Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation’s recommendation to narrow eligibility for the COVID-19 vaccination programme in 2025–26 on public health and the economy.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to protecting those most vulnerable to COVID-19 through vaccination, as guided by the independent Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI). The primary aim of the national COVID-19 vaccination programme remains the prevention of serious illness, resulting in hospitalisations and deaths, arising from COVID-19.
The JCVI has advised that population immunity to COVID-19 has been increasing due to a combination of naturally acquired immunity following recovery from infection and vaccine-derived immunity. COVID-19 is now a relatively mild disease for most people, though it can still be unpleasant, with rates of hospitalisation and death from COVID-19 having reduced significantly since COVID-19 first emerged.
The focus of the JCVI advised programme has therefore moved towards targeted vaccination of the two groups who continue to be at higher risk of serious disease, including mortality. These are the oldest adults and individuals who are immunosuppressed. The Government has accepted the JCVI’s advice for autumn 2025 and in line with this, a COVID-19 vaccination is being offered to the following groups:
- adults aged 75 years old and over;
- residents in care homes for older adults; and
- individuals aged six months and over who are immunosuppressed.
Under their standard cost-effectiveness approach, the JCVI considers a vaccination programme cost effective if the health benefits are greater than the opportunity costs. The Department does not ask the JCVI to complete an assessment of the wider economic benefits of a vaccination programme.
As for all vaccines, the JCVI keeps the evidence under regular review.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many and what proportion of patients in (1) Lincolnshire and (2) England have waited for (a) 90 and (b) 150 days for brain tumour test results in each of the last three years.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England publishes waiting time data from referral to being informed of a cancer diagnosis or having it ruled out for brain and central nervous system. This is the 28-day Faster Diagnosis Standard. This includes the waiting time data for patients in Lincolnshire Integrated Care Board and in England.
This data is publicly available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/cancer-waiting-times/
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an estimate of the cost to (a) the NHS and (b) the public purse of the resident doctor strikes in 2025.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The five-day resident doctor strike in July 2025 had an estimated cost to the National Health Service of approximately £240 million and this was a starting estimate for the planned November strike. The costs were lower than in July 2024 as a result of lower turnout. We continue to update estimates as new data becomes available, in line with receiving business as usual financial data from NHS systems.
The NHS has tried and tested plans in place to minimise disruption and will work with partners to ensure safe care for patients continues to be available and emergency services continue to operate.
Asked by: Luke Evans (Conservative - Hinckley and Bosworth)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what representations his Department has received from Integrated Care Boards on (a) the abolition of NHS England and (b) subsequent planned redundancies.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department has not received any formal representations from the integrated care boards regarding the abolition of NHS England or any subsequent planned redundancies. This includes anything in relation to NHS England’s announced voluntary redundancy scheme, which will be open to applications from Monday 1 December until 11:59pm on Sunday 14 December.
Communications between the Department and the integrated care boards regarding workforce planning are managed within existing operational processes.
Asked by: Jim McMahon (Labour (Co-op) - Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many hospital wards are not in active use in England; and what the patient capacity is of those wards.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Data for the occupancy and utilisation rates of clinical rooms in the NHS Estate for the latest period, which was 2023/24, published in December 2024, is available at the following link:
Asked by: Ben Obese-Jecty (Conservative - Huntingdon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the cost to the public purse has been of redundancy packages for staff following the abolition of NHS England.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Following the Prime Minister’s announcement of the abolition of NHS England, we are clear on the need for a smaller centre, as well as scaling back integrated care board running costs and NHS provider corporate cost reductions in order to reduce waste and bureaucracy.
Redundancies are anticipated to cost approximately £1 billion in total, with most exit activity concentrated in 2025/26 and 2026/27, to release savings as soon as possible and to align to the available funding. The precise split between financial years and organisations is being worked through as operational delivery planning progresses.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
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 increase the proportion of written parliamentary questions which receive answers within the usual time period.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department takes seriously its parliamentary obligations. I am grateful to my colleagues for their patience as we respond to a very high number of written parliamentary questions (PQs).
The Department of Health and Social Care is the busiest Department in Whitehall in terms of the volume of PQs that we receive, routinely receiving in excess of 1,400 PQs each month. In the most recent period for which the Table Office has provided data on PQ performance, from 24 March to 30 June 2025, the Department of Health and Social Care received nearly double the number of PQs as the next highest volume departments, and received 15% of all PQs tabled across Whitehall.
We are taking action to improve PQ performance. This includes enhancing the data available to policy teams on outstanding casework and ensuring that the joint leadership of the Department is championing the importance of PQs.
Asked by: Luke Evans (Conservative - Hinckley and Bosworth)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether funding from local budgets will be used to pay redundancy packages, in the context of the abolition of NHS England.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Following the Prime Minister’s announcement of the abolition of NHS England, we are clear on the need for a smaller centre, as well as scaling back integrated care board running costs and NHS provider corporate cost reductions in order to reduce waste and bureaucracy.
£860 million of planned resource funding has been re-profiled from later to earlier years of the Department’s Spending Review settlement. This will enable the Department to continue making progress towards halving headcount across the Department and NHS England. This will unlock savings of £1 billion a year by the end of the Parliament, equivalent to the cost of over 115,000 extra hip and knee operations.
Asked by: Edward Morello (Liberal Democrat - West Dorset)
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 help improve the speed and efficiency of vaccine rollout when new vaccines receive NHS approval.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to supporting the timely delivery of new vaccination programmes to fully protect the public from vaccine preventable diseases. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation meets regularly to consider both current and future vaccine products and to advise ministers accordingly.
The Department works with NHS England and the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) to secure supply deals with manufacturers, stockpile doses, and coordinate logistics to ensure fast deployment, working at pace to update guidelines and training documents so that the workforce providing vaccines is ready to go.
To boost capacity, the Department is exploring new ways of delivering vaccinations including health visits and community pharmacy, with pilots for administering vaccinations as part of health visits standing-up from January 2026. Digital tools also ensure speedy and efficient rollout, for instance: online booking via the NHS app; automated reminders; and data dashboards to track uptake and tweak priorities in real-time. Finally, the Department works with NHS England and the UKHSA to develop targeted communications campaigns, advertising, and social media to build trust and drive appointments, aiming for high coverage from day one. Programme planning by the UKHSA and NHS England occurs simultaneously to ensure delivery of safe, clinically effective, stable, and accessible programmes that commence at the right time and are rolled out in a timely manner after a policy decision has been made.
Asked by: Bob Blackman (Conservative - Harrow East)
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 efficacy of hospitals delivering specialist multi-disciplinary teams for patients experiencing homelessness.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department published guidance in 2024 called Discharging people at risk of or experiencing homelessness to support the care transfer hub, which is available at the following link:
This guidance recognises the necessity for multi-disciplinary teams. It recommends that dedicated housing options officers are embedded within the care transfer hub and advises hospitals treating over 200 homeless patients a year to offer access to a specialist multi-disciplinary homeless discharge team.
Some areas of the country have introduced High Intensity Use Services to proactively meet the needs of the most frequent attenders of the local accident and emergency, a significant portion of whom are experiencing homelessness. These services include multi-disciplinary teams that are helping to address health inequalities faced by this cohort while alleviating pressure on urgent and emergency care pathway,