Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of issuing guidance to Independent Care Boards on the commissioning of providers for audiology care as an alternative to hospital services.

In line with the direction of travel set by 10-Year Health Plan, we expect integrated care boards (ICBs) to commission services to meet the reasonable needs of their populations rather than being prescriptive and adopting a one size fit all model for England. This is intended to allow services to be tailored in accordance with the local area needs. This means that National Health Service audiology services are locally commissioned.

We have also published for the first time an overview of the core community health services, Standardising Community Health Services, which includes audiology, that ICBs should consider when planning for their local populations to support improved commissioning and delivery of community health services.