The Delivery plan for recovering access to primary care, published by NHS England in May 2023, sets out actions to cut bureaucracy and workload, which includes reducing demands of general practice (GP) time from unnecessary or low-value asks, improving the interface between primary and secondary care, and significantly streamlining the Impact and Investment Fund by reducing the number of indicators from 36 to five in 2023/24.

We are working with NHS England to increase the GP workforce in England. This includes measures to boost recruitment, address the reasons why doctors leave the profession, and encourage them to return to practice. NHS England has made available a number of recruitment and retention schemes to boost the GP workforce. This includes the National GP Induction and Refresher scheme, the Return to Practice programme, and the International Induction Programme.

Through the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS), Primary Care Networks and practices have recruited over 36,000 additional staff including nursing associates, pharmacists, physiotherapists, and social prescribing link workers, hitting the Government's target to recruit 26,000 a year, ahead of the March 2024 deadline. The expanded primary care teams funded through the ARRS not only add extra clinical capacity, helping to reduce the burden on GPs, but also form the basis for multi-disciplinary teams to work on improving the care offered to patients.

The Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act 2023 brings reforms to the supported housing sector to improve quality and value for money. Any changes to funding models would need to be considered in the context of those broader reforms, but we keep the subsidy policy under review.

I thank my hon. Friend for raising this issue. The challenging fiscal environment means that we need to prioritise resources and ensure that support is targeted effectively to maximise impact for citizens. I chair a cross-Government group with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities on quality issues and other matters, such as subsidy loss, which she raises. We will continue to review and monitor the concerns that she and other local authorities have raised. However, I point to the local housing allowance uplift, which is a central focus for me.

We know that with the right preparation and support the overwhelming majority of young people with SEND are capable of sustained and paid employment. The National Careers Service offers young people with SEND aged 19 to 24 tailored support from careers advisers. We are investing £80 million until 2025 to build capacity and support an internship programme. We have also launched a mentoring pilot for disabled apprentices.

I was pleased to visit Loughborough not so long ago with my hon. Friend. She is passionate about FE and skills. I know Homefield College well; it is a brilliant college and I am glad it was recently allocated £95,000 for capital spend. We have the £80 million supported internship scheme for those with special educational needs; an FE bursary scheme for special needs teachers; specialist National Careers Service advice for young people; and the SEND code of practice to prepare young people for adulthood. We are doing everything possible to support FE for those with special educational needs, to ensure that they get on the ladder of opportunity.

Access to Work is a demand-led discretionary grant which supports the recruitment and retention of eligible disabled people aged 16 and over in sustainable, paid employment. Access to Work plays an active role in supporting the transitions of young disabled people into employment, by providing funding for in work support including vocational programmes such as Supported Internships, Traineeships and Apprenticeships.

To help raise awareness of support available when young disabled people move into employment, identify adjustments and reduce the need for multiple assessments, a series of passports and planners have been developed, with the Adjustments Planner focusing on transitions from education to employment.

The Adjustments Planner provides students with a transferable record of their adjustments, support, and work requirements and can help the student settle into college/university life. It can also offer support beyond education by smoothing the transition into employment - reducing the burden when applying for Access to Work, enabling support to be put in place quickly and removing the need for the student to repeat personal details.

The Government has a wide range of initiatives to support disabled people and people with health conditions, including people with complex disabilities, to start, stay and succeed in work. These include:

• The Work and Health Programme providing tailored and personalised support for disabled people;
• Access to Work grants helping towards extra costs of working beyond standard reasonable adjustments;
• Disability Confident encouraging employers to think differently about disability and health, and to take positive action to address the issues disabled employees face in the workplace;
• A digital information service for employers providing better integrated and tailored guidance on supporting health and disability in the workplace;
• Increasing access to occupational health, including the testing of financial incentives for small and medium-sized enterprises and the self-employed;
• Increased Work Coach support in Jobcentres for disabled people and people with health conditions to help them move towards and in to work;
• Disability Employment Advisers in Jobcentres offering advice and expertise on how to help disabled people and people with health conditions into work;
• Introducing Employment Advisors to Musculoskeletal Conditions (MSK) services in England, helping individuals with MSK conditions to return to or remain in employment.
• Work in partnership between the DWP and health systems, including Employment Advice in NHS Talking Therapies, and the Individual Placement and Support in Primary Care (IPSPC) programme, a Supported Employment model (place, train and maintain) delivered in health settings, aimed at people with physical or common mental health disabilities to support them to access paid jobs in the open labour market.

Building on existing provision and the £2 billion investment announced at the Spring Budget 2023, we announced a new package of support in Autumn Statement 2023. This includes:

• Doubling the number of places on the Universal Support employment programme, to provide support for 100,000 people per year when fully rolled out;
• Formally launching WorkWell, which will bring together the NHS, local authorities and other partners, in collaboration with jobcentres, to provide light touch work and health support in approximately 15 pilot areas;
• Building on the extension of the certification of the fit notes to a wider range of healthcare professions, exploring new ways of providing individuals receiving a fit note with timely access to work and health support; and
• Establishing an expert group to support the development of the voluntary national baseline for Occupational Health provision.

Employability, enrichment and pastoral (EEP) are an important part of current post-16 study programmes as they prepare students for future education, employment and life.

T Levels were introduced in 2020, and are high-quality, Level 3 qualifications that equip students with the skills, knowledge and behaviours they need to progress into skilled employment. As set out in the department’s delivery guidance, providers are encouraged to take advantage of EEP support and work taster activities in the first and/or second year of the T Level programme to help with student preparation. This guidance can be found at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1163906/T_Level_industry_placements_-_delivery_guidance.pdf.

As part of the T Level, students also complete a minimum of 315 hours in an industry placement working with external employers. The Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme and other enrichment opportunities can be incorporated into a T Level industry placement, provided that the activity is occupationally relevant to the T Level and meets all requirements outlined in our T Level delivery placements guidance. To do this, providers may choose to incorporate one or more of the flexible delivery approaches outlined in our guidance.

The Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme provides grants for public sector bodies to fund heat decarbonisation and energy efficiency measures. Removal of asbestos may be considered an eligible ‘enabling cost’ provided the asbestos survey or removal is directly linked to measures that are part of the approved programme of works. Applicants should consult the guidance published by Salix Finance, who deliver the scheme, for the full eligibility criteria.

No such assessment has been made. We expect integrated care boards to continue to meet the Mental Health Investment Standard so that investment in mental health services increases in line with their overall increase in allocation for that year. All but one of the integrated care boards met the Mental Health Investment Standard in 2022/23.

It is the responsibility of individual National Health Service organisations and publicly funded social care providers to comply with the Accessible Information Standard (AIS) and to meet the communication needs of patients and carers with a disability, impairment or sensory loss, including blind and partially-sighted people.

NHS England has completed a review of the AIS to help ensure that everyone’s communication needs are met in health and care provision.

The review considered the effectiveness of the current AIS, how the standard is implemented and enforced in practice, and identified recommendations for improvement. Following publication of the revised standard in due course, NHS England will continue work to support its implementation with awareness raising, communication and engagement and updated e-learning modules on the AIS to ensure NHS staff are better aware of the standard and their roles and responsibilities in implementing it. The e-learning modules are accessible to everyone working in the NHS and adult social care services

A key part of the AIS review is the strengthening of assurance of compliance with implementation of the AIS. As such, an AIS self-assessment framework has been developed to support individual providers of NHS and social care services to measure their performance against the AIS and develop targeted improvement action plans to address gaps in implementation. The self-assessment framework has also been designed to help the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to gain insight into people's experiences and whether their accessible communication needs are being met, and to better understand organisational performance for inclusion in the CQC assessment framework for provider organisations.

Rawlins Academy is part of the School Rebuilding Programme which will transform buildings at 500 schools and sixth-form colleges over the next decade. It will rebuild or refurbish poor condition buildings, providing modern designs, with new buildings being net zero carbon in operation.

The department’s surveys at Rawlin’s Academy have recently started and are due to complete in the New Year. The department will share the outcome of these surveys with the school shortly.

The Environment Agency (EA) is working with partners to manage flood risk within Loughborough.

The EA has allocated funding to develop the Wood Brook and Tributaries Flood Risk Management Scheme which will better protect over 150 properties. Under the Government’s partnership funding policy, £4.7 million of Flood Defence Grant in Aid is available for the scheme.

The EA is also working with partners to develop a Strategic Catchment Plan to create a holistic and long-term approach to managing flood risk within Loughborough and the wider catchment.

The Department commissions research through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). The NIHR is not currently supporting pharmaceutical companies or research specifically on injectable vitamin B12.

The NIHR welcomes funding applications for research into any aspect of human health, including injectable vitamin B12. 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.

There are no current plans to change subsidy rules in Supported Housing which are in place to help ensure quality and value for money for taxpayers. Under the Housing Benefit subsidy arrangements, DWP reimburses local authorities for the cost of Housing Benefit in their respective areas subject to the rules set out in legislation. For supported housing cases, 100% subsidy is usually paid to the local authority by DWP where the landlord or provider is registered with the Regulator for Social Housing in England. In cases where the landlord or provider is not registered, the subsidy will still be payable to local authorities, but will be restricted in line with the rules set out in legislation.

The new £1 billion Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) funding for buses in the North and the Midlands, announced on 4 October, will continue and expand the improvements started by the £1.2 billion for BSIPs announced in 2022 and 2023. The first downpayment of £150 million has been indicatively allocated for 2024-25.

The new funding can be used in the same way as existing BSIP funding. LTAs may use the funding to deliver the interventions that they and local operators, where they have an Enhanced Partnership, expect will deliver the best outcomes for passengers. Further details on the terms of funding will follow in due course.

The Department welcomes the All-Party Parliamentary Group report. We are taking steps to ensure that funders work closely together to coordinate work along the translational pathway, from the discovery and early translational science typically supported by the MRC, feeding through to the applied health and care research funded by the NIHR.

It is not usual practice to ring-fence funds for particular topics or conditions. As with other Government funders of health research, the NIHR does not allocate funding for specific disease areas. The level of research spend in a particular area is driven by factors including scientific potential and the number and scale of successful funding applications.

NIHR is taking action to help researchers develop high-quality proposals, including working with the Tessa Jowell Brain Cancer Mission on workshops and courses for applications in development. Similarly, the NIHR Research Support Service will support researchers applying for funding with expert advice, to help them develop the best funding applications.

To support healthcare professionals in the early diagnosis and management of inflammatory bowel disease, including Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has produced a range of guidance, including guidance specifically on the use of faecal calprotectin tests as a way of diagnosing inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). NICE’s IBD quality standard outlines that referral to a specialist assessment for suspected IBD should be within four weeks.

NICE guidelines represent best practice and health professionals, including general practitioners, and service commissioners are expected to take them fully into account. Guidelines published by NICE are not mandatory and do not replace the judgement of clinicians in determining the most appropriate treatment for individual patients.

In addition, NHS England’s Getting it Right First Time (GIRFT) specialty report on gastroenterology, published in September 2021, sets out actions and recommendations for the National Health Service to improve patient care and ensure consistency of care across the country.

It is the responsibility of integrated care boards to make available appropriate provision to meet the health and care needs of their local population, including the diagnosis and management of IBD.

To support healthcare professionals in the early diagnosis and management of inflammatory bowel disease, including Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has produced a range of guidance, including guidance specifically on the use of faecal calprotectin tests as a way of diagnosing inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). NICE’s IBD quality standard outlines that referral to a specialist assessment for suspected IBD should be within four weeks.

NICE guidelines represent best practice and health professionals, including general practitioners, and service commissioners are expected to take them fully into account. Guidelines published by NICE are not mandatory and do not replace the judgement of clinicians in determining the most appropriate treatment for individual patients.

In addition, NHS England’s Getting it Right First Time (GIRFT) specialty report on gastroenterology, published in September 2021, sets out actions and recommendations for the National Health Service to improve patient care and ensure consistency of care across the country.

It is the responsibility of integrated care boards to make available appropriate provision to meet the health and care needs of their local population, including the diagnosis and management of IBD.