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 avoidable emergency admissions for people with neurological conditions; and whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of including a target to reduce avoidable emergency admissions for such people in the Modern Service Framework.

The Government is committed to reducing avoidable emergency admissions for people with neurological conditions by improving earlier diagnosis, strengthening community-based care, and ensuring better coordination between services.

NHS England is encouraging systems to adopt personalised care and support planning, including anticipatory care approaches for people at higher risk of admission. This can involve the use of care plans, rapid access to community teams, and closer monitoring to ensure issues such as infections are identified and treated promptly, reducing the need for hospital admission. National programmes such as Getting It Right First Time and NHS RightCare support systems to identify unwarranted variation and adopt best practice in managing long-term conditions, including for neurological conditions.

NHS England’s service specification for specialised adult neurology services sets out clear expectations for proactive, coordinated care to reduce the risk of avoidable complications. It emphasises early identification of clinical risks, personalised care planning, and timely access to multidisciplinary support, including specialist nurses, therapists, and community services. By promoting regular monitoring, effective management of common complications like swallowing, mobility, and bladder function, and close coordination between primary, community, and specialist care, the specification supports early intervention and continuity of care. This approach helps to minimise preventable deterioration, reduce unplanned hospital admissions, and improve outcomes and quality of life for people.

Proposals for new modern service frameworks (MSFs) will be assessed by the National Quality Board against a clear set of criteria, including: the strength of the case for change; the presence of relative consensus around a genuinely ambitious, long term outcome goal; the existence of a strong cross system partnership coalition; and the potential for digital by default models of care and service transformation. This is essential in ensuring that MSFs have a high impact and remain credible, and that development capacity is focused where the approach can add the greatest value. The process for assessing applications for future MSFs is currently being developed.