PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Health Services: Learning Disability (10 January 2019)

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure services funded by the NHS uphold national learning disability improvement standards; and whether he plans to bring forward measures to ensure compliance with those standards.

Asked by:
Marsha De Cordova (Labour)

The NHS Long Term Plan outlines the expectation that all National Health Service funded care providers in England should have implemented the learning disability improvement standards by 2023/24.

Inclusion of the improvement standards in the NHS Standard contract 2019/20, mandated by NHS England for use by commissioners of all healthcare services except primary care, means that all providers must have regard to the improvement standards and guidance.

To monitor and ensure compliance with the standards, NHS Improvement has commissioned the NHS Benchmarking Network to facilitate national data collection across all NHS trusts, including NHS community trusts and NHS ambulance trusts.

Answered by:
Dame Caroline Dinenage (Conservative)
17 January 2019