Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 29 January (HL13801), whether they plan to collect data on respiratory syncytial virus related hospital admissions of infants under one year old in weekly surveillance reports; if not, for what reason this data is being omitted.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Numbers of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) admissions in infants are reported by a sentinel network of approximately 15 to 20 National Health Service trusts in England to the Severe Acute Respiratory Infections-Watch Surveillance at the UK Health Security Agency. Participation in this surveillance is completely voluntary for NHS trusts. Therefore, the number of participating trusts can vary from week to week, and comparisons based on simple counts may be misleading.
To provide appropriate context for reported weekly data, weekly admission rates are calculated to monitor trends over time. This uses trust catchment populations published by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, which are estimated for under five-year-olds, but which have not been estimated specifically for the under one year old age group, or infants.
Therefore, published rates are based on the available denominator data for the under five-year-olds, and these are publicly available in the national surveillance weekly reports and corresponding datafile at the GOV.UK website.
Further surveillance data and a programme impact assessment will be included in the annual surveillance report on RSV, due to be published in summer 2026. Please refer to the 2024/25 annual surveillance report for a summary of the previous winter season, which is available at the GOV.UK website.
Surveillance reports use hospital admission data and the Office for National Statistics’ mid-year estimates to model catchment populations for hospital trusts. Modelled catchment populations use hospital data, aggregated over three years and resident populations in five-year age bands.
Asked by: Baroness Redfern (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to work with Young Lives vs Cancer to deliver the travel fund for young cancer patients.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department knows that the cost of travel is an important issue for many young cancer patients and their families across the United Kingdom.
Through the National Cancer Plan, the Government is committing up to £10 million a year to a new fund open to all children and young people in England with cancer and their families regardless of income, to support them with the cost of travelling to and from treatment. This commitment sits alongside wider action to transform cancer care for children and young people.
The Department has worked closely with the Children and Young People (CYP) Cancer Taskforce, to develop ambitious commitments on CYP cancer in the National Cancer Plan. The taskforce brought together experts across a range of fields to identify ways to improve outcomes and patient experience for young cancer patients and has been committed to ensuring the voices of key charity stakeholders and patients are included.
That’s why the Government assembled a Charity Sub-Group and Patient Experience Panel to ensure this expertise fed directly into the work of the taskforce.
The Government is committed to continuing its work with key cancer partners, including Young Lives vs Cancer, to deliver the commitments outlined in the National Cancer Plan.
Asked by: Baroness Redfern (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they will involve an organisation representative from the children and young people's sector in the delivery of the plans for children and young people in the National Cancer Plan for England.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Cancer Plan, published on 4 February 2026, will ensure that young cancer patients and their families receive better support, across diagnosis, treatment, and patient experience.
The Department has worked closely with the Children and Young People (CYP) Cancer Taskforce, to develop ambitious commitments on CYP cancer in the National Cancer Plan. The taskforce brought together experts across a range of fields to identify ways to improve outcomes and patient experience for young cancer patients and has been committed to ensuring the voices of key charity stakeholders and patients are included.
That’s why the Government assembled a Charity Sub-Group and Patient Experience Panel to ensure this expertise fed directly into the work of the taskforce.
The Government is committed to continuing its work with key cancer partners to deliver the commitments outlined in the National Cancer Plan.
Asked by: Lord Bradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 30 January (HL13777), when they will publish the results of the consultation on proposals to extend the medicines responsibilities of four professions.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The consultation for proposals to extend medicines responsibilities for paramedics, physiotherapists, operating department practitioners, and diagnostic radiographers closed on 28 October 2025. Our team is currently analysing the large number of respondents received and a Government response detailing next steps will be published in due course.
Non-medical prescribing remains a keen area of interest since the Government took office in 2024, and we support the expansion of professional groups being able to use legal mechanisms to supply, administer, and prescribe medicines to patients, where it is safe to do so, within their scope of practice.
Asked by: Baroness Walmsley (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether NHS England's forthcoming quality strategy will include a new model for financial incentives in the NHS, including specialised, secondary, primary and community care.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The new NHS Quality Strategy will build on the 10-Year Health Plan and Dr Penny Dash’s review of patient safety across the health and care landscape. The 10-Year Health Plan commits to using sharper financial incentives to deliver value and improve outcomes. We expect the NHS Quality Strategy will reference, alongside other interventions, how the Department and NHS England will develop these incentives to ensure they drive high quality care across the National Health Service.
Asked by: Danny Beales (Labour - Uxbridge and South Ruislip)
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 manage conflicts of interest associated with alcohol industry involvement in public health policy.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department already has established arrangements in place to manage conflicts of interest for both ministers and civil servants, including where these relate to the alcohol industry.
Ministerial conduct is governed by the Ministerial Code, which sets out requirements on the declaration and handling of ministers’ interests. Civil servants are bound by the Civil Service Code, and by departmental policies that set out how actual, potential, or perceived conflicts of interest must be identified, declared, and managed.
The Department keeps its internal guidance under regular review to ensure it remains aligned with cross-Government standards and supports transparent and accountable decision-making.
Asked by: Tom Hayes (Labour - Bournemouth East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps is the Department taking to remove barriers preventing community homelessness health services, such as mobile clinics, from accessing NHS SystemOne records.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
It is important that community health teams can access the information they need to provide quality care, including for people who are experiencing homelessness. NHS England and the Phoenix Partnership (TPP), the company that provides SystemOne, already offer several routes for some clinicians to view records outside of GP settings.
These include national services such as GP Connect and the National Care Records Service (NCRS), which allow clinicians to see key information from GP records. NCRS can also be used on mobile devices such as iPads. Integrated care systems are rolling out Shared Care Records, which give clinicians wider access to both GP and secondary care records, where appropriate.
More broadly, the Government’s commitments to improve health outcomes for people experiencing homelessness are set out in the cross-government strategy, A National Plan to End Homelessness. Through this strategy, we are working with NHS England, local authorities, and third sector partners to strengthen integrated care pathways. This includes improving collaboration between primary care, outreach teams, and community services. More information about the strategy is available at the following link:
The Single Patient Record will enable improvements as it will provide a comprehensive view of health and care information across care settings. It will give both patients and professionals secure access to a single, accurate and up-to-date record – wherever and whenever it's needed.
Asked by: Cat Smith (Labour - Lancaster and Wyre)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans his Department has to publish updated guidance on managing conflicts of interest between civil servants and Ministers in relation to unhealthy commodity industries.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department already has established arrangements in place to manage conflicts of interest for both ministers and civil servants, including where these relate to engagement with representatives of unhealthy commodity industries.
Ministerial conduct is governed by the Ministerial Code, which sets out requirements on the declaration and handling of ministers’ interests. Civil servants are bound by the Civil Service Code, and by departmental policies that set out how actual, potential, or perceived conflicts of interest must be identified, declared, and managed.
The Department keeps its internal guidance under regular review to ensure it remains aligned with cross-Government standards and supports transparent and accountable decision-making.
Asked by: Jo Platt (Labour (Co-op) - Leigh and Atherton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, in response to Question tabled on 15 December 2025, UIN 99871, if the Government can outline what steps are being taken to ensure the needs of people with severe Myalgic Encephalomyelitis are adequacy met.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The final delivery plan on myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), published in July 2025, includes an action for the Department and NHS England to explore whether a specialised service should be prescribed by my Rt. Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, for severe ME/CFS. Officials from the Department have commenced discussions with NHS England on how best to take forward this action.
The third and final session in NHS England’s newly-developed ME/CFS e-learning series, Managing Severe ME/CFS, is now live on the NHS Learning Hub. This session provides practical, evidence-based guidance for healthcare professionals to support people living with severe and very severe ME/CFS.
Additionally, as set out in the Plan for Change, we are committed to returning to the NHS constitutional standard that 92% of patients wait no longer than 18 weeks from referral to consultant-led treatment by March 2029. We exceeded our pledge to deliver an extra two million appointments, tests, and operations in our first year of government, having delivered 5.2 million additional appointments between July 2024 and June 2025. This will help people with severe ME/CFS to get support sooner.
The 10-Year Health Plan sets out a transformed vision for elective care by 2035, where most interactions no longer take place in a hospital building, instead happening virtually or via neighbourhood services. We will empower patients by giving them greater choice and control and establishing expected standards for making their experience of planned NHS care as smooth, supportive and convenient as possible, including for people with severe ME/CFS.
Asked by: Clive Jones (Liberal Democrat - Wokingham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what provision the National Cancer Plan will make for orphan drug pathways for patients with rare cancers requiring personalised treatment plans; and how those pathways will differ from existing commissioning arrangements.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
On 4 February 2026, NHS England and the Department published a National Cancer Plan for England. The National Cancer Plan is part of our work to build a National Health Service that is fit for the future and will make England a world-leader for cancer survival.
The orphan drug designation is assessed by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and is granted at the same time as the marketing authorisation. It provides a period of market exclusivity during which similar competitor medicines cannot enter the United Kingdom market. The orphan drug regulations are designed to support the development of medicines to treat rare diseases including rare cancers.
All new licensed medicines, including orphan medicines, are evaluated by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), which makes recommendations for the NHS on whether they represent a clinically and cost-effective use of NHS resources. NICE aims wherever possible to issue recommendations on new medicines close to the time of licensing, and the NHS in England is legally required to fund medicines recommended by NICE. NICE has a strong track record in recommending orphan medicines for use on the NHS and many thousands of patients with rare diseases have benefitted from access to new medicines as a result.
The Rare Cancers Bill, currently going through the House of Lords, places a duty on the Government to publish a review of the law related to marketing authorisation for rare cancer drugs, for instance orphan drugs for cancer, comparing the UK’s approach to other approaches internationally. Through the National Cancer Plan the Government has committed to full implement of the Rare Cancers Bill to streamline trial pathways and review regulatory barriers that prevent access to promising new treatments.