theodi/ndl-core-corpus huggingface dataset:
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James Naish:To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what recent discussions she has had with (a) Sport England and (b) UK Sport on access to equestrian activities for (i) underrepresented groups and (ii) young people with SEND. \p Stephanie Peacock: We want everyone to be able to enjoy the physical and mental health benefits of sport and physical activity. We recognise that there are barriers which prevent some people from taking part and we will continue to work with our arm's length bodies, Sport England and UK Sport, and sector partners to encourage sport bodies to make sport more accessible and inclusive.

It is for each sport’s National Governing Body to decide on their own specific aims and appropriate initiatives to increase access and inclusion. British Equestrian launched its Horses for All strategy in December 2023.

UK Sport has committed a total of £15.7 million in funding to British Equestrian for the Los Angeles 2028 cycle, including £12.1 million for Olympic disciplines and £3.6 million for Para-Equestrian Dressage. British Equestrian is also a system partner of Sport England, receiving £6,387,216 in funding between 2022 and 2027.

As part of the Together Fund, Sport England also awarded British Equestrian £195,000 to support equestrian centres, community groups and targeted organisations to provide riding activities aimed at engaging lower socio-economic groups, people with long-term health conditions, culturally diverse communities, and disabled people.
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Mr Andrew Snowden:To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to help support local sports (a) clubs and (b) initiatives in (i) Fylde and (ii) Lancashire. \p Stephanie Peacock: This Government recognises that grassroots sports clubs and initiatives are central to communities up and down the country.

The Government provides the majority of funding for grassroots sport through our Arm’s Length Body, Sport England, which invests over £250 million in Exchequer and Lottery funding each year. In 2024/25, Sport England invested £11,750 in Fylde constituency and £2,765,589 was invested in Lancashire.

The Government has committed to continued funding for grassroots facilities. £100 million will be invested into grassroots sport facilities across the UK through the Multi-Sport Grassroots Facilities Programme.
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Sadik Al-Hassan:To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to prevent spoke pharmacies from charging patients for additional services which are delivered by an outsourced hub partner. \p Stephen Kinnock: For medicines prescribed as part of National Health Service primary care, patients either pay the standard NHS prescription charge or receive their prescriptions free of charge, depending on eligibility. Pharmacies are responsible for collecting these charges on behalf of the NHS and are not permitted to charge patients more than the set fee, even if the medicines have been assembled at the hub pharmacy.

Pharmacies can offer private services to patients and charge additional fees to those who choose these services, for example, to have medicines delivered to their homes. Distance selling pharmacies are contractually required to deliver medicines to patients free of charge and this requirement will not be affected if a distance selling pharmacy engages a hub.
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Edward Morello:To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking increase the number of optometrists in West Dorset. \p Stephen Kinnock: NHS England provides an annual grant for supervisors of optometry trainees. This payment is an essential element of ensuring adequate training provision is available for new optometrists.

Integrated care boards are responsible for commissioning primary and secondary eye care services and receive an annual allocation of funding to secure services to meet the needs of their local population. Any decisions about the recruitment of optometrists are a matter for individual employers.

We will publish a refreshed workforce plan to deliver the transformed health service we will build over the next decade and treat patients on time again.
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Marie Goldman:To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to increase funding for community pharmacies. \p Stephen Kinnock: Funding for the core community pharmacy contractual framework has increased to £3.073 billion for 2025/26. This represented the largest uplift in funding of any part of the National Health Service, over 19% across 2024/25 and 2025/26.

Decisions on funding for community pharmacies beyond 2025/26 are subject to the current Spending Review. As is custom and practice, the Department will consult Community Pharmacy England on any proposed changes to the reimbursement and remuneration of pharmacy contractors later this year.
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Pippa Heylings:To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of establishing a Commissioner for Older People and Ageing. \p Stephen Kinnock: The Department has not made an assessment. We believe the duties of such a role are covered by work elsewhere in the system. For instance, the Chief Nurse champions and raises the profile of nursing in social care and works alongside the Chief Social Worker for Adults, to increase the recognition and appreciation of all social workers in the care sector.

Baroness Casey, as part of the independent commission, has been tasked to start a national conversation about what care and support working age adults, older people, and their families should expect from adult social care.

The commission is tasked with producing tangible, pragmatic recommendations that can be implemented in a phased way over a decade. It will aim to make adult social care more productive, preventative, and to give people who draw on care, and their families and carers, more power in the system. Baroness Casey will report on medium-term recommendations in 2026, and longer-term recommendations by 2028.

The 10-Year Health Plan will also set the vision for what good joined-up care looks like for people with a combination of health and care needs, including for older people. It will set out how to support and enable health and social care services, and wider services, to work together better to provide that joined-up care.
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Rachel Gilmour:To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to help ensure that social care reform tackles barriers faced by (a) disabled people with complex needs and (b) deafblind people. \p Stephen Kinnock: The Government is taking forward a package of reforms to enable more people to live independently for longer, including older adults, disabled people, and those with complex needs. For example, in 2025/26, we are providing up to £3.7 billion of additional funding for social care authorities, including an £880 million increase in the Social Care Grant.

We are also providing £172 million across this and the last financial year, for approximately 15,000 home adaptations, and are introducing new national standards and trusted guidance for care technologies such as remote monitoring. In addition, to strengthen the workforce, we are legislating for the first ever Fair Pay Agreement for care workers and are providing a £2,000 uplift to the Carer’s Allowance.

We have also launched an independent commission into adult social care as part of our critical first steps towards delivering a National Care Service. The commission will work with people who draw on care and support, their families, staff, and the wider sector to build a system that meets the current and future needs of our population. These improvements will help support the quality of adult social care for all who draw on it, including disabled people with complex needs and deafblind people.
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Liz Jarvis:To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if his Department will reintroduce a NHS dementia diagnosis target. \p Stephen Kinnock: The Government remains committed to recovering the dementia diagnosis rate to the national ambition of 66.7% and agrees that timely diagnosis is vital to ensuring that people with dementia can access the treatment and support they need.

The Darzi Investigation found that there were too many targets set for the National Health Service, which made it hard for local systems to prioritise their actions or to be held properly accountable.

This is why we have taken a new approach to NHS Planning Guidance this year, reducing the number of national directives from 32 to 18. We will only turn the NHS around by doing things differently. These are the first steps on our journey for the long-term reform of the NHS.

NHS Planning Guidance is not an exhaustive list of everything the NHS does, and the absence of a target does not mean it is not an area of focus.
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Mr Andrew Snowden:To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 2 June 2025 to Question 54075 on Care Homes: Fylde, what steps he is taking to improve recruitment and retention of care home staff in (a) Fylde and (b) other (i) rural and (ii) coastal areas. \p Stephen Kinnock: English local authorities have responsibility under the Care Act 2014 to meet social care needs, and statutory guidance directs them to ensure there is sufficient workforce in adult social care (ASC).

The Government recognises the scale of reforms needed to make the ASC sector attractive, to support sustainable workforce growth, and to improve the recruitment and retention of the domestic workforce. This is why we are introducing the first ever Fair Pay Agreement to the ASC sector so that care professionals are recognised and rewarded for the important work that they do.

We are also supporting the professionalisation of the ASC workforce, including through the expansion of the Care Workforce Pathway to a further four roles, including registered manager and deputy manager roles. The pathway sets out how people can develop a long-term career in adult social care, with the right support and training to help attract people to join, and remain in, the sector

We are also continuing to fund the Adult Social Care Learning Development Support Scheme to help people build their skills and careers in care. The scheme is backed by up to £12 million this financial year and includes qualifications that support skills development in the quality of care more broadly, as well as opportunities to develop leadership and management skills.

The Market Sustainability and Improvement Fund (MSIF) will provide over £1 billion for ASC to local authorities over 2025/26. The MSIF is designed to support increased ASC capacity and improve market sustainability. One of the three target areas local authorities can spend their allocation on is increasing ASC workforce recruitment and retention.
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Tom Morrison:To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department considered including Cheadle Practice as being a high priority for estate improvements when determining allocations for the Primary Care Utilisation and Modernisation Fund in the 2025-26 financial year. \p Stephen Kinnock: The Government is committed to delivering a National Health Service that is fit for the future and recognises the importance of strategic, value for money investments in capital projects. We have made sure that every single region across the country receives a share of the Primary Care Utilisation and Modernisation funding, so the benefits are felt nationwide.

NHS England worked with all integrated care boards, including Greater Manchester, to prioritise the schemes that local health leaders identified that met their communities most urgent needs.
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Sir John Hayes:To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many school children are waiting for autism assessment in Lincolnshire. \p Stephen Kinnock: The information is not held centrally in the format requested but may be held by individual providers or integrated care boards (ICBs). Some relevant information is available on autism assessment waiting times for the NHS Lincolnshire ICB.

In the NHS Lincolnshire ICB, the Autism Waiting Time Statistics published by NHS England show that the number of patients aged between zero and 17 years old with an open suspected autism referral, namely diagnosis not yet complete, was 70 at the end of March 2025, which is the latest available data.

Data on children and young people in this dataset is expected to be an underestimate and caution should be used when interpreting these figures since, at this stage, they are experimental rather than official statistics.
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Ben Obese-Jecty:To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how the NHS deflator works in relation to the General Dental Service. \p Stephen Kinnock: The NHS Cost Inflation Index (NHSCII) is a measure of inflation that is used in productivity calculations, and is produced annually in conjunction with NHS England, the Centre for Health Economics at the University of York, and the Office for National Statistics.

National Health Service dentists are typically employed under General Dental Services (GDS) contracts. The NHSCII plays no role in determining the value of GDS contracts.

GDS contract uplifts comprise of pay and non-pay elements. The non-pay element is uplifted by a measure of inflation. Since the 2022/23 financial year, this measure has been the gross domestic product (GDP) deflator. The GDP deflator has been taken from the rates published as part of the Autumn Statement, and is consistent with the GDP deflator rate used in other areas of primary care.

The Government has accepted the recommendation of the Review Body on Doctors' and Dentists' Remuneration to increase the pay of doctors and dentists by 4%. The uplift to the value of GDS contracts will be net of pay and expenses.
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Mark Pritchard:To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to reduce waiting times for mental health treatment in (a) Shropshire, (b) Telford and (c) Wrekin. \p Stephen Kinnock: Long waits for mental health services are being driven by increasing demand in a system in desperate need of change, including in Shropshire, Telford, and Wrekin.

The Government is piloting innovative models of care in the community, including six neighbourhood adult mental health centres that are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and which bring together community, crisis, and inpatient care.

NHS England Planning Guidance for 2025/26 makes it clear that for this year, to support reform and improvements, we expect all providers to reduce the variation in children and young people accessing services and improve productivity.

We are also improving data quality so we can support providers to understand demand across their areas. Since July 2023, NHS England has included waiting times metrics for referrals to urgent and community-based mental health services in its monthly mental health statistics publication to help services to target the longest waits.

Our 10-Year Health Plan will inform the future vision and delivery plan for mental health services in England. Earlier intervention remains a key focus of the plan, with the aim of reducing pressure on mental health services.
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Victoria Collins:To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to ensure people in mental health crises receive adequate support in emergency services in (a) Harpenden and Berkhamsted constituency and (b) Hertfordshire. \p Stephen Kinnock: The Hertfordshire and West Essex Integrated Care Board commissions mental health services to meet the needs of its population, including for people living in Harpenden and Berkhamsted. The integrated care board continues to monitor the effectiveness and quality of these services.

The National Health Service, local councils, police, and experts by experience continue to work together through Hertfordshire’s Crisis Care Concordat, to implement service and pathway improvements to ensure that people experiencing a mental health crisis receive timely, effective, and appropriate support.

This includes implementing the Right Care, Right Person approach which minimises the involvement of police in the care of people with mental health needs, where this is appropriate.

The integrated care board has developed a range of services to support people in mental health crisis. A new mental health urgent care centre has opened in Stevenage, which offers a safe space and a multidisciplinary team to provide support. Options for a similar model in West Hertfordshire are being explored. Nightlight services, delivered by the Herts Mind Network, provide emotional support, advice, and sanctuary space for those experiencing a mental health crisis.

Additionally, mental health response vehicles are being rolled out across the country. Each vehicle is staffed by a paramedic with enhanced medical training and a registered mental health practitioner, enabling expert care to be delivered directly at the scene.

People of all ages in England who are experiencing a mental health crisis can speak to a trained NHS professional at any time of the day via the NHS 111 service. This service gives people the chance to be listened to by a trained member of staff who can help direct them to the right place.
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Carla Lockhart:To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to improve access to specialist mental health support for disabled children who are (a) victims of and (b) witnesses to serious crime. \p Stephen Kinnock: Many children and young people (CYP) face complex emotional and mental health challenges arising from trauma.

Over the next decade, to deliver the Government’s missions, the National Health Service will play a key part in addressing the needs of these children, and the NHS planning guidance for 2025/26 is clear that integrated care boards should reduce local inequalities in access to CYP mental health services, between disadvantaged groups and the wider CYP population.

We will deliver on our commitment to get every child who needs it, including disabled children who are victims of and witnesses to serious crime, access to mental health support in school, and over the course of this year we will roll that support out to nearly a million extra children. Under Government plans, all pupils will have access to mental health support in school by 2029/30.
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Lewis Cocking:To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the mental health support available to people in the Broxbourne constituency. \p Stephen Kinnock: Local integrated care boards are responsible for ensuring that mental health services are safe, effective, sustainable, and meet the needs of the population.

Long waits are being driven by increasing demand in a system in desperate need of change. We are already responding by delivering new, innovative models of care in the community. We are piloting six neighbourhood, 24/7 adult mental health centres to bring together community, crisis, and inpatient care.

NHS England uses the Oversight Framework to assess the quality and safety of all mental health inpatient services in England, including services in Broxbourne. Risks and issues are escalated nationally using the quality risk and escalation framework.

In addition, the Care Quality Commission carries out monitoring and assessments of providers in England to ensure they are providing safe and quality care to people using their services. The Care Quality Commission has a duty under the Mental Health Act 1983 to monitor how services exercise their powers and discharge their duties when patients are detained in hospital or are subject to community treatment orders or guardianship.
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Liz Jarvis:To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to help reduce staffing shortages in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services. \p Stephen Kinnock: This year the Department is investing an extra £688 million in children and young people’s mental health services. This will allow us to hire more staff, deliver more talking therapies, and get waiting lists down through our Plan for Change.

Early interventions in mental health support for young people can have positive ramifications for the rest of their lives. We will deliver on our commitment to get every child who needs it access to mental health support within school, and over the course of this year we will roll that support out to nearly a million extra children. Under Government plans, all pupils will have access to mental health support in school by 2029/30.

As part of our mission to build a National Health Service that is fit for the future and that is there when people need it, we will recruit 8,500 mental health workers across child and adult mental health services to help ease the pressure on busy services. We continue to work with NHS England to consider options to deliver this commitment, alongside publishing a refreshed workforce plan to deliver the transformed health service we will build over the next decade.

In addition, targeted retention work has been undertaken through the NHS Retention Programme which works with trusts to help them understand why staff have left. This has focused on better support for line managers and improved support for new joiners.
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Mr Andrew Snowden:To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant the Answer of 2 June 2025 to Question 54075 on Care Homes: Fylde, when he expects the Fair Pay Agreement for the adult social care sector to be implemented; and whether this timeline will apply to care providers in Fylde constituency. \p Stephen Kinnock: We want to get the process of establishing the Fair Pay Agreement framework right, in order to ensure meaningful reform for the social care sector. As set out in the Plan to Make Work Pay, the Government is committed to engaging with those who draw upon, work in, and provide care and support, as well as local authorities, unions, and others from across the sector, on the design and implementation of a Fair Pay Agreement process. We aim to begin the public consultation in England after the bill receives Royal Assent later this year. Secondary legislation and the establishing of the adult social care negotiating body for England will follow. It will then negotiate the first Fair Pay Agreement in England. The Government is committed to establishing the Fair Pay Agreement process and seeing the first Fair Pay Agreement take effect for adult social care workers in England within this Parliament.
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Nick Timothy:To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that dementia care is included in the NHS 10 year plan. \p Stephen Kinnock: The 10-Year Health Plan will address the challenges diagnosed by Lord Darzi and will set the vision for what good joined-up care looks like for people with a combination of complex health and care needs, including people living with dementia. We are carefully considering policies, including those that impact people with dementia, with input from the public, patients, health staff, and our partners, as we develop the plan.
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Manuela Perteghella:To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure that dementia specialists are involved in NHS continuing healthcare assessments for people living with dementia. \p Stephen Kinnock: The National Framework for NHS Continuing Healthcare and NHS-funded Nursing Care sets out the process for determining eligibility for NHS Continuing Healthcare (CHC). This statutory guidance is clear that the multidisciplinary team involved in CHC assessments should include someone with specialist knowledge of the individual’s condition, such as dementia, or have information available to them from the relevant specialists.

It is important that those contributing to the assessment process have the relevant skills and knowledge. To support staff working in health and social care to apply the principles of the national framework, NHS England has developed and published a comprehensive set of online learning resources.

CHC eligibility is not determined by diagnosis or condition. It is assessed on a case-by-case basis, taking into account the totality of an individual’s needs, including the ways in which these needs interact with one another.
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Dr Roz Savage:To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure NHS GP surgeries process private medical paperwork in a timely manner; and whether his Department plans to issue updated guidance to prevent administrative delays that could adversely affect patient outcomes. \p Stephen Kinnock: We are working across Government to cut red tape and improve ways of working, including work to improve the patient experience, such as streamlining or removing the need to request unnecessary medical evidence and paperwork where possible.

Some medical paperwork is not included within the GP Contract and is therefore outside of core National Health Service work. It may attract charges in the same way some medical evidence letters, certificates, and reports are chargeable.

There are currently no plans to develop further guidance around handling private medical requests. The British Medical Association provides guidance to general practitioners on its website on fees for medical evidence, and on general practice responsibility in responding to private health care.
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Adam Jogee:To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the number of children and young people waiting for an ADHD assessment in (a) Newcastle-under-Lyme and (b) Staffordshire. \p Stephen Kinnock: There is, at present, no single established dataset that can be used to monitor waiting times for assessment and diagnosis for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) for individual organisations or geographies in England. Although the data requested is not held centrally, it may be held locally by individual National Health Service trusts or commissioners.

For the first time, NHS England published management information on ADHD waits at a national level on 29 May 2025 as part of its ADHD data improvement plan; it will soon release technical guidance to integrated care boards (ICBs) to improve recording of ADHD data, with a view to improving the quality of ADHD waits data and publishing more localised data in future.

NHS England has established an ADHD taskforce which is bringing together those with lived experience with experts from the NHS, education, charity and justice sectors to get a better understanding of the challenges affecting those with ADHD, including in accessing services and support, with the report expected in the summer. NHS England has also captured examples from ICBs who are trialling innovative ways of delivering ADHD services and is using this information to support local systems to tackle ADHD waiting lists and provide support to address people’s needs.
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Edward Morello:To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help ensure that new housing developments have adequate access to GPs. \p Stephen Kinnock: The Department of Health and Social Care continues to work closely with Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government to ensure all new and existing developments have an adequate level of healthcare infrastructure. This is alongside guidance on how developer contributions from new housing developments can be better negotiated and used towards delivering local health services and infrastructure.

Integrated care boards are responsible for commissioning, planning, securing, and monitoring general practice services within their health systems through delegated responsibility from NHS England. The National Health Service has a statutory duty to ensure there are sufficient medical services, including general practices, in each local area. It should take account of population growth and demographic changes.
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John Whitby:To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to reduce waiting times for NHS dentist placements in rural areas. \p Stephen Kinnock: We are aware of the challenges faced in accessing a dentist, particularly in more rural and coastal areas, and we are already taking action through the Golden Hello scheme. This recruitment initiative will see up to 240 dentists receiving payments of £20,000 to work in the rural and coastal areas that need them most for three years.

Looking to the longer-term, a central part of the 10-Year Health Plan will be our workforce and how we ensure we train and provide the staff, technology, and infrastructure the National Health Service needs to care for patients across our communities.

Tackling the geographical disparities in access to NHS dentistry is vital. We will publish a refreshed workforce plan to ensure the NHS has the right people, in the right places, with the right skills to deliver the care patients need, when they need it.
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Mr Andrew Snowden:To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of expanding the number of skincare conditions that can be treated through Pharmacy First. \p Stephen Kinnock: The Pharmacy First service allows for referrals from NHS111, general practitioners and accident and emergency for advice on a minor illness, which includes a number of skin conditions and may also include the sale of over-the-counter medicines.

Currently the clinical pathways element of the service that allows for the supply of prescription-only medicines covers seven common health conditions, including sinusitis, sore throat, earache, impetigo, shingles, infected insect bites and uncomplicated urinary tract infections in women aged between 16 and 64 years old. NHS England is keeping the clinical scope of this part of the service under review.
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Sarah Bool:To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department has taken to help reduce waiting times for autism assessments for children in rural areas. \p Stephen Kinnock: Lord Darzi’s independent review of the National Health Service, published September 2024, highlighted the severe delays for accessing autism assessments and that demand for assessments for autism has grown significantly in recent years.

It is the responsibility of integrated care boards (ICBs) to make available appropriate provision to meet the health and care needs of their local population, including autism assessments for children in rural areas, in line with relevant National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines. In doing so, ICBs should take account of waiting lists, considering how local funding can be deployed to best meet the needs of their local population.

On 5 April 2023, NHS England published a national framework and operational guidance to help ICBs, including those in rural areas, and the NHS to deliver improved outcomes for children, young people, and adults referred to an autism assessment service. Since publication, NHS England has been supporting systems and services to identify where there are challenges for implementation and how they might overcome these. NHS England is also working with research organisations to explore evidence-based models that support improved outcomes for those people waiting for an autism assessment.
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Rachel Gilmour:To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure that deafblind people can access care needs assessments. \p Stephen Kinnock: Under the Care Act 2014 and Care and Support (Assessment) Regulations 2014, local authorities are responsible for ensuring deafblind people in their area access the right care and support. This includes making contact with and keeping a record of all deafblind people in their area and ensuring that needs assessments are carried out by a person who has specific training and expertise relating to individuals who are deafblind. In addition, under the Equality Act (2010), local authorities must make reasonable adjustments to ensure that disabled people are not disadvantaged.

The Government recognises the many challenges facing the adult social care system and is taking steps to improve access to adult social care. We have launched an independent commission into adult social care as part of our critical first steps towards delivering a National Care Service. The commission will make clear recommendations to define and build an adult social care system that will meet the current and future needs of our population. The commission will consider older people’s care and support for working age disabled adults separately, recognising that these services meet different needs.

In the interim, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) are assessing how well local authorities in England are performing against their duties under Part 1 of the Care Act 2014, including their duties relating to the access and provision of care and support for deafblind people. Support for deafblind people will form part of the CQC’s overall assessment of local authorities’ delivery of adult social care. In that context, the CQC will report when there is something to highlight, for example, something being done well, innovative practice or an area for improvement. If the CQC identifies a local authority has failed or is failing its functions to an acceptable standard, my Rt. Hon. friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, has powers to intervene. The CQC has published over forty local authority ratings and reports, which are available at the following link:

https://www.cqc.org.uk/care-services/local-authority-assessment-reports
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Andrew Cooper:To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has considered (a) alternative and (b) long-term funding models for supporting people affected by thalidomide after the current health grant period has ended. \p Stephen Kinnock: The Thalidomide Health Grant exists to meet the health and wellbeing needs, present and future, of thalidomide survivors living in England.

In 2023, the Department put in place a new four-year grant agreement with the Thalidomide Trust, to administer the grant of approximately £40 million over four years. The agreement was made in recognition of the complex and highly specialised needs of people affected by thalidomide in England, particularly as they approach old age. The funding helps beneficiaries to maintain control over their own health, enabling them to personalise the way their health and care needs are met, maintain independence, and minimise any further deterioration in their health.

To understand how well the current grant agreement operates, the Department has commissioned an independent evaluation of the Thalidomide Health Grant through the National Institute for Health and Care Research. The evaluation began in October 2024 and aims to understand the health and care needs of people affected by thalidomide, particularly as they age, what funded resources produce the most tangible benefits to this group, how best to distribute financial support to them, and the extent to which their needs are met by the current grant.

This independent, external research will help us to ensure that the Government supports the needs of people affected by thalidomide as they age. Funding beyond the current grant agreement will be subject to the outcome of future spending reviews.
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Mr Joshua Reynolds:To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what his Department's planned timetable is for publishing its plans to reduce the time taken for patients to receive mental health treatment. \p Stephen Kinnock: Long waits for mental health services are being driven by increasing demand to a system in desperate need of change. The Government is already responding by delivering new and innovative models of care in the community. We are piloting innovative models of care in the community, including six neighbourhood adult mental health centres that are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week and bring together community, crisis, and inpatient care.

NHS England Planning Guidance for 2025/26 makes clear that for this year, to support reform and improvements, we expect all providers to reduce the variation in children and young people accessing services and improve productivity. We are also improving data quality so we can support providers to understand demand across their areas. Since July 2023, NHS England has included waiting times metrics for referrals to urgent and community-based mental health services in its monthly mental health statistics publication to help services to target the longest waits.

It is important that mental health services within the National Health Service work closely with the voluntary sector to deliver new models of care. The 10-Year Health Plan will be published shortly, and this will set out how the overall health system will run.
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Mr Andrew Snowden:To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 3 April 2025 to Question 42350 on General Practitioners: Employers' Contributions, what steps he plans to take to monitor the effectiveness of the £889 million increase in funding for the GP Contract; and what criteria he plans to use to measure the effectiveness of of the GP contract for (a) patient care and (b) GP satisfaction. \p Stephen Kinnock: The changes to the contract will improve services for patients and make progress towards the Government’s Health Mission, supporting the three key shifts the Government wants to achieve, from analogue to digital, from sickness to prevention, and from hospital to community care.

Patient satisfaction with general practice (GP) services is measured through the annual GP Patient Survey (GPPS), and the Office for National Statistics’ monthly Health Insight Survey (HIS). The most recent HIS results show that 73.3% of respondents describe their experience with their GP as good, up from 67.4% when the survey was launched in August 2024. In the 2024 GPPS, 73.9% of patients reported a good overall experience with their practice. GP satisfaction is measured by the GP Worklife Survey, led by the University of Manchester. The results of the twelfth edition of the survey have not yet been published.
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Mr Andrew Snowden:To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure the sustainability of funding for general practice beyond 2025/26 in the context of (a) rising demand for services and (b) increasing operational costs. \p Stephen Kinnock: Departmental budgets beyond 2025/26 will be set through Phase 2 of the Spending Review, which will conclude and be published in June.

The Department is committed to ensuring that primary care services receive appropriate support and resources. Every year the Department and NHS England consult with the General Practitioners’ Committee of the British Medical Association to discuss the services practices are expected to provide, and the funding they will receive in return. The operating costs for practices are taken into account as a part of this process.
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Lisa Smart:To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to encourage (a) Greater Manchester ICB and (b) other ICBs to offer dyspraxia assessments to adults (i) under the right to choose framework and (ii) through other NHS services and pathways. \p Stephen Kinnock: It is the responsibility of integrated care boards (ICBs) to make available appropriate provision to meet the health and care needs of their local population. The National Health Service website advises that individuals should see a general practitioner (GP) if they think they have undiagnosed dyspraxia or problems with co-ordination. The GP may refer them to a physiotherapist or an occupational therapist for tests. Further information on dyspraxia assessments and treatment is available on the NHS.UK website, at the following link:

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/developmental-coordination-disorder-dyspraxia-in-adults/
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Mr Andrew Snowden:To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure that the rise in employers’ National Insurance contributions does not disproportionately impact (a) smaller GP practices and (b) independent contractors. \p Stephen Kinnock: We have made the necessary decisions to fix the foundations of the public finances in the Autumn Budget. Resource spending for the Department will be £22.6 billion more in 2025/26 than in 2023/24, as part of the Spending Review settlement. The employers’ National Insurance rise was implemented in April 2025.

General practices (GPs) are valued independent contractors who provide over £13 billion worth of National Health Services. Every year we consult with the profession about what services GPs provide, and the money providers are entitled to in return under their contract, taking account of the cost of delivering services.

The global sum allocation formula, which underpins capitation payments to GPs, is designed to ensure that resources are directed to practices based on an estimate of their patient workload and unavoidable practice costs. This takes into account factors such as age and sex composition of registered patients, and additional pressures caused by factors such as geographical location and patient turnover.

We are committed to ensuring that primary medical services receive appropriate support and resources. We are investing an additional £889 million in GPs to reinforce the front door of the NHS, bringing total spend on the GP Contract to £13.2 billion in 2025/26. This is the biggest increase in over a decade, and we are pleased that the General Practitioners Committee England is supportive of the contract changes.
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Mr Andrew Snowden:To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 22 May 2025 to Question 51548 on Primary Care: Lancashire, what steps his Department is taking to increase the number of GPs in Fylde constituency. \p Stephen Kinnock: We have committed to training thousands more general practitioners (GPs) across the country, including in Fylde, which will increase capacity and take the pressure off those currently working in the system

The Government committed to recruiting over 1,000 recently qualified GPs through an £82 million boost to the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS) over 2024/25, as part of an initiative to secure the future pipeline of GPs, with over 1,000 doctors otherwise likely to graduate into unemployment in 2024/25. Data on the number of recently qualified GPs for which primary care networks are claiming reimbursement via the ARRS shows that since 1 October 2024, over 1,700 GPs were recruited through the scheme.

We are investing an additional £889 million through the GP Contract to reinforce the front door of the National Health Service, bringing total spend on the GP Contract to £13.2 billion in 2025/26. This is the biggest increase in over a decade.