Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
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 merits of increasing the use of private high street eye care providers to treat conditions such as glaucoma to relieve pressure from the NHS.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We recognise the vital contribution that high street eye care providers make in maintaining the nation’s eye health.
Integrated care boards are responsible for assessing the health needs of their local population and for commissioning primary and secondary eye care services to meet them. This could include the commissioning of community-based glaucoma services, such as glaucoma referral filtering or glaucoma monitoring schemes.
The Getting It Right First-Time programme is currently developing best practice guidance for glaucoma services to support the adoption of high standards across the pathway, from detection onwards.
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
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 no one is denied treatment outright because of their cleft.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Patients born with cleft should have care plans tailored to meet their individual needs, with support from multi-disciplinary teams where necessary. Access to dental care is an important part of this and we recognise that some groups of patients may find it difficult to access. We have asked integrated care boards to commission extra urgent dental appointments and are also committed to reforming the dental contract, with a focus on matching resources to need and improving access.
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, whether he has made an assessment of the potential for dental students in training to carry out supervised NHS dental appointments to help reduce the backlog in routine and urgent care in West Dorset.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Every undergraduate dental student gains clinical experience in the course of their studies under the supervision of a qualified supervisor.
Clinical placements provide dental students with the opportunity to develop a range of skills, including clinical abilities and effective communication with both patients and colleagues. The patients receiving treatment should never be charged for the care they receive.
These placements are designed to provide students with exposure to a range of clinical environments, rather than to enhance overall National Health Service delivery.
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 explore the use of final-year dental students to support NHS dentistry capacity while maintaining patient safety and training standards.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Every undergraduate dental student gains clinical experience in the course of their studies under the supervision of a qualified supervisor.
Clinical placements provide dental students with the opportunity to develop a range of skills, including clinical abilities and effective communication with both patients and colleagues. The patients receiving treatment should never be charged for the care they receive.
These placements are designed to provide students with exposure to a range of clinical environments, rather than to enhance overall National Health Service delivery.
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, whether he has made an assessment of the potential for dental students in training to carry out supervised NHS dental appointments to help reduce the backlog in routine and urgent care.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Every undergraduate dental student gains clinical experience in the course of their studies under the supervision of a qualified supervisor.
Clinical placements provide dental students with the opportunity to develop a range of skills, including clinical abilities and effective communication with both patients and colleagues. The patients receiving treatment should never be charged for the care they receive.
These placements are designed to provide students with exposure to a range of clinical environments, rather than to enhance overall National Health Service delivery.
Asked by: Patrick Spencer (Independent - Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)
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 have waited more than 21 days for a GP practice appointment in (a) rural and (b) urban areas in 2025.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England publishes monthly data on general practice appointments (GPAD), including the approximate length of time between appointments being booked and taking place, although this is not a proxy for “waiting times”. There are a number of factors which can influence the timing of appointments, and it is not possible to estimate the time between the patient’s first attempt to contact their surgery and an appointment.
In England, in September 2024, 44.1% of appointments took place on the same day as they were booked, and 81.8% took place within two weeks of booking, 88.8% within 21 days, and 10.8% occurred after more than 21 days. NHS England does not include information on rurality in this publication.
In our newly published Medium-Term Planning Framework we have set an ambitious new target to deliver all urgent appointments on the same day, helping to ensure the patients who need urgent care will be prioritised.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many of the neighbourhood health centres announced in the Autumn Budget 2025 will be based in the West Midlands.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
At the Autumn Budget, we announced our commitment to deliver 250 neighbourhood health centres (NHCs) through the NHS Neighbourhood Rebuild Programme. This will deliver NHCs through a mixture of refurbishments to expand and improve sites over the next three years, along with new-build sites opening in the medium term. The first 120 NHCs are due to be operational by 2030 and will be delivered through public private partnerships and public capital.
Stockland Green Primary Care Centre and Summerfield Primary Care Centre, located in the West Midlands, are some of the first sites that have been chosen to be upgraded as part of the NHS Neighbourhood Rebuild Programme.
Nationwide coverage will take time, but we will start in the areas of greatest need where healthy life expectancy is lowest, including rural towns and communities with higher deprivation levels, targeting places where healthy life expectancy is lowest and delivering healthcare closer to home for those that need it the most.
Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for commissioning, which includes planning, securing, and monitoring, general practice services within their health systems through delegated responsibility from NHS England. Both ICBs and local health systems will be responsible for determining the most appropriate locations for NHCs.
Asked by: Al Pinkerton (Liberal Democrat - Surrey Heath)
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 improve (a) job security and (b) employment conditions for general practice nurses in Surrey Heath constituency.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
As self-employed contractors to the National Health Service, it is up to general practices (GPs) how they distribute pay and benefits to GP nurses and to determine their own staffing arrangements.
GP contractual arrangements do not place any specific obligations on GPs with regard to GP nurse terms and conditions.
The GP workforce is developed with the support of the Frimley ICB Primary Care Training hub. The hub commissions training supported placements for trainees and adoption of primary care network learning environments, in line with the NHS People Promise and interprofessional conferences.
We are investing an additional £1.1 billion in GPs to reinforce the front door of the NHS, bringing total spend on the GP Contract to £13.4 billion in 2025/26. This is the biggest cash increase in over a decade. The 8.9% boost to the GP Contract in 2025/26 is greater than the 5.8% growth to the NHS budget as a whole.
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, if he will consider requiring supervised trainee dentists, while on placement at dental training schools, to work on exclusively on NHS waiting lists rather than private appointments, to help reduce the backlog.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Every undergraduate dental student gains clinical experience in the course of their studies under the supervision of a qualified supervisor.
Clinical placements provide dental students with the opportunity to develop a range of skills, including clinical abilities and effective communication with both patients and colleagues. The patients receiving treatment should never be charged for the care they receive.
These placements are designed to provide students with exposure to a range of clinical environments, rather than to enhance overall National Health Service delivery.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton West)
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 modernise primary care estates.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
In May, we announced schemes which will benefit from the £102 million Primary Care Utilisation and Modernisation Fund (UMF) to deliver upgrades to a thousand general practice surgeries across England this financial year. The NHS Capital Planning Guidance and capital allocations, which set operational budgets for the next four years, have recently been published and include further details on multi-year funding for the UMF.
As part of the 10-Year Health Plan, the Government has committed to deliver a Neighbourhood Health Centre (NHC) in every community across the country over the course of the 10-Year Health Plan. We announced our commitment at the Autumn Budget to deliver 250 NHCs through an NHS Neighbourhood Rebuild Programme. This will deliver NHCs through a mixture of refurbishments, to expand and improve sites over the next three years, and new-build sites opening in the medium term.
Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for commissioning, which includes planning, securing, and monitoring, general practice services within their health systems through delegated responsibility from NHS England. Both ICBs and local health systems will be responsible for determining the most appropriate locations for NHCs.