Written questions by Chowns.

What assessment his Department has made of (a) the prevalence of respiratory disease and (b) the number of emergency hospital admissions for respiratory conditions in North Herefordshire compared with national averages.

Data is available for emergency Finished Admission Episodes (FAEs) where there was a primary diagnosis of ‘respiratory conditions’. The following table shows the number of FAEs where there was a primary diagnosis of ‘respiratory conditions’ for North Herefordshire and England, for activity in English National Health Service hospitals and English NHS commissioned activity in the independent sector, for 2024/25 and provisionally for 2025/26:Westminster Parliamentary Constituency of Residence2024/25 (August 2024 to March 2025)2025/26 (April 2025 to February 2026)North Herefordshire735700England612,876676,170Source: Hospital Episode Statistics, NHS England.Available data on trends in respiratory conditions can be found on the Department’s Fingertips dataset. Data is not available by parliamentary constituency. Data is available at regional, county, unitary authority, and integrated care board level. Information for Herefordshire can be found at the following link:https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/search/Respiratory#page/1/gid/1/pat/15/par/E92000001/ati/502/are/E06000019/iid/90933/age/314/sex/4/cat/-1/ctp/-1/yrr/1/cid/4/tbm/1

What assessment he has made of the trends in the level of the proportion of standard continuing healthcare applications assessed as eligible in comparison to fast-track applications.

Integrated care boards (ICBs), with oversight from NHS England, are responsible for operational delivery of NHS Continuing Healthcare (CHC).Fast Track CHC supports individuals with a rapidly deteriorating condition who may be entering a terminal phase by putting a care package in place quickly. Eligibility is established through completing a Fast Track Pathway Tool (FTPT), with clear reasons why the individual fulfils the criteria evidenced. ICBs must accept a properly completed FTPT as sufficient to establish eligibility for CHC.Standard CHC supports those with high ongoing needs and is assessed through a two-stage assessment process beginning with screening via a Checklist. The Checklist criteria is set deliberately low to ensure that anyone who may be eligible for Standard CHC is fully assessed for eligibility through the completion of a Decision Support Tool.Due to the different eligibility criteria used in the assessment processes, it is not appropriate to directly compare the proportion of individuals assessed as eligible for Fast Track and Standard CHC. The latest published data on CHC eligibility is available at the following link:https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/nhs-chc-fnc/

What steps his Department is taking to support families who have experienced baby loss in North Herefordshire constituency.

Three National Health Service trusts primarily provide services supporting families in the North Herefordshire constituency who have experienced baby loss.The Wye Valley NHS Trust has a dedicated bereavement midwife, who is trained to care for and support parents and families who have suffered the loss of their baby.  There is a dedicated bereavement suite at the Hereford County Hospital, where families are cared for after birth and can spend time with their baby. If they wish, parents also have the option of doing memory making activities with their baby.The Worcestershire Royal Hospital provides dedicated bereavement care through specialised bereavement suites, managed by bereavement midwives.Targeted psychological interventions for women experiencing moderate, severe, and complex mental health difficulties following birth trauma or baby loss at any stage, are provided by the Beacon Maternal Mental Health Service, which is part of the Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust.

What steps are being taken to ensure the provision of a) surgical hubs and b) community diagnostics centres are aligned with areas with the highest levels of health deprivation.

We are committed to ensuring that the provision of elective surgical hubs and community diagnostic centres (CDCs) is aligned with areas of greatest deprivation and population health need. As a core requirement of the capital business case approval process within NHS England, all proposals have been and continue to be reviewed and assured against the following core principles:the CORE20plus5 Framework, a national approach by NHS England to support the reduction of health inequalities at both a national and system level;local population health needs; andaccessibility of care for underserved communities.This approach ensures equitable access to services, supports the reduction of health inequalities, and promotes improved outcomes for patients across all regions.NHS England is also working with local National Health Service systems to identify the most appropriate locations for additional investment, including new CDCs. New CDCs should be positioned in a location which addresses local need and health inequalities. Details of future sites will be set out in due course.

What steps are being taken to improve time to diagnosis for children and young people with suspected Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis.

Services for children with suspected juvenile idiopathic arthritis are commissioned in line with the national service specification for paediatric rheumatology services.The national service specification helps to reduce waiting times for diagnosis by mandating clear referral pathways and rapid access to specialist paediatric rheumatology teams. It sets national standards requiring timely triage of suspected cases, prioritisation of urgent referrals, and availability of multidisciplinary expertise for early assessment. The specification ensures consistency across regions, minimises delays caused by local variation, and supports faster initiation of diagnostic tests and treatment planning.Additionally, the 10-Year Health Plan’s commitments to expand community diagnostic centres for quicker access to tests, introduce digital tools to support early symptom monitoring and triage, and improve the integration between primary care and specialist services will further streamline referral pathways and ensure children receive timely assessment and treatment.

What steps he is taking to tackle elective care waiting times, including joint replacement surgery, in North Herefordshire constituency.

The Government is committed to putting patients first, nationally and in North Herefordshire. That is why, in the Elective Reform Plan, we committed to returning by March 2029 to the National Health Service constitutional standard that 92% of patients wait no longer than 18 weeks from referral to consultant-led treatment. Having delivered 5.2 million extra appointments, we have more than doubled our pledge to deliver an extra two million during our first year in office.Thanks to our modernisation and record investment, waiting lists have been falling for the first time in over a decade. Since the Government came into office it has decreased by over 230,000, despite over 26.4 million referrals onto the waiting list.North Herefordshire is predominantly served by the Wye Valley NHS Trust, which has seen recent performance improvement in the trauma and orthopaedic (TO) waiting list. Between July 2024 and September 2025, the proportion of waits within 18 weeks for patients on the TO list increased by 5.7%, to 51.8%. The number waiting more than 52 weeks has also fallen by nearly 40%. Since November, high volume weekend lists for joint replacement procedures have also commenced at the Wye Valley Trust.Nationally, the number of patients on TO waiting lists waiting within 18 weeks has improved by 3.7% and the number waiting more than 52 weeks has fallen by almost 16,000 over the same period.We know there is more to do to tackle elective waiting lists including for joint replacement surgery. That is why we have invested £1.65 billion in capital funding in 2025/26 to expand and enhance surgical capacity, which includes funding for surgical hubs, the majority of which offer joint replacement surgeries.As of December 2025, 123 surgical hubs are operational across England including three in the Herefordshire and Worcestershire Integrated Care System, the most recent being the Wye Valley Elective Surgical Hub which opened in July 2024. These dedicated and protected surgical hubs focus on high volume low complexity surgeries and protect elective care from winter and emergency pressures by using ring-fenced staff and facilities, reducing cancellations and improving efficiency.

What assessment he has made of the potential impact of the time taken to discharge medically fit patients on the use of corridor care in NHS hospitals.

The Government is clear that patients should expect and receive the highest standard of care and is determined to consign corridor care to the history books. Our Urgent and Emergency Care Plan, published in June 2025, set out the steps we are taking to ensure that patients will receive better, faster, and more appropriate emergency care this winter, backed by a total of nearly £450 million of funding.The plan sets as a priority that hospitals should tackle the delays in patients waiting to be discharged, both for the benefit of those patients and to improve flow through hospitals. Trusts should eliminate discharge delays of more than 48 hours caused by in-hospital issues, and work with local authorities to tackle the longest delays, starting with those over 21 days, and to profile discharges by pathway to support local planning.

What steps his Department is taking to reduce the number of medically fit patients occupying hospital beds due to delayed discharges.

The Government is committed to tackling delayed discharges.The policy framework for the £9 billion Better Care Fund, published in January 2025, gives the National Health Service and local authorities accountability for setting and achieving joint goals for reducing discharge delays and preventing avoidable emergency admissions and care home admissions. Some areas are receiving targeted support from the Better Care Fund support programme.The Urgent and Emergency Care plan for 2025/26 sets as a priority that hospitals should tackle the delays in patients waiting to be discharged. They should eliminate discharge delays of more than 48 hours caused by in-hospital issues, and work with local authorities to tackle the longest delays, starting with those over 21 days, and to profile discharges by pathway to support local planning.

What assessment he has made of the potential impact of trends in levels of anaesthetic workforce availability on elective surgery waiting times.

No specific recent assessment has been made by the Department on the impact of the levels of the anaesthetic workforce’s availability on elective surgery waiting times. Local providers are best placed to make decisions on workforce capacity to reflect local service demand and circumstances.The Government is committed to publishing a 10 Year Workforce Plan to set out action to create a workforce ready to deliver the transformed service set out in the 10-Year Health Plan. The 10 Year Workforce Plan will ensure the National Health Service has the right people in the right places, with the right skills to care for patients, when they need it.

What steps he is taking to ensure a sustainable funding settlement for hospice and palliative care in (a) Herefordshire and (b) the country.

Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for commissioning palliative care services to meet the reasonable needs of their population, which can include hospice services available within the ICB catchment. To support ICBs in this duty, NHS England has published statutory guidance and a service specification.The Government is developing a Palliative Care and End of Life Care Modern Service Framework for England, due to be published in Spring 2026. I refer the hon. Member to the Written Ministerial Statement HCWS1087 I gave to the House on 24 November 2025. Additionally, we are supporting the hospice sector with a £100 million capital funding boost for eligible adult and children’s hospices in England to ensure they have the best physical environment for care.   St Michael’s Hospice in Hereford is receiving £667,020 from this funding. We are also committing £80 million for children’s and young people’s hospices over the next three financial years, giving them stability to plan ahead and focus on what matters most, caring for their patients.

What assessment he has made of the potential implications for his policies of the Women’s Environmental Network's report entitled Blood, Sweat and Pesticides, published in May 2025; and what steps he is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help prevent the use of glyphosate in tampons.

The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is an executive agency of the Department and regulates medicine, medical devices and blood components for transfusion in the United Kingdom, with responsibility for ensuring medicines meet appropriate standards of safety, quality, and efficacy.MHRA has not evaluated this report, as period products are not regulated as medical devices and consequently fall outside of MHRA’s remit. Rather, they would fall under the General Product Safety Regulations 2005, which are within the remit of the Office for Product Safety and Standards. Information on how these are regulated is available at the following link:https://www.ahpma.co.uk/tampon_code_of_practice/

What assessment he has made of the potential implications for his policies of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists' report entitled Green Maternity Report 2025.

The Department is committed to supporting the National Health Service in delivering high-quality, equitable, and sustainable maternity services. This includes investing in digital transformation, supporting workforce development, and embedding sustainability into all aspects of care, as set out in 2020’s Delivering a Net Zero NHS report. For instance, reducing nitrous oxide waste through leaner supply and stock management has led to cost savings of over £2.3 million annually and emissions reductions of around 90 kilo-tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent since 2019/20.The Department has not made a formal assessment of the implications of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists' Green Maternity Report 2025.We continue, however, to work with NHS England, the Royal Colleges, and local partners to ensure that best practice is adopted across the system, and that the environmental impact of maternity care is monitored and reduced in line with our 10-Year Health Plan commitment to prioritise delivery of the NHS’s net zero targets.

What steps he is taking to ensure capital investment in NHS (a) estate and (b) infrastructure supports improvements in climate resilience.

We recognise the importance of increasing the climate resilience of the National Health Service estate. NHS trusts are responsible for maintaining their estate, including adapting premises to reduce risks associated with climate change and severe weather, as set out in the NHS Standard Contract.The Department is supporting the improvement of NHS sites by investing £30 billion over the next five years in day-to-day maintenance and repair, with £5 billion allocated specifically to address the most critical building issues. Additionally, the Department is making sure all new hospitals are fit for the future. Our New Hospital Programme requires schemes to achieve a minimum rating of ‘Excellent’ for new builds and ‘Very Good’ for refurbishments, under the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method. In addition, all NHS investments in new buildings and upgrades to existing facilities that are subject to HM Treasury business case approval process must align with the NHS Net Zero Building Standard, which includes a focus on overheating risks.

If he will take steps to reduce waiting times for sarcoma diagnosis.

NHS England has published a national service specification, covering both bone and soft tissue sarcomas. The specification requires close working between sarcoma services and other National Health Service partners, co-ordinated by Sarcoma Advisory Groups, to improve care pathways. Work is underway across both bone and soft tissue sarcoma provision to ensure that cancer care providers meet national service standards and improve care to patients. The Government welcomes the recent publication of Sarcoma UK’s Sarcoma State of the Nation report as it highlights the importance of early diagnosis, care co-ordination across complex pathways, research into new treatments, and survivorship. Our forthcoming National Cancer Plan will set out how we will improve outcomes for all cancers, including sarcoma.

What assessment he has made of the (a) adequacy of sarcoma (i) care and (ii) treatment and (b) health outcomes of people diagnosed with sarcoma; and if he will conduct an urgent review of sarcoma (A) care and (B) treatment.

NHS England has published a national service specification, covering both bone and soft tissue sarcomas. The specification requires close working between sarcoma services and other National Health Service partners, co-ordinated by Sarcoma Advisory Groups, to improve care pathways. Work is underway across both bone and soft tissue sarcoma provision to ensure that cancer care providers meet national service standards and improve care to patients. The Government welcomes the recent publication of Sarcoma UK’s Sarcoma State of the Nation report as it highlights the importance of early diagnosis, care co-ordination across complex pathways, research into new treatments, and survivorship. Our forthcoming National Cancer Plan will set out how we will improve outcomes for all cancers, including sarcoma.

Whether whole genome sequencing will be available on the NHS for all sarcoma patients under the 10 Year Health Plan for England.

Genomic testing, including both whole genome sequencing (WGS) and non-WGS testing, in the National Health Service in England is provided through the NHS Genomic Medicine Service. Testing is directed by the National Genomic Test Directory (NGTD), which sets out the eligibility criteria for patients to access testing.For all cancer patients undergoing genomic testing, to support routine care, and including sarcoma patients, the first line testing is done by next generation sequencing panel testing that includes all the targets for the currently available precision medicines. The NGTD’s eligibility criteria outlines that, if clinically required, WGS can then be offered for sarcoma patients to determine their next stage of treatment or management.

If he will make an assessment of the potential merits of ringfencing funding for community preventive health initiatives through the forthcoming NHS 10 Year Plan.

The 10-Year Health Plan has set out how we will reinvent the National Health Service through the radical shifts, namely hospital to community, analogue to digital, and sickness to prevention. These are the core components of our new care model. To support the scale of change we need, we ensure the whole NHS is ready to deliver these three shifts at pace: through a new operating model, by creating a new workforce model with staff genuinely aligned with the future direction of reform, through a reshaped innovation strategy and by taking a different approach to NHS finances.

What proportion of eligible families were in receipt of Healthy Start in North Herefordshire constituency on 9 June 2025.

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) operates the Healthy Start scheme on behalf of the Department. Monthly figures for the number of people on the digital Healthy Start scheme are published on the NHS Healthy Start website, which is available at the following link:https://www.healthystart.nhs.uk/healthcare-professionals/The NHSBSA does not hold data on the number of families receiving Healthy Start and does not currently hold data on the number of people eligible for Healthy Start. The NHSBSA does not hold data on local constituencies. The table below shows the number of people on the digital scheme in the relevant local authorities as of 23 May 2025:Local authorityNumber of people on the digital schemeBlackpool1,434City of Bristol2,778County of Herefordshire736Southampton1,677Worthing348Brighton and Hove1,041East Suffolk1,129

Pursuant to the Answer of 10 March 2025 to Question 34127 on Pain: Women, whether the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) is undertaking any research into (a) patient and (b) healthcare professionals' experiences of (i) menopause care and (ii) the prescription of hormone replacement therapy.

The Department commissions research through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). The NIHR is currently funding a £2.7 million study that aims to find out if adding testosterone to standard hormone replacement therapy (HRT) can reduce menopausal symptoms beyond its effect on sexual function. This research will provide health care professionals with the evidence required to have informed discussions with their patients and will help to shape and inform better menopause care for women. A separate study is exploring inequalities in menopause care. Through interviews with women and with healthcare professionals in general practice, this research aims to understand the experiences of obtaining information, care, and support for the menopause in general practice. The NIHR is also currently funding research to determine whether there are ethnic and social disparities in HRT prescribing in the United Kingdom. This information will inform future work to develop a risk calculator to show a woman’s individual risks or benefits from taking HRT, providing the first UK data on women who are taking HRT, which will identify a cohort who are not taking HRT and estimate a potential unmet need. The NIHR continues to welcome funding applications for research into any aspect of women’s health, including research on patient and health care professionals’ experiences of menopause care and on the prescription of HRT.

What assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of integrating health services with social welfare advice.

We recognise the importance of integrated health and care services, including social welfare advice. We are committed to moving to a Neighbourhood Health Service, which will reinforce integrated working between the National Health Service, social care, local government, other statutory services, the voluntary sector, and communities themselves, as the norm, not the exception.A Neighbourhood Health Service will mean more care delivered locally to create healthier communities, spot problems earlier, and support people to stay healthy and maintain their independence for longer.The full vision for the health system will be set out in the 10-Year Health Plan.