I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that case. It is shocking but sadly not surprising, because the injuries sustained by women during childbirth are often completely ignored as well as going unaddressed. We have to learn from the case raised by my hon. Friend to ensure that constituents such as his are not fighting for the care that they deserve, and we will act on those lessons.

A constituent of mine, Emma, has been left with significant injuries following poor maternity care during childbirth. For more than 20 years she has been fighting for, but has been denied, corrective treatment on the NHS because it has been deemed cosmetic, despite the clear impact on her mental health and relationships. What steps can the Secretary of State take to ensure that women in such circumstances have access to the treatment that they need?

The General Medical Council sets the overall standards and outcomes for medical training, and the Royal Colleges develop the specific curricula for each medical specialty.

The Department does not provide guidance to National Health Service trusts or integrated care boards on this topic. Patient-facing information on how to treat jellyfish stings is already available on the NHS website.

I refer the Hon. Members to My Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care’s Written Statement to the House on 1 September 2025, available at the following link:

https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2025-09-01/hcws899

The National Health Service provides advice on insect bites, including those from horseflies, which can be found at the following link:

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/insect-bites-and-stings/

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 services for people with brain aneurysms, as they are best placed to make decisions according to local need. The process of commissioning services should take into account best practice guidance, including that published by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).

Nationally, there are several initiatives that are supporting improvements to neurological services more generally. NHS England’s Getting It Right First Time Neurology Programme aims to reduce unwarranted variation and improve efficiency across neurological services, through data-driven analysis and best practice sharing. Additionally, NHS England’s Neurology Transformation Programme is supporting integrated care systems to transform neurology services by promoting integrated care, prevention, and early intervention.

NICE is currently developing the guidance Rehabilitation for chronic neurological disorders including acquired brain injury, which is expected to be published in September 2025. The guideline covers rehabilitation in all settings for children, young people, and adults with a chronic neurological disorder, neurological impairment, or disabling neurological symptoms resulting from acquired brain injury, spinal cord injury or peripheral nerve disorder, progressive neurological disease, or functional neurological disorder. Further information is available at the following link:

https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/indevelopment/gid-ng10181

NICE has also published the guidance Subarachnoid haemorrhage caused by a ruptured aneurysm: diagnosis and management. The guideline focuses on the diagnosis and management of individuals who are suspected of having a subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH) caused by ruptured aneurysm and includes recommendations on follow-up care and support for patients, their families, and carers.

This guidance also covers familial aneurysms in the context of SAH and recommends that that individuals with two or more first-degree relatives who have had a SAH may be offered screening to detect potential aneurysms. This guidance is available at the following link:

https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng228

The Government expects the healthcare system and commissioners to take NICE guidelines fully into account when designing services for their local population, and to work towards their implementation over time.

Our 10-year health plan will make the three big shifts the National Health Service needs to be prepared for future challenges, from hospital to community care, from analogue to digital, and from sickness to prevention. We are committed to expanding community-based access to tests and scans, promoting a more collaborative service delivery, and enhancing the use of apps and wearable technology. These changes will help people manage their long-term conditions, including brain aneurysms, more effectively and closer to their homes. Earlier diagnosis will play a key role in preventing disease progression and improving outcomes.

The UK remains in regular contact at all levels with the Government of Israel to press for an increase of humanitarian aid into Gaza. On 19 May, we issued a joint donor statement on the humanitarian situation calling for a full resumption of aid and for Israel to allow the UN and other aid organisations to operate independently. We urge Israel to let Gazans receive urgent healthcare, including allowing the sick and wounded to temporarily leave the Gaza Strip to receive treatment. The UK supported an initiative by Project Pure Hope to bring a small number of children from Gaza to the UK for privately funded specialist care.

The Government wants a society where every person, including those with a long-term condition such as an acquired brain injury (ABI), receives high-quality, compassionate continuity of care, with their families and carers supported.

We will change the National Health Service so that it becomes not just a sickness service, but one able to prevent ill health in the first place. This will help us be better prepared for the change in the nature of disease and allow our services to focus more on the management of chronic, long-term conditions, like ABIs, including rehabilitation where appropriate.

A decision on the next steps on ABIs at the national level will be taken in the coming months. Meanwhile, we have committed to develop a 10-year plan to deliver an NHS fit for the future. We will be carefully considering input from the public, patients, health staff, and our stakeholders as we develop the plan over the coming months. The engagement process has been launched and I would encourage my fellow Parliamentarians to engage with that process, to allow us to fully understand what is not working as well as it should and what the potential solutions are, including on ABI. More information about how they can input into the plan is available at the following link:

https://change.nhs.uk/en-GB/

Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for commissioning services such as rehabilitation and reablement services, and ensuring that there is appropriate provision to meet the health and care needs of their population. The core ICB allocations formula is an estimate of the relative need for healthcare resources in each ICB, and is recommended by an independent committee. The formula includes a range of adjustments that account for the fact that the costs of providing health care may vary between rural and urban areas.

Often, rehabilitation and reablement services don’t provide services exclusively for patients with brain injuries, but also provide rehabilitation for patients with other conditions, such as stroke and Parkinson’s disease. Therefore, it is difficult to quantify the total about of funding that is spent on brain injury reablement services specifically.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is currently consulting on draft interventional procedures guidance that recommends single-step scaffold insertion as an option for repairing symptomatic chondral knee defects, with standard arrangements in place for clinical governance, consent, and audit. The NICE currently expects to publish final guidance in September 2024. Once the NICE has published final guidance, National Health Service organisations will be expected to take it fully into account, but the guidance does not override the individual responsibility of healthcare professionals to make decisions appropriate to the circumstances of the individual patient.

The hon. Gentleman has caught me off guard—I will write to him. I am keen to continue working with him on that issue. As he knows, we have already shared draft details of the acquired brain injury strategy with him and members of the all-party parliamentary group, and I am very keen to continue working collaboratively on that issue with him.

How many people were treated for acquired brain injury last year?

The Department invests over £1 billion per year through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). Since 2017, the NIHR has funded 14 research projects on sepsis diagnosis and management, with a combined total funding value of over £27 million.

The Department continues to invest heavily in research and development of new tools to aid in the detection and management of sepsis and bacterial infections with the guidance of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).

Laser therapies for sepsis and bacterial infections are still in their infancy, but the Department will continue to work closely with NICE to ensure that when they mature, their efficacy is proven and, subject to NICE recommending their use, they may become available to the National Health Service.

The Department has not made such an assessment.

The Government is taking several steps to help support people with musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions to start, stay and succeed in work. In the Spring Budget, the government set out a package of measures to tackle the leading health-related causes keeping people out of work, including people with MSK conditions:

• Introducing employment advisors within MSK services, including to support people with MSK conditions to thrive in work;
• Developing and scaling up MSK hubs in the Community, building on the example of delivering physical activity interventions in local leisure and community centre venues.
• Making best use of digital health technologies to support people with MSK conditions to better manage symptoms and remain in the workforce. This will include providing access to digital therapeutics for MSK problems.

As announced in the Autumn Statement, to tackle rising economic inactivity, government is investing £2.5 billion over the next five years, building on the existing package of support that helps disabled people and individuals with health conditions, including MSK, to work. This includes:

• a WorkWell service that will join up employment and health support at the local level to help keep people in work. WorkWell services will be in place from Autumn 2024 and will be delivered in approximately 15 pilot areas.
• Doubling of Universal Support, a new, voluntary employment programme for inactive disabled people and those with health conditions and additional barriers to employment, from 50,000 people a year announced in Spring Budget to 100,000 people a year once fully rolled out.
• Improving the quality of occupational health for employers through the development of new voluntary national baseline for employers to help them retain and recruit disabled workers.
• An expansion of access to mental health services, increasing the number of people accessing NHS Talking Therapies to benefit an additional 384,000 people over the next five years and helping an additional 100,000 people with severe mental illness to find and keep jobs in that same period through Individual Placement and Support (IPS)

The Department has not made such an assessment.

There is no specific budget allocated to NHS England for the treatment of individuals who may have been injured following an adverse reaction to a COVID-19 vaccine. Treatment will be managed by National Health Service local specialist services, with funding provided in the usual way through general allocations.