Asked by: Vikki Slade (Liberal Democrat - Mid Dorset and North Poole)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the life expectancy is of (a) women and (b) men of working age with a learning disability; and how does this compare with the life expectancy of people without a learning disability.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We recognise the unacceptable health inequalities faced by people with a learning disability. We do not have comprehensive data on the life expectancy of people with a learning disability, broken down by gender and age, although we do have crucial insights into life and health outcomes which support service improvements.
in July 2025 NHS Digital published data on the mortality and life expectancy of people with a learning disability and autism which showed that people with a learning disability have a life expectancy at birth of 59.5 years old, compared to the general population life expectancy at birth of 81.4 years old, a difference of 21.9 years. These figures are based on data from April 2022 to March 2023, with further information avaiable at the following link:
Significant action is underway to improve access to and the quality of care for people with a learning disability, and to achieve the critical prevention shift set out in our 10-Year Health Plan. This includes mandatory training for health and social care staff, improving identification on the general practice learning disability register and uptake of annual health checks, and rolling out a Reasonable Adjustment Digital Flag to ensure that care is tailored appropriately. The national Core20Plus5 approach also guides action to tackle health inequalities at a system level, and NHS England expects learning disability to be identified as a priority cohort at a local level.
Furthermore, each integrated care board (ICB) must have an executive lead for learning disability and autism who will support the board in addressing health inequalities, support access to care across all health services, and improve overall health outcomes. Each ICB must also consider and demonstrate how they will reduce inequalities for people with a learning disability within their five‑year strategic plans under the Medium-Term Planning Framework. The Medium-Term Planning Framework is available at the following link:
Asked by: Vikki Slade (Liberal Democrat - Mid Dorset and North Poole)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department is taking steps to deliver the outstanding recommendations from Sir Stephen Bubb's report for the Public Accounts Select Committee, entitled Care services for people with learning disabilities and challenging behaviour, published On 23 March 2015.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Care services for people with learning disabilities and challenging behaviour was published for the Public Accounts Select Committee in 2015, under a previous administration. The Government is committed to reducing the number of people with a learning disability and autistic people in mental health inpatient settings and ensuring they receive the right support in the community which aligns with the recommendations set out in the report.
Our 10-Year Health Plan sets out to make three big shifts towards more preventative, digitally-enabled care, with more holistic, on-going support in the community to tackle health inequalities, including for disabled people. Our 2025 Mental Health Act will limit the scope to detain people with a learning disability and autistic people so that they can only be detained for treatment in a mental health hospital if they have a co-occurring mental disorder that requires hospital treatment. The act will also introduce measures to improve community support for people with a learning disability and autistic people by putting Care (Education) and Treatment Reviews and Dynamic Support Registers on a statutory footing and placing certain duties on integrated care boards and local authorities when exercising existing commissioning duties.
The NHS Medium Term Planning Framework 2026/27 to 2028/9 maintains a focus on improving mental health and learning disability care with an explicit objective to deliver a minimum 10% reduction in the use of mental health inpatient care for people with a learning disability and autistic people year-on-year.
Asked by: Vikki Slade (Liberal Democrat - Mid Dorset and North Poole)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to ensure Mental Health Support Teams in schools are trained in Speech and Language therapy.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We currently have no plans to train the education mental health practitioners, who are the primary workforce of mental health support teams (MHSTs), in speech and language therapy.
We are expanding MHSTs in schools and colleges to reach full national coverage by 2029, and 900,000 more children and young people will have access to support from MHSTs in 2025/26.
The Department of Health and Social Care is working closely with the Department for Education and NHS England to improve access to community health services, including speech and language therapy, for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities.
In addition to the undergraduate degree route, speech and language therapists can now also train via a degree apprenticeship. This route is going into its fourth year of delivery and offers an alternative pathway to the traditional degree route into a successful career as a speech and language therapist.
Asked by: Vikki Slade (Liberal Democrat - Mid Dorset and North Poole)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment with the Home Secretary of the potential merits of funding a wider rollout of long-acting Injectable Buprenorphine as a treatment option for people using opioids in Dorset.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department supports the provision of long-acting injectable buprenorphine as an option for those undergoing Opioid Substitution Treatment. Local authorities are responsible for commissioning drug and alcohol treatment services according to local need, and this includes the provision of long-acting injectable buprenorphine.
In addition to the Public Health Grant, in 2025/26 the Department is providing Dorset Council with £1,469,140 to improve drug and alcohol treatment and recovery services. The Department encourages local authorities to prioritise resourcing long-acting injectable buprenorphine prescribing from this additional funding if current provision is not adequate.
The Department is currently doing more analysis to understand cost-effectiveness and develop clinical guidance, and to scope out how best to expand access to long-acting injectable buprenorphine further.
Asked by: Vikki Slade (Liberal Democrat - Mid Dorset and North Poole)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment with Secretary of State for Education of the potential impact of amending Schedule 17, Part 1, Paragraph 12(b) of The Human Medicines Regulations 2012 to enable schools to obtain new adrenaline nasal sprays for the treatment of allergic reactions on children with allergies .
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Officials at the Department are in the early stages of considering if potential amendments to Schedule 17 of the Human Medicines Regulations (HMRs) 2012 are required.
Should amendments to the HMRs be required, the Government will conduct a public consultation to ensure that the views of stakeholders are carefully considered, prior to any changes being made.
Asked by: Vikki Slade (Liberal Democrat - Mid Dorset and North Poole)
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 (a) the optimum number of pharmacies and (b) areas where there is an oversupply of pharmacies.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Community pharmacies are private businesses that provide National Health Service funded services.
There were 10,402 community pharmacies on 30 September 2025. In general, despite a reduction in the number of pharmacies in recent years, patient access to pharmacies remains good, and continues to be better in the most deprived areas when compared with the least deprived.
The vast majority of pharmacies are not directly commissioned or contracted by the NHS, instead contractors apply to gain entry to the NHS pharmaceutical list and if an application is approved, a pharmacy can start providing NHS services.
The assessments of the adequacy of provision, the location, and the number of pharmacies required in a certain area are the statutory responsibility of local authorities health and wellbeing boards. Local authorities are required to publish a pharmaceutical needs assessment (PNA) every three years. Integrated care boards (ICBs) give regard to the PNAs when reviewing applications from potential contractors.
Contractors can apply to open a new pharmacy to meet any current or future need identified in the PNA, but also to offer benefits to patients that were not foreseen by the PNA. If there is a need for a new local pharmacy to open and no contractors apply to open a pharmacy and fill the gap, ICBs can directly commission a new pharmacy to open outside of the market entry processes and can fund the contract from the ICB’s budgets.
Contractors can already seek an ICB’s permission to either consolidate different premises onto one site or to relocate their pharmacy premises to a different address. The approval of such requests depends on the impact it is likely to cause for patients and commissioners.
Asked by: Vikki Slade (Liberal Democrat - Mid Dorset and North Poole)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has plans to adapt pharmacy contracts so that pharmacies can be re-located to areas of high need.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Community pharmacies are private businesses that provide National Health Service funded services.
There were 10,402 community pharmacies on 30 September 2025. In general, despite a reduction in the number of pharmacies in recent years, patient access to pharmacies remains good, and continues to be better in the most deprived areas when compared with the least deprived.
The vast majority of pharmacies are not directly commissioned or contracted by the NHS, instead contractors apply to gain entry to the NHS pharmaceutical list and if an application is approved, a pharmacy can start providing NHS services.
The assessments of the adequacy of provision, the location, and the number of pharmacies required in a certain area are the statutory responsibility of local authorities health and wellbeing boards. Local authorities are required to publish a pharmaceutical needs assessment (PNA) every three years. Integrated care boards (ICBs) give regard to the PNAs when reviewing applications from potential contractors.
Contractors can apply to open a new pharmacy to meet any current or future need identified in the PNA, but also to offer benefits to patients that were not foreseen by the PNA. If there is a need for a new local pharmacy to open and no contractors apply to open a pharmacy and fill the gap, ICBs can directly commission a new pharmacy to open outside of the market entry processes and can fund the contract from the ICB’s budgets.
Contractors can already seek an ICB’s permission to either consolidate different premises onto one site or to relocate their pharmacy premises to a different address. The approval of such requests depends on the impact it is likely to cause for patients and commissioners.
Asked by: Vikki Slade (Liberal Democrat - Mid Dorset and North Poole)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to change the age at which people become eligible for free (a) prescriptions and (b) optical care.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Free National Health Service prescriptions and NHS-funded sight tests are available for many. This includes children under the age of 16 years old and those under the age of 19 years old in full time education, people on a low income, and adults aged 60 years old and over. NHS optical vouchers to help with the cost of glasses are also available for children.
There are no plans to change the eligibility for free NHS prescriptions, NHS-funded sight tests or optical vouchers, including eligibility based on age.
Further information about help with optical costs is available at the following link:
https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-services/opticians/free-nhs-eye-tests-and-optical-vouchers/
Further information about help with prescription costs is available at the following link:
https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/help-nhs-prescription-costs/free-nhs-prescriptions
Asked by: Vikki Slade (Liberal Democrat - Mid Dorset and North Poole)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the National Cancer Plan will include strategies to improve the accuracy of diagnoses for those with Myeloma.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Improving diagnosis is a key focus of the National Cancer Plan. It is a priority for the Government to support the National Health Service to diagnose cancer, including blood cancers, as early and accurately as possible, and to treat it faster, to improve outcomes.
To tackle late diagnoses of blood cancers, the NHS 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 will get the NHS diagnosing blood cancers earlier and treating them faster, and we will support the NHS to increase capacity to meet the demand for diagnostic services through investment, including for magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography scanners.
The National Cancer Plan will include further details on how we will improve outcomes for cancer patients, including speeding up diagnosis and treatment, ensuring patients have access to the latest treatments and technology, and ultimately drive up this country’s cancer survival rates.