were 89.8 full-time equivalent GPs in training grades working in practices in Cumberland and Westmorland and Furness.
We will publish a refreshed Long Term Workforce Plan to deliver the transformed health service we will build over the next decade, to treat patients on time again.
The 2018 to 2020 medical school expansion created new medical schools in regions where doctors were hard to recruit and where inequalities were high, and focussed on where there were medical specialty shortages, which includes GPs and psychiatry.
Current and future expansions to post-graduate training, including foundation training and GP specialty training, have been planned on the basis of relative need, balanced with the ability of locations to support trainees.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the number of patients who no longer meeting the criteria to reside in hospital in (a) the Royal Lancaster Infirmary, (b) Westmorland General Hospital and (c) Furness General Hospital.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department does not hold hospital level data. However, as per the trust level data for the University Hospital Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust, which includes the Royal Lancaster Infirmary, Westmorland General Hospital, and Furness General Hospital, in the month of September 2025, the latest month for which data is available, there were on average 145 adult patients, occupying 20.9% of the adult acute beds, each day who had no criteria to reside but who were not discharged by the end of the day. This was 6.1% higher than the average for England, of 14.8%, for September 2025.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
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 potential impact of delays to rebuilding of the Royal Lancaster Infirmary on people in Westmorland and Lonsdale constituency.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The New Hospital Programme: plan for implementation was published on 20 January 2025 and sets out a credible, deliverable plan for the schemes in the New Hospital Programme (NHP). This plan will be delivered through five-year waves of investment and is backed by up to £15 billion over each consecutive five-year wave, averaging £3 billion a year from 2030. Further information on the plan for implementation is available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/new-hospital-programme-review-outcome
As wave 3 schemes, the Royal Lancaster Infirmary and the Royal Preston Hospital have been paused. No further funding will be available from the NHP until pre-construction activity begins from 2030. The NHP is committed to ensuring both schemes are fully resourced when this time comes. The standard process for confirming the total funding amount for major infrastructure projects involves the review and approval of a Full Business Case. All trusts in the programme have previously received indicative funding allocations to support planning, however these are commercially sensitive.
An equality impact assessment was carried out for the review into the NHP and included assessing the extent to which service users might be impacted by these delivery proposals, with specific reference to the impact that these might have on relevant protected characteristics. This was laid in the House Library and published on 20 January 2025, and is available at the following link: