Local health commissioners and providers in Surrey are responsible for assessing how existing clinical guidance is being applied across primary care settings.

NHS England is undertaking a review of options for supporting primary care services in the identification of acute onset Type 1 diabetes in babies and children and in doing so will engage with relevant national organisations and partners.

As set out in the 10-Year Health Plan for England, we will continue to support people living with diabetes, including through the rollout of new wearable technologies such as hybrid closed loop (HCL) systems. The rollout of HCL systems is backed by £107 million in 2026/27 and has been made available to over 23,000 additional people since 2023/24.

The Government is committed to building a fairer Britain, to ensure people can live well for longer. Our reimagined National Health Service will tackle inequalities in both access and outcomes, as well as give women, no matter who they are or where they come from, the means to engage with the NHS on their own terms.

This financial year the Department has invested approximately £53 million in direct awards on research to support the health of women. This includes conditions that are unique to women, such as endometriosis, and health topics that are relevant to women such as violence and abuse.

Significant progress has been made towards delivering the ambitions in the 2022 Women’s Health Strategy, for example improving women and girls’ awareness and access to services as well as driving research to benefit women’s health, but we know there is more to do.

That is why we are renewing the Women’s Health Strategy, to assess the progress that has been made so far and to continue progressing delivery.

The renewed strategy will update on the delivery of the 2022 Women’s Health Strategy and set out how the Government is taking further steps to improve women’s health as we deliver the 10-Year Health Plan. It will also address gaps from the 2022 strategy and drive further change on enduring challenges such as creating a system that listens to women and tackling health inequalities.

Children affected by parental alcohol problems can experience adverse health, social, and economic outcomes, which can continue for generations without effective public health early interventions to break the cycle. The Government’s mission-based approach will ensure that every child has the best start in life and that we create the healthiest generation of children ever. This includes supporting the children of parents with alcohol problems and preventing intergenerational transmission.

The Government is funding Best Start Family Hubs in every local authority, which will be rolled out from April 2026. The hubs have been developed from the best of the Sure Start and Family Hubs and Start for Life approaches and will build on the £126 million funding boost for the Family Hubs and Start for Life Programme in 2025/26. Best Start Family Hubs will be open to all and based in disadvantaged communities. Services will prioritise supporting the whole family and intervening at the earliest opportunity to prevent challenges escalating, such as intergenerational transmission of problem alcohol use.

From this year, all drug and alcohol treatment and recovery funding will be channeled through the Public Health Grant, with over £13.45 billion allocated across three years, including £3.4 billion ringfenced for drug and alcohol treatment and recovery. Local authorities are responsible for commissioning drug and alcohol treatment and recovery services according to local need and can use this funding to ensure that parents/carers with alcohol problems, and their children, can access high quality help and support.

For 2026/27, Surrey County Council will receive £12,356,996 in protected drug and alcohol prevention, treatment and recovery funding. Furthermore, to inform local authorities’ assessment of need and support the children of parents with alcohol problems, the Department is producing a suite of resources, including local prevalence and treatment data on parents/carers with alcohol problems, and child safeguarding guidance for alcohol and drug treatment commissioners.

Finally, the Department, with the support of partners from the devolved administrations, has developed and published the first ever United Kingdom clinical guidelines on alcohol treatment, which is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/clinical-guidelines-for-alcohol-treatment

The guidelines promote and support good practice and improve quality of service provision. It includes a section on the specific support needs of parents with alcohol problems and makes recommendations on how to address them.

The Government recognises that homelessness and rough sleeping numbers continue to remain high. That is why the Government is providing £255.5 million for the Rough Sleeping Prevention and Recovery Grant so that local authorities can support people sleeping rough in their areas, including funding health‑led interventions, alongside a £69.9 million top‑up announced in October 2025 to tackle additional pressures.

Surrey County Council has undertaken a Joint Strategic Needs Assessment, focused on housing and related support, funded by the Department through the Public Health Grant and carried out by health and wellbeing boards. More information is available at the following link:

https://www.surreyi.gov.uk/jsna/jsna-housing-and-related-support/#homelessness

The assessment requires a thorough analysis of the health and social care needs of local populations, and highlights how determinants such as housing conditions, including insecure housing and homelessness, impact health and wellbeing. This informs planning across health, social care, and housing to improve outcomes and address inequalities.

The Government is committed to ensuring that all children, including those with serious health needs, receive appropriate care and support whenever and wherever they need it. We know that there is variation in the availability of support across the country which is why we are taking action.

Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for the provision and commissioning of services to meet the varied needs of their local populations. Local areas will be expected to develop Neighbourhood Health Plans under the leadership of health and wellbeing boards, bringing care closer to babies, children, and young people, including those with serious health needs. We will be publishing further guidance to support local areas to develop Neighbourhood Health Plans in due course.

The Medium-Term Planning Framework also sets out targets to improve children’s experiences of the health system and states that National Health Service organisations should explicitly consider the needs of children and young people in integrated plans. This will improve the consistency of support to children with serious health needs and reduce variability. The framework is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/medium-term-planning-framework-delivering-change-together-2026-27-to-2028-29/

After a procurement process focused on opportunities to reduce unwarranted variation and offer equitable access to community services for children across the Surrey footprint, HCRG Care Group, one of the UK’s largest providers of child and family health services, was commissioned by the Surrey ICB to manage children’s community health services in Surrey, including the Surrey Heath constituency, from 1 April 2025.

The Government is committed to ensuring that all children, including those with serious health needs, receive appropriate care and support whenever and wherever they need it. We know that there is variation in the availability of support across the country which is why we are taking action.

Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for the provision and commissioning of services to meet the varied needs of their local populations. Local areas will be expected to develop Neighbourhood Health Plans under the leadership of health and wellbeing boards, bringing care closer to babies, children, and young people, including those with serious health needs. We will be publishing further guidance to support local areas to develop Neighbourhood Health Plans in due course.

The Medium-Term Planning Framework also sets out targets to improve children’s experiences of the health system and states that National Health Service organisations should explicitly consider the needs of children and young people in integrated plans. This will improve the consistency of support to children with serious health needs and reduce variability. The framework is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/medium-term-planning-framework-delivering-change-together-2026-27-to-2028-29/

After a procurement process focused on opportunities to reduce unwarranted variation and offer equitable access to community services for children across the Surrey footprint, HCRG Care Group, one of the UK’s largest providers of child and family health services, was commissioned by the Surrey ICB to manage children’s community health services in Surrey, including the Surrey Heath constituency, from 1 April 2025.

All National Health Service organisations, including in Surrey, are required to prepare for, and respond to, a wide range of incidents or emergencies that could adversely affect the health of the population.

In the event of an incident of mass carbon monoxide exposure, ambulance services can dispatch a Hazardous Area Response Team. This provides the initial NHS response with trained and equipped paramedics who can safely enter a contaminated area to support casualties and provide clinical care.

As an integrated care board, NHS Surrey Heartlands has policies for emergency preparedness, resilience, and response, in order to support local resilience partners and maintain critical services in the event of an incident.

Upper tier local authorities in England, including Surrey, are responsible for commissioning comprehensive, open access to most sexual health services (SHSs) funded through the public health grant (PHG). In 2025/26, we increased funding through the PHG to £3.884 billion, providing local authorities with an average 6.1% cash increase and a 3.4% real terms increase, the biggest real-terms increase after nearly a decade of reduced spending.

From 2026/27, we will bring together over £4 billion of public health funding for local government by consolidating service-specific grants into the PHG. Individual local authorities are well-placed to make funding and commissioning decisions about the SHSs that best meet the needs of their local populations.

The Government is committed to ending new HIV transmissions in England by 2030 and is developing a new HIV Action Plan in collaboration with the UK Health Security Agency, NHS England, and a broad range of system partners, which we aim to publish this year. The Action Plan will have a key objective to support the system to work better together in the delivery of SRH services.

The National Health Service’s operational planning guidance for 2025/26 outlines the priorities for tackling cancer across England, including in Surrey. The aim of this is to reduce wait times for elective care. For 2025/26, systems across the NHS are expected to aim for the success measure of 80% of patients with suspected cancer either receiving a diagnosis or having cancer ruled out within 28 days of an urgent referral.

The following table shows the diagnostic performance of the Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust and the Royal Surrey County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust for August 2025:

The Department funds research on health and social care through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). The NIHR welcomes funding applications for research into any aspect of human health and social care, including urinary tract infections (UTIs). These applications are subject to peer review and judged in open competition, with awards being made based on the importance of the topic to patients and health and care services, value for money, and scientific quality. Funding opportunities are openly published on the NIHR website, which is at the following link:

https://www.nihr.ac.uk/

Universities and other stakeholders can propose research topics to the NIHR via the following link:

https://www.nihr.ac.uk/get-involved/suggest-a-research-topic

The development of new products to diagnose infections more accurately is essential to ensure we can continue to treat infections and protect public health. NHS England is supporting research into newer, more accurate point-of-care tests for UTIs, such as via the Toucan study. More information on the study is available at the following link:

https://www.phctrials.ox.ac.uk/recruiting-trials/toucan-platform-for-uti-diagnostic-evaluation

The Government’s responsibility for delivering Parkinson’s disease research is shared between the Department of Health and Social Care, with research delivered via the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, with research delivered via UK Research and Innovation.

Whilst no assessment has been made of the potential merits of increasing research investment into Parkinson’s disease in Surrey, the Government is continuing to invest in Parkinson’s disease research. For example, the UK Dementia Research Institute, primarily funded by the Government, is partnering with Parkinson’s UK to establish a new £10 million research centre dedicated to better understanding the causes of Parkinson’s and finding new treatments.

The NIHR welcomes high quality funding applications for research into any aspect of human health and care, including Parkinson's disease. These applications are subject to peer review and judged in open competition, with awards being made on the basis of the importance of the topic to patients and health and care services, value for money, and scientific quality.

Working under the UK Rare Diseases Framework, the Government is committed to improving the lives of those living with rare diseases, such as Huntington’s Disease.

Surrey Heartlands Integrated Care Board (ICB) commissions a specialist service that provides support to people with Huntington’s Disease. The service works closely with the Huntington’s Disease clinic at St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. As of November 2024, there are 18 full time equivalent neurology consultants employed in National Health Service trusts within the Surrey Heartlands ICB region. This is seven more than a year previously.

At the national level, there are several initiatives supporting service improvement and better care for patients with neurological conditions, including those with Huntington’s disease, such as the RightCare Progressive Neurological Conditions Toolkit and the Getting It Right First Time Programme for Neurology. NHS England has also established a Neurology Transformation Programme, a multi-year, clinically led programme to develop a new model of integrated care for neurology services. The National Neurosciences Advisory Group developed clinical pathways for adults with movement disorders, including Huntington’s disease. This is being used to inform the proposed changes to the neurology service model, which will in turn be used to revise the service specification for neurology.

Working under the UK Rare Diseases Framework, the Government is committed to improving the lives of those living with rare diseases, such as Huntington’s Disease.

Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for working with their local communities to understand the needs of the local populations and make decisions about how best to commission services that meet those needs, including the treatment of Huntington’s Disease, in partnership with other local commissioners and organisations. Details on local clinical provisions are best answered by the ICB, in this case NHS Surrey Heartlands.

Our sympathies remain with those affected by sodium valproate and pelvic mesh.

There are nine specialist mesh centres across England, to ensure that women in every region with complications of mesh inserted for urinary incontinence and vaginal prolapse get the right support. Each mesh centre is led by a multi-disciplinary team to ensure patients get access to the specialist care and treatment that they need, including pain management and psychological support. In the South East region, the mesh centre is located at University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust; however patients can ask to be referred to any of the nine mesh centres.

Significant action has been taken to strengthen oversight of valproate prescribing. Valproate must now not be started in new patients, male or female, younger than 55 years old unless two specialists independently consider and document that there is no other effective or tolerated treatment, or there are compelling reasons that the reproductive risks do not apply.

The Government is carefully considering the work done by the Patient Safety Commissioner and the resulting Hughes Report. The report sets out options for redress for those harmed by sodium valproate and pelvic mesh. The Government will be providing an update to the Patient Safety Commissioner’s Report at the earliest opportunity.

Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for determining the level of long COVID and myalgic encephalomyelitis, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), services locally, and are responsible for ensuring that the services they commission meet the needs of their local populations.

I have been advised by NHS England that NHS Surrey Heartlands has taken the decision to no longer operate dedicated long COVID services following the publication of updated guidance by NHS England, in April 2024, on the provision of long COVID services.

As of 8 July 2024, patients presenting with symptoms that may be linked to long COVID will be referred to other available services depending on their symptoms, including chronic fatigue services, physiotherapy and rehabilitation services, and mental health services such as psychotherapy.

Every effort will be made to ensure that the patients who are currently accessing these services complete their therapy and, if appropriate, are transferred to other services specific to their needs.

NHS Surrey Heartlands recognises that this decision may cause concern for people receiving care within current long COVID services, however, patients will continue to receive support and advice. We are working with the current providers of long COVID services, First Community Health and Care and Surrey Downs Health and Care, to ensure that patients are transferred into alternative pathways safely.

NHS England has recently completed a long COVID stocktake, aiming to provide a national overview of the service delivery of commissioning and contracting, assessing access, activity, and outcomes. Executive NHS England board members were updated on the current provision of long COVID services, noting the challenges and significant variation. NHS England will continue to support the ICBs to enhance service quality and ensure equitable access to care and consistency across the system.