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Written question asked by Luke Evans (Conservative) on Wednesday, 2 September 2026, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Friday, 4 September 2026. It was answered by Karin Smyth (Labour) on Tuesday, 8 September 2026 on behalf of the Department of Health and Social Care.

Health Services: Advisory Services

Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she has made of the potential implications for her policies of the Health Services Safety Investigations Body's findings that poorly implemented Advice and Guidance pathways have contributed to delayed diagnoses, missed diagnoses and delays to treatment.

Answer

The Advice and Guidance (A&G) model helps ensure that patients receive an appropriate and timely assessment, with clear next steps, in primary and community settings. Where specialist advice supports ongoing management in the community, patients can often be managed more quickly and closer to home, benefiting from earlier specialist input.

Under this Government, the A&G model has therefore supported millions of patients to receive care in the right place without unnecessarily having to join elective waiting lists, alongside the 2,000 extra general practitioners (GPs) we have recruited since July 2024. This is one of the reasons 77% of patients are now reporting a ‘good’ overall experience with their GP.

Under A&G, the clinical threshold for a referral remains unchanged, and GPs should continue to make a clinical decision to refer for specialist care where that is in the patient’s best interest. We will continue to assess the safety of the model and support providers to implement it effectively, and we have already commissioned an external evaluation of A&G, and Single Point of Access processes.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
26652
Session
2026-27
Grouped for answer
Yes
Subjects
Advisory services Health services
Link
View this Written question on www.parliament.uk