Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to develop an acquired brain injury strategy.

The Government wants a society where every person, including those with a long-term condition such as an acquired brain injury (ABI), receives high-quality, compassionate continuity of care, with their families and carers supported.

We will change the National Health Service so that it becomes not just a sickness service, but one able to prevent ill health in the first place. This will help us be better prepared for the change in the nature of disease and allow our services to focus more on the management of chronic, long-term conditions, like ABIs, including rehabilitation where appropriate.

A decision on the next steps on ABIs at the national level will be taken in the coming months. Meanwhile, we have committed to develop a 10-year plan to deliver an NHS fit for the future. We will be carefully considering input from the public, patients, health staff, and our stakeholders as we develop the plan over the coming months. The engagement process has been launched and I would encourage my fellow Parliamentarians to engage with that process, to allow us to fully understand what is not working as well as it should and what the potential solutions are, including on ABI. More information about how they can input into the plan is available at the following link:

https://change.nhs.uk/en-GB/

Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for commissioning services such as rehabilitation and reablement services, and ensuring that there is appropriate provision to meet the health and care needs of their population. The core ICB allocations formula is an estimate of the relative need for healthcare resources in each ICB, and is recommended by an independent committee. The formula includes a range of adjustments that account for the fact that the costs of providing health care may vary between rural and urban areas.

Often, rehabilitation and reablement services don’t provide services exclusively for patients with brain injuries, but also provide rehabilitation for patients with other conditions, such as stroke and Parkinson’s disease. Therefore, it is difficult to quantify the total about of funding that is spent on brain injury reablement services specifically.