The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

We recognise the challenging financial situation facing many hospices due to a range of cost pressures, and we understand that some children and young people’s hospices are having to make difficult decisions about services.

However, to support the sector, the Government has provided a £125 million capital funding boost for adult and children’s hospices in England and has secured approximately £80 million of revenue funding for children and young people’s hospices over the three financial years, from 2026/27 to 2028/29, helping to provide greater financial certainty and stability.

Since the beginning of this year, NHS England has written twice to all integrated care boards (ICBs) requesting an update on the financial stability of hospices within their footprint and the steps being taken to mitigate risks as a matter of urgency. As part of the most recent request, in April, information was also gathered from Hospice UK to provide a rounded picture of the hospice sector. It is clear from all the returns received that there is a clear commitment from ICBs to work collaboratively with hospices and to understand any existing or potential impact of financial pressures, with clear steps being taken at a local level to mitigate risks to patients.

We recognise that there are currently inequalities in access to, and the quality of, palliative care and end-of-life care. This is one of the reasons why we are developing a Modern Service Framework (MSF) for Palliative Care and End-of-Life Care.

On 4 June, we published an interim update on the MSF in the form of a Written Ministerial Statement, which is available at the following link:

https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2026-06-04/hcws88

The MSF will provide a clinically led, evidence-based framework to support sustained improvement in patient and carer outcomes, including for children and young people with palliative care needs, by reducing both inequality and unwarranted variation.

The MSF will focus on reducing unwarranted variation in access, experience, and outcomes, ensuring that everyone can receive high‑quality, personalised care in the right place at the end of life. The MSF will address inequalities in access to palliative care and end-of-life care by embedding a stronger focus on identifying, measuring, and reducing health inequalities across the system.

It will support a shift towards strategic, population‑based commissioning, enabling integrated care boards to plan and deliver services based on a clear understanding of local need, including underserved and disadvantaged groups.

The MSF will also strengthen the use of data and evidence, including metrics that are under development, to help systems identify gaps in provision, track progress, and ensure funding and services are distributed more equitably.

No assessment has been made on waiting times for children’s National Health Service dental appointments.

The responsibility for commissioning primary care services, including NHS dentistry, to meet the needs of the local population has been delegated to integrated care boards (ICBs) across England. For the West Dorset constituency, this is the NHS Dorset ICB.

In the NHS Dorset ICB, 5,720, or 8%, more NHS dental treatments were delivered to children in April to October 2025 than the same period before the election. Nationally, 1.8 million more NHS dental treatments were delivered across the same time period. Half of these additional treatments were delivered to children.

The 10-Year Health Plan confirms that child dental health is a priority, and we are committed to delivering fundamental reform of the dental contract before the end of this Parliament. In the meantime, we are introducing changes to dental access that will benefit children.

From April 2026, we began introducing a package of reforms to address some of the most pressing issues that dentists and dental teams have been experiencing, put patients with greatest need first, and incentivise urgent care and complex treatments. We have also introduced a new course of treatment for fluoride varnish for children to be applied by suitably trained dental nurses in between regular check-ups. We have also increased remuneration for dentists for fissure sealants, an effective intervention for children aged seven years to 18 years old, to support increased use for primary prevention purposes.

Reducing rates of tooth decay is central to our commitment to help children to live healthier lives. Since 2025, we have invested £21.5 million to implement the national supervised toothbrushing programme for three- to five-year-olds, to reach up to 600,000 children in the most deprived areas of England.

We are committed to reforming the dental contract by the end of this Parliament.

No assessment has been made on waiting times for children’s National Health Service dental appointments.

The responsibility for commissioning primary care services, including NHS dentistry, to meet the needs of the local population has been delegated to integrated care boards (ICBs) across England. For the West Dorset constituency, this is the NHS Dorset ICB.

In the NHS Dorset ICB, 5,720, or 8%, more NHS dental treatments were delivered to children in April to October 2025 than the same period before the election. Nationally, 1.8 million more NHS dental treatments were delivered across the same time period. Half of these additional treatments were delivered to children.

The 10-Year Health Plan confirms that child dental health is a priority, and we are committed to delivering fundamental reform of the dental contract before the end of this Parliament. In the meantime, we are introducing changes to dental access that will benefit children.

From April 2026, we began introducing a package of reforms to address some of the most pressing issues that dentists and dental teams have been experiencing, put patients with greatest need first, and incentivise urgent care and complex treatments. We have also introduced a new course of treatment for fluoride varnish for children to be applied by suitably trained dental nurses in between regular check-ups. We have also increased remuneration for dentists for fissure sealants, an effective intervention for children aged seven years to 18 years old, to support increased use for primary prevention purposes.

Reducing rates of tooth decay is central to our commitment to help children to live healthier lives. Since 2025, we have invested £21.5 million to implement the national supervised toothbrushing programme for three- to five-year-olds, to reach up to 600,000 children in the most deprived areas of England.

We are committed to reforming the dental contract by the end of this Parliament.

No assessment has been made on waiting times for children’s National Health Service dental appointments.

The responsibility for commissioning primary care services, including NHS dentistry, to meet the needs of the local population has been delegated to integrated care boards (ICBs) across England. For the West Dorset constituency, this is the NHS Dorset ICB.

In the NHS Dorset ICB, 5,720, or 8%, more NHS dental treatments were delivered to children in April to October 2025 than the same period before the election. Nationally, 1.8 million more NHS dental treatments were delivered across the same time period. Half of these additional treatments were delivered to children.

The 10-Year Health Plan confirms that child dental health is a priority, and we are committed to delivering fundamental reform of the dental contract before the end of this Parliament. In the meantime, we are introducing changes to dental access that will benefit children.

From April 2026, we began introducing a package of reforms to address some of the most pressing issues that dentists and dental teams have been experiencing, put patients with greatest need first, and incentivise urgent care and complex treatments. We have also introduced a new course of treatment for fluoride varnish for children to be applied by suitably trained dental nurses in between regular check-ups. We have also increased remuneration for dentists for fissure sealants, an effective intervention for children aged seven years to 18 years old, to support increased use for primary prevention purposes.

Reducing rates of tooth decay is central to our commitment to help children to live healthier lives. Since 2025, we have invested £21.5 million to implement the national supervised toothbrushing programme for three- to five-year-olds, to reach up to 600,000 children in the most deprived areas of England.

We are committed to reforming the dental contract by the end of this Parliament.

Earlier this year, NHS England wrote to all integrated care boards (ICBs) requesting an update on the financial stability of hospices in their footprint and the steps being taken to mitigate risks, as a matter of urgency. We have now repeated this exercise, also triangulating data received from independent hospices via Hospice UK. This has provided ministers and NHS England with a clear up-to-date national picture of any hospices at risk of closure or significant service reductions, and the potential impact on patients, families, and the wider health care system. NHS England will continue to support ICBs where risks are identified.

We are providing approximately £80 million of revenue funding for children and young people’s hospices over three financial years, from 2026/27 to 2028/29, giving them the stability they need to plan ahead.

We are developing a Modern Service Framework (MSF) for palliative care and end-of-life care and recently published an interim update on the MSF in the form of a Written Ministerial Statement, accompanied by a letter containing further information for interested parties. I refer the Hon. Member to the Written Ministerial Statement HCWS88, which I gave to the House on 4 June 2026.

Earlier this year, NHS England wrote to all integrated care boards (ICBs) requesting an update on the financial stability of hospices in their footprint and the steps being taken to mitigate risks, as a matter of urgency. We have now repeated this exercise, also triangulating data received from independent hospices via Hospice UK. This has provided ministers and NHS England with a clear up-to-date national picture of any hospices at risk of closure or significant service reductions, and the potential impact on patients, families, and the wider health care system. NHS England will continue to support ICBs where risks are identified.

We are providing approximately £80 million of revenue funding for children and young people’s hospices over three financial years, from 2026/27 to 2028/29, giving them the stability they need to plan ahead.

We are developing a Modern Service Framework (MSF) for palliative care and end-of-life care and recently published an interim update on the MSF in the form of a Written Ministerial Statement, accompanied by a letter containing further information for interested parties. I refer the Hon. Member to the Written Ministerial Statement HCWS88, which I gave to the House on 4 June 2026.

Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for commissioning palliative care and end-of-life care services, including children and young people’s hospice services, to meet the needs of their local populations. NHS England has published statutory guidance and service specifications to support ICBs in carrying out these duties. We will be refreshing the statutory guidance and service specifications later this year.

The amount of funding each charitable hospice receives varies both within and between ICB areas. This will vary depending on demand in that ICB area but will also be dependent on the totality and type of palliative and end of life care provision from both NHS and non-NHS services, including charitable hospices, within each ICB area.

We have supported the hospice sector in England with a £125 million capital funding boost for adult and children and young people’s hospices to ensure they have the best physical environment for care. We are also providing approximately £80 million of revenue funding for children and young people’s hospices over three financial years, 2026/27 to 2028/29, giving them the stability they need to plan ahead.

The Government is developing a Modern Service Framework (MSF) for Palliative Care and End-of-Life Care in England, and we have recently published an interim update at the following link:

https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2026-06-04/hcws88

The MSF will embed palliative care and end-of-life care within a strategic commissioning model that is centred on clear and transparent contractual arrangements for commissioned palliative care activity across all providers, including hospices, to meet population health needs, with explicit regard to reducing inequalities and improving outcomes for underserved and disadvantaged groups. We expect all ICBs to complete an integrated needs assessment, to gain a detailed understanding of their current and future population, including people of all ages with palliative care and end-of-life care needs. This is vital in order to commission the services to best meet that need, whilst providing the best value for money.

Community health services, including children’s speech and language therapy services, are locally commissioned to enable systems to best meet the needs of their communities.

We have set a clear target for systems to work to reduce long waits in NHS England’s Medium Term Planning Framework.

By 2028/29, at least 80% of community health services activity should take place within 18 weeks, and in 2026/27, integrated care boards (ICBs) and community health services providers must also develop plans to eliminate 52 week waits. Whilst targets are not service-line specific, capacity growth and waiting time targets should impact positively on children and young people’s speech and language therapy services.

Alongside the new target for community health services, in 2025 we published an overview of core community health services. Setting clear expectations of the core community health services, ICBs should be providing help to ensure consistent delivery of community health services, support effective commissioning, and improve patient access to care.

As of April 2026, there were 66,695 children and young people on waiting lists for speech and language therapy.

The Department does not hold specific information on speech and language therapy services in Hampshire.

The following table shows the number of Finished Admission Episodes (FAEs) where the main operative procedure was a dental procedure, by patient age group in each year from 2021/22 to 2025/26 in the York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust:

Note: data for 2025/26 is provisional.

An FAE is the first period of admitted patient care under one consultant within one healthcare provider. FAEs are typically counted against the year or month in which the admission episode finishes, which is the approach we have used here. Admissions do not represent the number of patients, as a person may have more than one admission within the period.

The 10-Year Health Plan for England confirms that child dental health is a priority. The responsibility for commissioning primary care services, including National Health Service dentistry, to meet the needs of the local population has been delegated to integrated care boards across England.

1.8 million additional courses of NHS dental treatment have been delivered in the seven months between April to October 2025 compared to the corresponding months prior to the general election, nearly half of which were delivered to children. The data for York Central Constituencies shows that over 23,000 children were seen by an NHS dentist in the previous 12 months up to June 2025.

From April 2026, we began introducing a package of reforms, including a new course of treatment for fluoride varnish for children to be applied by suitably trained dental nurses in between regular check-ups. We will also increase remuneration for dentists for fissure sealants to support increased use of this effective treatment for primary prevention purposes.

We are also committed to fundamentally reforming the dental contract, with a focus on matching resources to need, improving access, promoting prevention, and rewarding dentists fairly, while enabling the whole dental team to work to the top of their capability.

We are committed to a further shift to prevention of ill health. Since 2025, we have invested over £42,000 for supervised toothbrushing in the City of York and over 2,900 free toothbrushing products have been donated so far as a result of our partnership with Colgate-Palmolive to support children in the most deprived areas. We are also currently working with Yorkshire Water on the potential to introduce community water fluoridation in the region, ahead of any public consultation on this matter.

We have set clear ambitions for community health services through our Medium Term Planning Framework and for the first time, we have set a target for systems to reduce long waits for community health services. By 2028/29, at least 80% of community health services activity should take place within 18 weeks, bringing community health services in line with targets for elective care.

In 2025, we published Standardising Community Health Services which provides an overview of community health services. Further guidance was published in February 2026 to add additional detail to the community health services integrated care boards should commission. This includes neurodiverse assessments for children.

The Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care Trust and NHS Herefordshire and Worcestershire Integrated Care Board have been working in partnership to reduce neurodiversity diagnostic waits. The current waiting times have been reduced through considerable investment in outsourced assessments, totalling 1,150 additional neurodivergence assessments for children across Worcestershire, increasing investment in clinicians to create NHS capacity and transformation work within the service to ensure evidence based, safe, and high-quality care is delivered whilst we recover the waiting times.

The National Health Service trust and integrated care board have a three year plan to address long waits in a sustainable way that includes increased investment in health care professionals to increase the capacity of the service, the outsourcing of assessments from trusted private providers for those waiting the longest, and a pre and post diagnostic service for neurodivergence support, commissioned by the integrated care board, expected to commence later this year.

Through this work the expectation for Worcestershire is the following:

• all waits to be below 104 weeks by end of March 2027;
• all waits to be below 52 weeks by end of March 2028; and
• all waits to be below 18 weeks by end of March 2029.

The Department does not hold a centrally consolidated breakdown of allocations to individual children and young people’s hospice, and so is therefore not able to publish this information.

NHS England has informed all integrated care boards (ICBs) of their allocations for the children and young people’s hospices in their footprint for 2026/27, amounting to circa £27 million in total for England.

NHS England has made clear that this funding is to be distributed by ICBs to eligible children and young people’s hospices and is not intended for reallocation to other services. To support this process, NHS England has also established an assurance process with clear steps and timelines, including regular oversight with ICBs, regional teams and hospices. Where ICBs are unable to meet the deadline, this is escalated to NHS England to ensure timely distribution.

A similar total allocation, adjusted for pay inflation, will be made available in each of the subsequent two years (2027/28 and 2028/29). Communications regarding future allocations will be sent once the 2026/27 process is complete.

The Department does not hold a centrally consolidated breakdown of allocations to individual children and young people’s hospices, and so is therefore not able to publish this information.

In line with the established arrangements, integrated care boards (ICBs) administer this funding to individual hospices on behalf of NHS England. This approach is consistent with National Health Service devolution, promotes a more consistent national approach and supports commissioners in prioritising the palliative care and end of life care needs of their local population.

NHS England has made clear that this funding is to be distributed by ICBs to eligible children and young people’s hospices and is not intended for reallocation to other services. To support this process, NHS England has also established an assurance process with clear steps and timelines, including regular oversight with ICBs, regional teams and hospices. Where ICBs are unable to meet the deadline, this is escalated to NHS England to ensure timely distribution.

The Government recognises the importance of ensuring that children, including those with complex visual needs such as albinism, can access appropriate optical care and appliances.

National Health Service optical vouchers are designed to support eligible groups, including children, with the cost of clinically necessary glasses or contact lenses. Voucher values range from £42.40 to £233.56, with individuals with more complex prescriptions receiving the high voucher values. There are no plans for a review of NHS optical vouchers.

Children and young people with significant or complex vision impairment may also be supported through NHS low vision services. These services provide specialist assessment and, where appropriate, low vision aids to help maximise functional vision and independence.

NHS England has informed all integrated care boards (ICBs) of their total allocation for children and young people’s hospices for 2026/27, amounting to approximately £27 million. Decisions on the distribution of this funding to individual hospices rest with ICBs, in line with the NHS England’s devolved commissioning arrangements.

The Department does not hold a centrally consolidated breakdown of allocations to individual children and young people’s hospices, so is therefore not able to publish this information.

A similar total allocation, adjusted for pay inflation, will be made available in each of the subsequent two years, 2027/28 and 2028/29. Communications regarding future allocations will be sent once the 2026/27 process is complete.

General practices (GPs) can provide proxy access to parents or carers of a child under the age of 16 years old. The GP surgery must get the child's consent before giving access to their online GP services, if the child is able to understand and make an informed decision. Children aged 11 years old and over are generally presumed to have capacity to consent to, or refuse, proxy access, unless, for example, a medical condition or learning disability affects their understanding.

More broadly, the Government is taking steps to improve access to services for patients who may need additional support, including children with autism and their carers. GPs are required to provide online consultation tools, which can support patients and carers to contact their practice remotely, including for appointments, repeat prescriptions, and registration.

In addition, NHS England is rolling out the Reasonable Adjustment Digital Flag, which allows services to record where a disabled patient needs reasonable adjustments so that care can be provided more appropriately and consistently.