Asked by: Andrew Gwynne (Independent - Gorton and Denton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent discussions his Department has had with stakeholders on compensation for people affected by in-utero exposure to sodium valproate.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is carefully considering the work by the Patient Safety Commissioner and her report, which set out options for redress for those harmed by valproate and pelvic mesh. This is a complex issue involving input from different Government departments. The Government will provide a further update to the Patient Safety Commissioner’s report.
The Department will consider further meetings with the community and relevant stakeholders, when we have a substantive update to ensure that discussions can be productive, as part of our work on these important issues.
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
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 concerns raised by NHS whistleblowers on patient safety are (a) recorded, (b) escalated and (c) reviewed.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
There are a number of avenues through which healthcare workers can speak up and raise concerns, with established procedures in place to record, act on, and escalate issues as needed.
In England, more than 1,300 Freedom to Speak Up Guardians now support staff in speaking up. Their role involves working alongside governance, risk, and safety teams to ensure that speaking up translates into improvements in patient care, as well as identifying patterns and trends, for example, in patient safety incidents. Freedom to Speak Up Guardians collect and report anonymised data on the issues raised with them, including patient safety. This data is published by the National Guardian’s Office at the following link:
https://nationalguardian.org.uk/learning-resources/speaking-up-data/
The National Guardian’s Office and NHS England are ‘prescribed persons’, authorised to receive protected disclosures, including those in relation to safety and quality concerns. They are legally required to publish annual reports on protected disclosures and their outcomes.
Every National Health Service organisation in England should be following the national Freedom to Speak Up policy, which outlines minimum standards for handling and addressing concerns. This policy ensures that all reported concerns are considered carefully and investigated objectively when necessary.
Asked by: Rebecca Paul (Conservative - Reigate)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to provide additional support for women who face additional prescription costs due to (a) menorrhagia and (b) other menstrual issues caused by (i) miscarriage and (ii) other significant traumas.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
There are no plans to review the support available to women facing these issues.
A maternity exemption certificate can be applied for as soon as a healthcare professional has confirmed that the patient is pregnant or has given birth, including still-birth, in the previous twelve months, and this provides exemption from prescription costs until 12 months after the due date. The certificate remains valid if the patient has a miscarriage. The certificate is automatically backdated one month from the date the application is received by the NHS Business Services Authority.
If a patient is not entitled to the maternity exemption, they can purchase a prescription prepayment certificate (PPC), which allows them to claim as many prescriptions as they need for a set cost. A three-monthly PPC, costing £32.05, or an annual PPC, costing £114.50, will save people money if they need four or more items in three months or 12 or more items in 12 months. To help spread the cost, people can pay for an annual PPC by ten monthly direct debits. A holder of a 12-month certificate can get all the prescriptions they need for just over £2 per week.
Approximately 40% of the population are currently liable to pay the prescription charge though approximately 89% of the items dispensed in the community are dispensed free of charge.
Asked by: Andrew Gwynne (Independent - Gorton and Denton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will implement standardised regulations for the (a) collection and (b) storage of rare cancer tissue samples obtained for the purposes of (i) medical treatment and (ii) future research.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Human Tissue Authority (HTA) regulates organisations that remove, store, and use human tissue for scheduled purposes, including research and medical treatment.
Under the Human Tissue Act 2004, appropriate consent is always required to remove tissue from the deceased for research purposes. Tissue from living patients, for example biopsy or blood samples, can ordinarily be used for research only with the person's consent. The HTA ensures that it is removed and stored in an appropriate and well managed way.
Consent is not required for research on tissue from living patients if the samples are anonymised or coded to make sure patient or participant information is not identifiable, and the project has recognised ethics committee approval, or if the tissue samples were obtained before 1 September 2006, when the Human Tissue Act came into force.
Asked by: Joe Robertson (Conservative - Isle of Wight East)
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 tackle increases in legal costs for clinical negligence.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The rising costs of clinical negligence claims against the National Health Service in England are of great concern to the Government. Costs have more than doubled in the last 10 years and are forecast to continue rising, putting further pressure on NHS finances.
As announced in the recently published 10-Year Health Plan for England, David Lock KC will be providing expert policy advice on the rising legal costs of clinical negligence and how we can improve patients’ experience of claims, ahead of a review by the Department in the autumn.
The results of David Lock’s work will inform future policy making in this area. No decisions on policy have been taken at this point, and the Government will provide an update on the work done and next steps in due course.
Asked by: Andrew Gwynne (Independent - Gorton and Denton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make it his policy to hold further meetings with (a) people affected by in-utero exposure to sodium valproate and (b) other relevant stakeholders on the progress made in implementing the recommendations outlined in the Hughes Report.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is carefully considering the work by the Patient Safety Commissioner and her report, which set out options for redress for those harmed by valproate and pelvic mesh. This is a complex issue involving input from different Government departments. The Government will provide a further update to the Patient Safety Commissioner’s report.
The Department will consider further meetings with the community and relevant stakeholders, when we have a substantive update to ensure that discussions can be productive, as part of our work on these important issues.
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, what funding is provided to community based organisations in (a) Greater Manchester (b) Oldham to support men's mental health and wellbeing.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Mental health remains a core priority for England, including in Greater Manchester and Oldham. That's why nationally, we're investing £688 million to transform services, including £26 million to support people in mental health crisis. We are introducing Neighbourhood Mental Health Care for adults, which will bring together community, crisis, and inpatient mental health care into a single, seamless offer.
On 19 November, to coincide with International Men’s Health Day, we published the Men’s Health Strategy. The strategy includes tangible actions to improve access to healthcare, provide the right support to enable men to make healthier choices, develop healthy living and working conditions, foster strong social, community, and family networks, and address societal norms. It also considers how to prevent and tackle the biggest health problems affecting men of all ages, which include mental health and suicide prevention.
Through the Men’s Health Strategy, we are launching a groundbreaking partnership with the Premier League to tackle male suicide and improve mental health literacy, by embedding health messaging into the matchday experience. We also announced the Suicide Prevention Support Pathfinders programme for middle-aged men. This program will invest up to £3.6 million over three years in areas of England where middle-aged men are at most risk of taking their own lives and will tackle the barriers that they face in seeking support.
Responsibility for onward commissioning of mental health services sits with integrated care boards (ICB). It is the role of local ICB decision-makers to consider the implications of mental health services, specific to each geography and including the perspectives of healthcare professionals, patient advocacy groups, and local authorities.
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 steps he is taking to support male carers of children with special educational needs and disabilities.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government recognises the vital role of unpaid carers and is committed to ensuring they receive the support they need. Through measures set out in the 10-Year Health Plan, we are supporting carers by making them more visible, empowering their voices in care planning, joining up services, and streamlining caring tasks through a new ‘MyCarer’ section in the NHS App. We are also expanding access to mental health care through 24/7 neighbourhood services, new emergency mental health departments, and enhanced support via the NHS App, all of which will be available to carers experiencing mental ill health.
Local authorities have duties under the Care Act 2014 to support unpaid carers. To help them fulfil these duties, the 2025 Spending Review provides for an increase of over £4 billion in funding available for adult social care in 2028/29 compared to 2025/26.
On 19 November, we published the Men’s Health Strategy. The strategy includes tangible actions to improve access to healthcare, provide the right support to enable men to make healthier choices, develop healthy living and working conditions, foster strong social, community and family networks and address societal norms. It also considers how to prevent and tackle the biggest health problems affecting men of all ages, which include mental health and suicide prevention, respiratory illness, prostate cancer, and heart disease.
As Minister of State for Care, I also chair a regular cross-Government meeting with ministers across departments to consider how we can work together to provide unpaid carers with the recognition and support they deserve.
The Department has no current plans to introduce a multi-year funding scheme for support groups specifically for male carers, but we will continue working across government and with local authorities to ensure that unpaid carers of all genders are able to access appropriate support.
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 assessment he has made of trends in the rates of mental ill health among male carers.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government recognises the vital role of unpaid carers and is committed to ensuring they receive the support they need. Through measures set out in the 10-Year Health Plan, we are supporting carers by making them more visible, empowering their voices in care planning, joining up services, and streamlining caring tasks through a new ‘MyCarer’ section in the NHS App. We are also expanding access to mental health care through 24/7 neighbourhood services, new emergency mental health departments, and enhanced support via the NHS App, all of which will be available to carers experiencing mental ill health.
Local authorities have duties under the Care Act 2014 to support unpaid carers. To help them fulfil these duties, the 2025 Spending Review provides for an increase of over £4 billion in funding available for adult social care in 2028/29 compared to 2025/26.
On 19 November, we published the Men’s Health Strategy. The strategy includes tangible actions to improve access to healthcare, provide the right support to enable men to make healthier choices, develop healthy living and working conditions, foster strong social, community and family networks and address societal norms. It also considers how to prevent and tackle the biggest health problems affecting men of all ages, which include mental health and suicide prevention, respiratory illness, prostate cancer, and heart disease.
As Minister of State for Care, I also chair a regular cross-Government meeting with ministers across departments to consider how we can work together to provide unpaid carers with the recognition and support they deserve.
The Department has no current plans to introduce a multi-year funding scheme for support groups specifically for male carers, but we will continue working across government and with local authorities to ensure that unpaid carers of all genders are able to access appropriate support.
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, if he will consider the potential merits of a multi-year funding scheme for support groups for male carers.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government recognises the vital role of unpaid carers and is committed to ensuring they receive the support they need. Through measures set out in the 10-Year Health Plan, we are supporting carers by making them more visible, empowering their voices in care planning, joining up services, and streamlining caring tasks through a new ‘MyCarer’ section in the NHS App. We are also expanding access to mental health care through 24/7 neighbourhood services, new emergency mental health departments, and enhanced support via the NHS App, all of which will be available to carers experiencing mental ill health.
Local authorities have duties under the Care Act 2014 to support unpaid carers. To help them fulfil these duties, the 2025 Spending Review provides for an increase of over £4 billion in funding available for adult social care in 2028/29 compared to 2025/26.
On 19 November, we published the Men’s Health Strategy. The strategy includes tangible actions to improve access to healthcare, provide the right support to enable men to make healthier choices, develop healthy living and working conditions, foster strong social, community and family networks and address societal norms. It also considers how to prevent and tackle the biggest health problems affecting men of all ages, which include mental health and suicide prevention, respiratory illness, prostate cancer, and heart disease.
As Minister of State for Care, I also chair a regular cross-Government meeting with ministers across departments to consider how we can work together to provide unpaid carers with the recognition and support they deserve.
The Department has no current plans to introduce a multi-year funding scheme for support groups specifically for male carers, but we will continue working across government and with local authorities to ensure that unpaid carers of all genders are able to access appropriate support.