Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the availability of Level 1 paediatric continence services for (a) school nurses, (b) health visitors and (c) GPs to provide preventative early treatment for (i) bladder and (ii) bowel problems in children.

Clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) are responsible for commissioning continence services and work with local partners to ensure the appropriate level of services are provided dependent upon local need.

CCGs may choose to commission the health visiting and school nursing service to deliver continence services. Public Health England (PHE) has developed commissioning guidance to support local public health delivery; the guidance also clarifies the commissioning responsibilities for continence services. Further information is available here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/healthy-child-programme-0-to-19-health-visitor-and-school-nurse-commissioning

Continence services are not included in the public health grant and PHE has not undertaken a national assessment of continence services.