The Government is committed to raising the healthiest generation of children. The child health workforce, which includes health visiting teams, is central to how we support all families to give their child the best start in life.

Health visiting teams provide vital advice and support for all eligible parents, carers, and children, through five mandated health and development reviews, up to the age of two to two and a half years old, and additional support for those who need it. Health visiting is a universal service offered to all families, regardless of their type of accommodation.

We will refresh the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan next summer to ensure that the National Health Service has the right people, in the right places, with the right skills, to deliver the care that babies, and their carers and families need, when they need it.

Health visitors are specialist community public health nurses. Health visitors carry out the Government’s mandated five health and development reviews through the healthy child programme, specifically: during pregnancy; when the baby is 10 to 14 days old; at six to eight weeks old; at one years old; and between two to two and a half years old. These are carried out by health visiting teams. Health visitors can support parents to develop confidence and self-efficacy in understanding and accessing health and care information, advice, and services.

Health visitors support families on various issues including breast feeding, infant feeding, nutrition, and healthy eating. Health visitors have a crucial role in sign posting to additional support and advice, including the Healthy Start scheme.

The Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) are highly valued, specialist personnel. We are committed to listening to their concerns and maintaining a continued dialogue to address issues they have raised during the ongoing pay dispute.

As well as working to resolve the current pay dispute, recruitment and retention of staff over the long-term remains a priority. There are a number of initiatives in support of this which include updating working practices - such as part-time, flexible, and family-friendly arrangements - shortening recruitment timescales and modernising pay and allowances. This work forms part of the Defence-wide initiative driven at Ministerial level through the recently established Recruitment and Retention Board.

Details of official meetings held in a ministerial capacity with external organisations or individuals are published quarterly on GOV.UK

The Department monitors and manages medicine supply at a national level so that stocks remain available to meet regional and local demand. Information is not collected on a local level. The Department has been working hard with industry and NHS England to help resolve supply issues with some attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) medicines, which are affecting the United Kingdom and other countries around the world. As a result of intensive work, some issues have been resolved, and all strengths of lisdexamfetamine, atomoxetine capsules, and guanfacine prolonged-release tablets are now available.

We are continuing to work to resolve supply issues where they remain, for methylphenidate prolonged-release tablets. We are engaging with all suppliers of methylphenidate prolonged-release tablets to assess the challenges faced and their actions to address them. We are also directing suppliers to secure additional stocks, expedite deliveries where possible, and review plans to further build capacity to support continued growth in demand for the short and long-term. We expect supply to improve in the UK throughout December 2024 and January 2025. However, we anticipate supply to be limited for some strengths, and we continue to work with all suppliers to ensure that the remaining issues are resolved as soon as possible. To improve supply chain resiliency, we are also working with prospective new suppliers of methylphenidate prolonged-release tablets to expand the UK supplier base.

We are supporting an ADHD taskforce that NHS England is establishing to examine ADHD service provision. The taskforce will bring together expertise from across a broad range of sectors, including the National Health Service, education, and justice, to help provide a joined-up approach in response to concerns around rising demand. In collaboration with NHS England’s national ADHD data improvement plan, we plan to combine modelling for future growth forecasts, which will be shared with industry to improve demand forecasting for ADHD medicines.

To minimise the impact of the shortages on patients, the Department has worked with specialist clinicians, including those within the NHS, to develop management advice for NHS clinicians to consider prescribing available alternative brands of methylphenidate prolonged release tablets generically, or available alternative ADHD medicines. To support ADHD patients throughout the NHS, we would expect all ADHD service providers and specialists to follow our guidance, which includes offering rapid response to primary care teams seeking urgent advice or opinions for the management of patients, including those known to be at a higher risk of adverse impact because of these shortages.

To aid ADHD service providers and prescribers further we have widely disseminated our communications and continually update a list of currently available and unavailable ADHD products on the Specialist Pharmacy Service (SPS) website, helping ensure that those involved in the prescribing and dispensing of ADHD medications can make informed decisions with patients. The SPS website also offers additional guidance from NHS England specialists to help systems and healthcare professionals manage ADHD supply disruptions.

The Government recognises the importance of, and remains committed to meeting, all three National Health Service cancer waiting time standards across England. These are the 28-day faster diagnosis standard, the 31-day decision to treat to treatment standard, and the 62-day referral to treatment standard.

Lord Darzi’s report has laid bare the true extent of the challenges facing our health service, which is why we have launched our 10 Year Plan to radically reform the NHS and build a health service that is fit for the future.

Following publication of the 10-Year Health Plan, we will publish the new national cancer plan, which will include further details on how we will improve outcomes for cancer patients, including improving performance against the cancer waiting time standards.

The Government recognises the importance of, and remains committed to meeting, all three National Health Service cancer waiting time standards across England. These are the 28-day faster diagnosis standard, the 31-day decision to treat to treatment standard, and the 62-day referral to treatment standard.

Lord Darzi’s report has laid bare the true extent of the challenges facing our health service, which is why we have launched our 10 Year Plan to radically reform the NHS and build a health service that is fit for the future.

Following publication of the 10-Year Health Plan, we will publish the new national cancer plan, which will include further details on how we will improve outcomes for cancer patients, including improving performance against the cancer waiting time standards.

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

The Department is improving the quality and quantity of clinical research in the National Health Service, and health and care research more widely, through investing in the National Institute for Health and Care Research. The recent Budget provides record levels of Government research and development investment, with funding for research through the Department increasing to over £2 billion in 2025/26.

The UK believes that the people of Taiwan have a valuable contribution to make on issues of global concern. We have been proud to support UK expert participation at GCTF events around the world, and we have no plans to step back from our engagement with the platform. The UK supports Taiwan's meaningful participation at international fora as a member where statehood is not a prerequisite or as an observer or guest where it is. Attendance at future AI Safety Summits is a matter for each event's host country.

The environment for freedom of religion or belief in China is restrictive, which includes the persecution of Christians. This Government stands firm on human rights, including the right to freedom of religion or belief. We raise our concerns at the highest levels: the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary both raised human rights recently with their counterparts President Xi and Foreign Minister Wang respectively. More broadly, this Government will champion freedom of religion or belief for all abroad. We will work to uphold the right to freedom of religion or belief through our position at the UN, G7 and other multilateral fora, and through bilateral engagement.

The Minister for Europe, North America and the Overseas Territories met with members of the Chagossian community twice between 5 July and 3 October 2024. Officials also routinely speak to Chagossians. Discussions covered a range of issues. There are a large number of Chagossian groups with a wide spectrums of views in the UK and internationally. We will continue efforts to engage all groups or representatives with an interest.