Asked by: Caroline Dinenage (Conservative - Gosport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of consulting with suppliers of community care equipment and services to make an assessment of (a) levels of provision gaps and (b) their potential impact on community care patients.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
On 30 January 2025, NHS England published the guidance Standardising community health services, specifically codifying core services, which is available the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/standardising-community-health-services/
Community health services cover a diverse range of healthcare delivery, and the guidance supports improved commissioning and delivery of community healthcare services. Codifying community health services will help to better assess demand and capacity and will help commissioners make investment choices as they design neighbourhood health provision that shifts care to community based settings.
This publication is available for designing, commissioning, and delivering community health services, including neighbourhood health. Integrated care boards and their partners should consider the core components to support demand and capacity assessment and planning with providers, and should ensure the best use of funding to meet local needs and priorities.
Equipment such as wheelchair services, orthotics, and prosthetics for both adults and children and young people are core components of community health services and are refenced in the guidance.
Local National Health Service organisations have access to a wide range of procurement routes, but the Government has put in place a range of initiatives to help NHS bodies make informed choices about the products and the route through which they are bought. These include the NHS Supply Chain, a national body which is responsible for procuring and delivering the majority of consumables, equipment, and other supplies into the NHS. The NHS Supply Chain was set up to leverage the collective buying power of the NHS, to drive savings and provide a standardised range of clinically assured quality products at the best value.
Asked by: Caroline Dinenage (Conservative - Gosport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions he has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on changes to employer National Insurance Contributions and the potential impact on (a) community care services and (b) wider healthcare services.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department has discussed the impact of employer National Insurance contributions with HM Treasury, and has been informed of the Department’s allocation.
The Government’s intent is to publish the allocations alongside departmental budgets for 2025/26 at the Mains estimates. This will be published as a supplementary table, with a brief description of the methodology used accompanying it, and the table will not list a breakdown of the specific compensation to individual services.
Asked by: Caroline Dinenage (Conservative - Gosport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions he has had with the Care Quality Commission on minimising the risk of future backlogs emerging for (a) inspections and (b) reinspections of healthcare providers.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Departmental officials meet fortnightly with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to discuss measures CQC have put in place to address among other issues, delays in the production of inspection reports and initial inspection and reinspection.
As part of this process, the CQC provides fortnightly updates to senior Departmental officials on the work it is doing to improve and ensure it has robust systems in place to support the changes it is making to deliver its assessment activity of the providers it regulates. This increased reporting to, and oversight from, the Department also allows the level of risk across the CQC’s delivery to be monitored at a senior level.
Delays to the CQC’s inspection activities are partially due to failures of its IT systems. The CQC has accepted recommendations of the independent review into the CQC’s technology which was published in March 2025 and is available at the following link:
https://www.cqc.org.uk/news/independent-review-cqc-technology-published
The CQC is currently working to review options for alternative methods of inspection report publication while work is carried out to make necessary changes to its IT systems.
The introduction of a ‘hybrid’ approach which launched on 2 December 2024 aims to streamline the existing process by discontinuing scoring at the evidence category level and instead reporting at the quality statement level. This change is intended to improve efficiency for CQC staff. In addition, efforts are underway to address the backlog of ‘stuck’ assessments within the system. As of 24 April 2025, the current number of ‘stuck’ assessments is 52, a reduction of 448.
Work continues to further lower this number and to strengthen the monitoring and management of assessment delays.
Asked by: Caroline Dinenage (Conservative - Gosport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions he has had with the Care Quality Commission on reducing the delay in the production of reports for healthcare providers following (a) their initial inspection and (b) reinspections.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Departmental officials meet fortnightly with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to discuss measures CQC have put in place to address among other issues, delays in the production of inspection reports and initial inspection and reinspection.
As part of this process, the CQC provides fortnightly updates to senior Departmental officials on the work it is doing to improve and ensure it has robust systems in place to support the changes it is making to deliver its assessment activity of the providers it regulates. This increased reporting to, and oversight from, the Department also allows the level of risk across the CQC’s delivery to be monitored at a senior level.
Delays to the CQC’s inspection activities are partially due to failures of its IT systems. The CQC has accepted recommendations of the independent review into the CQC’s technology which was published in March 2025 and is available at the following link:
https://www.cqc.org.uk/news/independent-review-cqc-technology-published
The CQC is currently working to review options for alternative methods of inspection report publication while work is carried out to make necessary changes to its IT systems.
The introduction of a ‘hybrid’ approach which launched on 2 December 2024 aims to streamline the existing process by discontinuing scoring at the evidence category level and instead reporting at the quality statement level. This change is intended to improve efficiency for CQC staff. In addition, efforts are underway to address the backlog of ‘stuck’ assessments within the system. As of 24 April 2025, the current number of ‘stuck’ assessments is 52, a reduction of 448.
Work continues to further lower this number and to strengthen the monitoring and management of assessment delays.
Asked by: Caroline Dinenage (Conservative - Gosport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what support his Department has offered to the Care Quality Commission to reduce the backlog of (a) initial inspections and (b) reinspections of healthcare providers.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Departmental officials meet fortnightly with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to discuss measures CQC have put in place to address among other issues, delays in the production of inspection reports and initial inspection and reinspection.
As part of this process, the CQC provides fortnightly updates to senior Departmental officials on the work it is doing to improve and ensure it has robust systems in place to support the changes it is making to deliver its assessment activity of the providers it regulates. This increased reporting to, and oversight from, the Department also allows the level of risk across the CQC’s delivery to be monitored at a senior level.
Delays to the CQC’s inspection activities are partially due to failures of its IT systems. The CQC has accepted recommendations of the independent review into the CQC’s technology which was published in March 2025 and is available at the following link:
https://www.cqc.org.uk/news/independent-review-cqc-technology-published
The CQC is currently working to review options for alternative methods of inspection report publication while work is carried out to make necessary changes to its IT systems.
The introduction of a ‘hybrid’ approach which launched on 2 December 2024 aims to streamline the existing process by discontinuing scoring at the evidence category level and instead reporting at the quality statement level. This change is intended to improve efficiency for CQC staff. In addition, efforts are underway to address the backlog of ‘stuck’ assessments within the system. As of 24 April 2025, the current number of ‘stuck’ assessments is 52, a reduction of 448.
Work continues to further lower this number and to strengthen the monitoring and management of assessment delays.
Asked by: Caroline Dinenage (Conservative - Gosport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to reduce waiting times for Care Quality Commission initial inspections for (a) GP practices, (b) dental practices and (c) care homes.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department has introduced additional oversight measures to ensure significant improvements are made to the Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) operational performance.
CQC is aware of the issues providers have experienced with delays in processing registration applications and the reduction in the number of assessments it undertakes.
CQC is progressing four immediate actions and five foundational improvements, which includes clearing the backlog of registration applications and making improvements to its assessment approach to enable it to complete more, and better quality, assessments. These actions will ensure CQC is more efficient, and lead to a reduction in the time providers wait before they receive a first inspection and rating.
Asked by: Caroline Dinenage (Conservative - Gosport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of waiting times for Care Quality Commission initial inspections for (a) GP practices, (b) dental practices and (c) care homes.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department has introduced additional oversight measures to ensure significant improvements are made to the Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) operational performance.
CQC is aware of the issues providers have experienced with delays in processing registration applications and the reduction in the number of assessments it undertakes.
CQC is progressing four immediate actions and five foundational improvements, which includes clearing the backlog of registration applications and making improvements to its assessment approach to enable it to complete more, and better quality, assessments. These actions will ensure CQC is more efficient, and lead to a reduction in the time providers wait before they receive a first inspection and rating.
Asked by: Caroline Dinenage (Conservative - Gosport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of the National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill on the number of local authority funded adult social care beds in (a) England and (b) Hampshire.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
To enable local authorities to deliver key services such as adult social care, the Government is making available up to £3.7 billion of additional funding for social care authorities in 2025/26, which includes an £880 million increase in the Social Care Grant.
The additional funding available to Hampshire in 2025/26 means that they will see an increase to their core spending power of up to 6.7% in cash terms.
Asked by: Caroline Dinenage (Conservative - Gosport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what data his Department holds on the number of local authority funded adult social care beds (a) leaving and (b) joining the care sector.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Any provider carrying out regulated care activities must register with the Care Quality Commission (CQC), which includes providing information on the number of registered care beds which can be occupied by the local authority, the National Health Service, or self-funded residents. If a regulated activity is no longer being provided, the provider must notify the CQC so that the location can be removed from the register. However, the CQC’s registration does not require providers to inform the CQC if care beds are funded by the local authority.
Asked by: Caroline Dinenage (Conservative - Gosport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of changes in local authority funded adult social care beds due to the National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill on the number of delayed hospital discharges.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government has announced an additional £502 million of support for local authorities in England to manage the impact of the changes to employer National Insurance contributions announced at the Autumn Budget
To repair the public finances and help raise the revenue required to increase funding for public services, the Government has taken the necessary decision to increase employer National Insurance. A Tax Information and Impact Note (TIIN) was published alongside the bill containing the changes to employer National Insurance contributions. The TIIN sets out the economic impacts of the policy, and the impacts on individuals, businesses, and civil society organisations, as well as an overview of the equality impacts.