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, with reference to the 10 Year Health Plan for England: fit for the future, published on 3 July 2025, what steps he plans to take to ensure that people who need one will be able to get a same-day GP appointment.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Through our 10-Year Health Plan, it will be easier and faster to see a general practitioner (GP). The 8:00am scramble will end, we will train more doctors, and we will guarantee digital consultations within 24 hours. We have delivered the biggest boost to GP funding in years, an £889 million uplift, with GPs now receiving a growing share of National Health Service resources
In October 2024, we invested £82 million into the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme to support the recruitment of 1,900 individual GPs into primary care networks across England, which has expanded capacity, and will help to make same-day appointments more available to the patients that need them.
The new £102 million Primary Care Utilisation and Modernisation Fund will create additional clinical space within over 1,000 practices across England, enabling more appointments and supporting same-day access.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
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 the potential (a) financial and (b) clinical impact of the Zimmer Biomet NexGen Legacy Posterior Stabilized (LPS) knee replacement system on the NHS.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) issued a field safety notice (FSN) in December 2022 about some devices in the NexGen family of knee implants. The FSN was issued following notification by the National Joint Registry (NJR) Implant Scrutiny Committee in 2021.
The NexGen Stemmed Option Tibial Component was removed from the market because of that notice, although only use in combination with LPS Flex or LPS Flex GSF femoral components demonstrated higher revision rates, and only patients receiving the combination of devices were recommended to be reviewed.
As is standard with joint replacement FSNs, the NJR supplied hospitals with a list of all the patients who had this combination implant and were still alive and had not already had a revision procedure. This represented 9,125 cases from 102 hospitals. This all happened within 48 hours of the FSN being issued. For context, 11,965 of these were implanted if patients who had died or been revised were included.
In terms of the clinical impact, the NJR had first been asked to investigate use of high flex NexGen knees by a surgeon in 2014. Although the data did not meet the outlier threshold at that time, NJR did inform the MHRA because there appeared to be a particular mechanism of failure with these devices, namely tibial loosening. The MHRA followed its standard process of discussing the concerns with the manufacturer and the matter was closed since the data did not demonstrate a case to answer. NJR reported this again in 2021, by which time the data was more robust and the signal was stronger.
At the time for an implant to be rated 10A, which is a measure of implant success, according to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), a failure rate of 10% at 10 years was used. This has recently been changed to a failure rate of 5% at 10 years.
The failure rate of this implant combination at 10 years is 7%, which is still under the 10% threshold advocated by NICE. It is important that these patients remain under clinical and radiological review.
NJR has made no assessment of the financial impact of the NexGen family of knee implants.
Asked by: Richard Tice (Reform UK - Boston and Skegness)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the report by Sands entitled Lost in the system: Saving babies’ lives, published on 10 July 2025, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that bereaved parents who have experienced pregnancy or baby loss have the same level of access to specialist psychological support in each postcode.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Experiencing pregnancy or baby loss can be extremely difficult and traumatic. We are determined to make sure that all bereaved parents, regardless of where they live, have access to specialist psychological support.
As of June 2025, Maternal Mental Health Services are now available in all areas of England. These services provide specialist psychological support for women with moderate/severe or complex mental health difficulties arising from birth trauma or baby loss.
All trusts in England are also signed up to the National Bereavement Care Pathway. This pathway is designed to improve the quality and consistency of bereavement care for parents and families experiencing pregnancy or baby loss.
We also recognise the importance of maternity bereavement services being available at all times. Seven day a week bereavement services are in the process of being set up in every area in England to support women and families who experience pregnancy loss or neonatal death.
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 steps he is taking to increase public awareness of (a) which medicines are known to have teratogenous effects and (b) the risks of taking teratogenous medicines during pregnancy.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The product information for each medicine possibly associated with teratogenic effects includes details about the nature and severity of the risk. The product information is intended to support and not replace the discussion between a healthcare professional and their patient regarding their treatment options.
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency continuously monitors the safety of medicines, including their use during pregnancy, ensuring the product information reflects what is known about each medicine.
Asked by: Mike Wood (Conservative - Kingswinford and South Staffordshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the publication entitled Civil Service 2024/2025 External Expenditure on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, published on 30 May 2025, which suppliers were used to provide the Black History Month event.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The suppliers used for Black History Month were Eurest Services, for catering services that cost £69.
Asked by: James McMurdock (Independent - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he has to support the continued delivery of SOS buses.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department is supportive of the work of volunteer initiatives, such as SOS buses. Voluntary, community, and social enterprise organisations (VCSEs) play a vital role in supporting communities up and down the country with a huge variety of issues. However, I recognise that the last few years have created a difficult environment for VCSEs, due to a number of challenges including those related to the COVID-19 pandemic and cost of living, and many are seeing increased financial pressures.
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is supporting VCSEs with their financial sustainability, including through the delivery of a number of grant programmes, growing other sources of funding such as the social investment market, and supporting the viability of local government contracts. There are a number of ways in which organisations can find available funding opportunities, including:
The Government has made it a priority to reset the relationship with civil society and build a new partnership to harness its full potential by developing a Civil Society Covenant.
Further, if local healthcare commissioners judge that SOS buses would help meet the healthcare needs of their respective populations, they can choose to commission those services.
Such a decision would be taken at the local level as integrated care boards across England are responsible for managing the National Health Service budget and arranging NHS healthcare services which meet the needs of their respective populations.
Asked by: Alex Ballinger (Labour - Halesowen)
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 the potential implications for his policies of the implementation by some NHS Integrated Care Boards of minimum waiting times for elective treatment; and what assessment he has made of the potential impact of this on (a) patient choice (b) the ability to meet NHS constitutional access standards.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
There is no formal policy supporting minimum waits in the National Health Service. However, the NHS Standard Contract technical guidance for 2025/26 states that commissioners may choose to include minimum waiting times in Activity Planning Assumptions to ensure the delivery of targets within agreed financial allocations. The full guidance is available at the following link:
Patients continue to have a legal right to choose where they go for their first appointment when referred to consultant-led care as an outpatient.
We will work closely with all systems to ensure they deliver the expected level of improvement in waiting times set out in 2025/26 Planning Guidance, which is the first step in delivering on our commitment that by March 2029, 92% of patients wait no longer than the constitutional standard of 18 weeks from referral to consultant-led treatment.
Asked by: Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, with reference to paragraphs 54 and 55 of the EU–UK Security and Defence Partnership, published on 19 May, and the decision of the Supreme Court in For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers [2025] UKSC 16, what assessment they have made of whether the UK definition of a woman aligns with that of the European Commission and its agencies.
Answered by Lord Collins of Highbury - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Supreme Court decision concerned the definition of a woman in the context of the UK Equality Act 2010.
In line with the UK National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security, the UK aims to ensure that the needs of women, girls, and marginalised people, including those who are LGBT+, are properly considered in conflict response. The EU-UK Security and Defence Partnership provides a framework for dialogue and cooperation with the EU, including on this issue.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 30 June 2025 to Question 61313 on NHS: Fees and Charges, if he will publish the revenue raised by NHS penalty charges in each year since 2020, broken down by age group.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The information on payments received from National Health Service penalty charges for Prescription Exemption Checking Service (PECS) and Dental Exemption Checking Service from 2020 to 2024, broken down by age group is shown in the attached tables. This data is based on the date the payment was received rather than when the penalty charge was issued. Please note, ‘unknown’ dates of birth in the PECS data set are cases where a date of birth is present but cannot be accurately read.
Asked by: Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative - Thirsk and Malton)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to page 25 of the National Security Strategy 2025, published on 24 June 2025, what steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to improve safeguards to prevent (a) people and (b) companies acting as proxies for foreign donations.
Answered by Alex Norris - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
As pledged in our manifesto, we are strengthening the rules around donations to political parties. We have published our ‘Strategy for Modern and Secure Elections’ which sets out a number of reforms we are making to strengthen rules on political donations, responding to the threat of foreign interference. These include “Know Your Donor” requirements for recipients of donations, tighter controls on company and unincorporated association donations, and enhanced transparency requirements for all donors to political parties.
The reforms aim to close loopholes and enhance due diligence, while preserving the ability of genuine donors to support democracy.