Written questions by Barclay.

With reference to the Answer of 29 April 2026 to Question 82312 on Hospitals: Waiting Lists, what were the monthly figures for October 2025 to April 2026.

Awaiting answer.

When he plans to answer question 82312, tabled on 15 October 2025.

I refer the Rt Hon. Member to the answer I gave on 29 April 2026 to Question 82312.

How many NHS England staff have accepted voluntary redundancy since 13 March 2025; and what the total financial cost of those voluntary redundancies was to the public purse.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

How many NHS sites offering diagnostics have seen at least one modality removed in the last 12 months.

The Department does not hold official data on how many National Health Service sites offering diagnostics have seen at least one modality removed in the 12 months.

How many jobs at NHS England have been advertised since 13 March 2025.

A total of 1,214 vacancies advertised - 637 were medical vacancies and 577 non-medical vacancies advertised.

How many NHS jobs in which Equality, Diversity and Inclusion is the primary function have been advertised in the most recent 12-month period for which data are available.

This data is not centrally held.

What is the expected overall value of additional payments to be made to GPs from seeking advice and guidance from hospital consultants for at least 25 per cent of certain referrals in each of the next three years.

The Neighbourhood Health Framework sets out an ambition to improve how patients are directed to the most appropriate care, including through better use of Advice and Guidance (A&G) between general practices (GPs) and specialist services. There is no target for A&G. The 25% diversion rate referenced in the Neighbourhood Health Framework is based on learning seen in areas where this model is already working well and demonstrates the potential benefit to other systems. The importance of clinical judgment remains unchanged, that if a patient needs a hospital referral, they will get one.The 2026/27 GP Contract embeds the £82 million of funding from the previous A&G enhanced service into core practice funding. Embedding A&G in the core contract recognises it as routine clinical practice, removes annual signups, and provides more predictable funding while supporting consistent patient pathways.No separate payments will be made to GPs for each A&G request. As such, the Department has not set an expected overall value of additional payments to be made to GPs seeking A&G from hospital consultants.The GP Contract does not mandate the use of A&G in all circumstances. Instead, as per the Medium-Term Planning Framework published in October 2025, providers are expected to prioritise A&G prior to or in place of a planned care referral for at least ten specialties, selected locally for the greatest overall benefit and to shape delivery of elective pathways. This does not take away a GP’s right to refer, which remains a matter of clinical judgement. This reflects longstanding planned‑care referral practice and does not alter existing legal or professional accountability frameworks for GPs.A&G is designed to support quicker, clearer clinical decision making, by enabling GPs and specialist to discuss and agree the most appropriate next steps for a patient. A&G avoids patients having to join lengthy hospital waiting lists and undertake unnecessary appointments where this is in the patient’s best interests and where care can be delivered closer to home. Direct advice from specialists supports joint working between primary and secondary care. Between April 2025 and November 2025, A&G has avoided 1.1 million patients being added to waiting lists, ensuring patients receive the care they need in primary and community settings where appropriate, instead of being added to the elective waiting list unnecessarily.

Further to the Government’s ten year plan ‘Fit for the Future’ in which he states the Government ‘s intention to move health services from hospitals to the community, if he will putlish a list of the current community patient services offered at the Doddington hospital site in Fenland, and for each service the NHS organisation which is responsible for the delivery of those services.

The current community patient services offered at both the North Cambridgeshire site in Wisbech and the Doddington hospital site in Fenland, and the organisations delivering those services, are listed in the attached tables.

Further to the Government’s ten year plan ‘Fit for the Future’ in which he states the Government’s intention to move health services from hospitals to the community, if he will publish a list of the current community patient services offered at the North Cambridgeshire site in Wisbech, and for each service the NHS organisation which is responsible for the delivery of that service.

The current community patient services offered at both the North Cambridgeshire site in Wisbech and the Doddington hospital site in Fenland, and the organisations delivering those services, are listed in the attached tables.

What steps the Department is taking to help raise public and clinical awareness of the BEST4 Screening trial and to support eligible patients to participate in capsule sponge testing for early detection of Barrett’s oesophagus.

The Department funds research and research infrastructure through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). The NIHR is funding the BEST4 trial with over £3 million funding contributed through the NIHR Health Technology Assessment Programme and a further £3 million funding from Cancer Research UK. This includes funding for the research team to engage with the patient community.The study is also supported by NIHR Research Delivery Network (RDN) portfolio adoption to enable the recruitment of eligible participants and support research delivery. The NIHR RDN is raising awareness of the trial and supporting eligible patients to participate through National Health Service Research text messaging, providing secure mobile screening vans and engaging clinicians to connect them with the study.Additionally, recruitment for the BEST4 trial is being supported by Be Part of Research, a free service that allows people across the UK to find and sign up to research relevant to them. The NIHR has also supported the trial with proactive communications, including a news item on 08/04/2025.

With reference to the establishment of the Jean Bishop Centre in Hull in 2018, whether his Department has conducted a cost–benefit analysis of a more integrated model of service for elderly patients.

Our 10-Year Health Plan sets out our vision for a Neighbourhood Health Service, delivering truly integrated, proactive, and personalised care closer to where people live and work. There are substantial benefits to this more integrated approach to health and adult social care. Please see the 10-Year Health Plan Impact Assessment for further information, which is available at the following link:https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/impact-statement-10-year-health-plan-for-englandThe Department is committed to this approach, recognising that an immediate priority for the National Health Service in developing Neighbourhood Health Services is to support individuals with complex needs, especially older people, those living with frailty, and those at the end of life. We expect neighbourhood teams and services to be designed in a way that reflects the specific needs of local populations, including services for elderly people.

What assessment has been made of the potential implications for his polices of the change in the number of available hospice beds in England over the last 12 months.

No formal assessment has been made of the potential implications for the Department’s policies of the change in the number of available hospice beds in England over the last 12 months.However, we do recognise the difficult and challenging financial situation that many hospices are facing due to a range of concurrent cost pressures and that, as a result, some hospices have had to reduce the services they offer and the number of inpatient beds.We have been 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. We can now confirm we are providing a further £25 million in capital funding for hospices to spend in 2025/26.We also recently announced that we are providing approximately £80 million of revenue funding for children and young people’s hospices in England over the next three financial years, from 2026/27 to 2028/29, giving them stability to plan ahead and focus on what matters most, caring for their patients.The Government is developing a Palliative Care and End-of-Life Care Modern Service Framework (MSF) for England. As part of the MSF, we will consider contracting and commissioning arrangements. We recognise that there is currently a mix of contracting models in the hospice sector. By supporting integrated care boards to commission more strategically, we can move away from grant and block contract models. In the long term, this will aid sustainability and help hospices’ ability to plan ahead.

What estimate he has made of non-government spending by (a) individuals, (b) companies and (c) charities on preventative health services in the most recent year for which figures are available.

Non-Government spending on preventative health care is estimated in the UK Health Accounts published by the Office for National Statistics, on a United Kingdom basis. The following table shows the preventive healthcare spending by method of financing for the UK, for 2023, based on the current prices and not adjusted for inflation:Financing method2023Out-of-pocket spending£3,046,000,000Company spending£476,000,000Health insurance, individual and corporate, spending£352,000,000Charity spending£157,000,000Source: UK Health Accounts, Office for National StatisticsNotes:information relating to the breakdown of insurance claims and revenues for non-Government healthcare providers is typically less granular than Government spending. Preventive spending is reported where it is possible to distinguish services within available datasets, so could represent an underestimate;company financed healthcare mostly concerns occupational healthcare services;preventive spending financed through health insurance and out-of-pocket spending largely relates to preventive dental care, for instance dental check-ups;the estimates concern services that are provided by charities for free, or below market rates, to consumers. It does not include services that are sold by charities at market rates, nor those commissioned by and paid for by the Government; andcharity spending relates to a variety of services, the largest being education and health promotion programmes operated by charities.Estimates do not exactly match the three categories requested, as health insurance spending is from a mixture of individual and corporate policies.

What is being done to improve the regulatory approval process for personalised medicines to treat cancer.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has completed a public consultation on its draft guideline on individualised mRNA cancer immunotherapies, a new type of personalised cancer treatment. These technologies use cutting-edge science such as artificial intelligence to design a medicine tailored to each patient’s unique tumour profile.We received positive responses from across the life sciences community, the National Health Service, patient groups, academics, and international regulators. Feedback recognised the United Kingdom’s leadership in this area, while calling for greater clarity in some aspects of the guideline.In response, we will refine the guideline to ensure regulatory expectations are clearly articulated, without hampering innovation. This will facilitate faster access to these promising new therapies, while upholding our standards of safety, quality, and efficacy. The final version of the guideline will be published in the coming months, with future updates anticipated as the regulatory experience evolves in this rapidly developing field.

How many community diagnostic centres were open at the end of (a) 2022-23, (b) 2023-24, (c) 2024-25, and are expected to be at the end of (d) 2025-26.

The following table sets out the number of community diagnostic centres (CDCs) which had started delivering activity, namely having gone live, and which were fully operational, delivering all modalities proposed in their approved business cases, from permanent facilities, from 2022/23 to 2024/25:Financial year endNumber of CDCs delivering CDC activity.Fully operational (delivering all planned tests from permanent facilities and location)2022/23104102023/24163542024/251701012025/26 (including planned numbers)170128 (current number based on delivery reporting November 2025) 154 (expected year end point based on latest delivery plans)Source: NHS EnglandNotes:The table includes CDCs operating from temporary capacity while the permanent CDC build is completed.For 2025/26, the numbers include CDC sites which are anticipated to be fully operational by the end of March 2026 based on current delivery plans.The Elective Reform Plan sets out that the Government will deliver additional CDC capacity in 2025/26 by expanding several existing CDCs and building up to five new CDCs. The locations of both new and expanded CDC schemes will be confirmed in due course. This is funded as part of £600 million of capital investment for diagnostics in 2025/26, which my rt. Hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, set out in her June 2025 statement.The plan also commits to opening more CDCs 12 hours per day, seven days a week, meaning patients can access vital diagnostic tests around busy working lives. Upon entering office in July 2024, 63 CDCs were offering at least one diagnostic service out of hours, available to patients 12 hours a day, seven days a week.The latest position at the end of November 2025 is that 101 CDCs are offering at least one service to this standard, an increase of 38 from July 2024. By the end of March 2026, this number is currently planned to increase to 116.

How many patients have received checks under the NHS Targeted Lung Health Check and NHS Lung Cancer Screening Programme per month in each of the last three years.

The National Health Service is currently rolling out the National Lung Cancer Screening Programme to people with a history of smoking. The following table shows the number of participants who attended an appointment through the NHS Lung Cancer Screening Programme each month, between April 2022 and September 2025: 2022202320242025JanuaryNA244313819049260FebruaryNA271933838143158MarchNA278623569041974April11565208393619538596May14773211634023142980June15630274694021447289July17391296464765848012August17499286904088442756September17921297384685551898October194772636747881Data not availableNovember222922548247888Data not availableDecember181932818740828Data not availableAnnual Total/Annual Total to Date154741317067500895405923Source: the NHS England Lung Cancer Screening Programme.

What has his department identified as the drivers of the recent trend in specialised commissioning high cost devices as noted in the NHS England Financial performance update of 22 September 2025.

The most significant driver of the growth in the expenditure noted in the financial update is an increased volume in clinical activity and the use of implantable devices to treat patients. This has been driven by the overall growth in elective activity as part of the elective care recovery programme.

What the annual NHS total workforce growth (a) was annually from 2022/23 onwards and (b) is projected to be over the next three years.

NHS England publishes monthly Hospital and Community Health Services (HCHS) workforce statistics for England. These include staff employed by hospital trusts and integrated care boards but excludes staff working for other providers such as in primary care or social care. This data is drawn from the Electronic Staff Record, the human resources system for the National Health Service, and is available at the following link: https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/nhs-workforce-statistics The most recent published workforce data can be found within the July 2025, which includes selected preliminary statistics for August 2025, section of the publication, within the file Preliminary - NHS HCHS Workforce Statistics, Trusts and core organisations – data tables, August 2025. Within this file, a time series of the total full time equivalent (FTE) and headcount staffing levels for NHS trusts and organisations across England can be found in worksheet 1.In the new year, we will publish a 10 Year Workforce plan, which will ensure the NHS has the right people in the right places, with the right skills to care for patients, when they need it.

What estimate his Department has made of the costs of the Employment Rights Bill to the NHS.

No estimate of costs has been made of the Employment Rights Bill to the National Health Service. NHS terms and conditions of service currently provide employees with entitlements above the statutory minimum requirements, reflecting the sector’s commitment to supporting its workforce and maintaining high standards of employment practice.The changes to the Employment Rights Bill are designed to enhance protections for employees, proving greater job security and clarity around employment terms. The Government’s commitment to deliver reforms to improve working conditions and promote fair treatment in the workplace is set out by the Plan to Make Work Pay. Good, well paid work will mean a healthier and happier workforce which in turn eases pressure on the NHS..

What current unbudgeted pressures his Department is aware of within its spending plans.

The 2025 Spending Review was published on 11 June by HM Treasury and sets out departmental budgets for day‑to‑day spending until 2028/29, and until 2029/30 for capital investment. The 2025 Spending Review is available at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/spending-review-2025-document The Department is now underway with a financial planning exercise to allocate budgets within those financial years. Spending plans will be set out in the Main Supply Estimates when published in due course by HM Treasury.