Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to help to ensure areas of higher deprivation receive the necessary support to continue current services within the Integrated care systems.

The Government is committed to supporting individuals to live healthier lives and established integrated care systems (ICSs) to improve outcomes in population health including by tackling health inequalities. ICSs bring together a wide range of partners to help plan and deliver well-joined up care and to ensure that population health needs are met.

Within ICSs, integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for planning healthcare services and have a duty to reduce inequalities between persons with respect to their ability to access health services and to reduce inequalities between patients with respect to the outcomes achieved for them by the provision of health services. Furthermore, when planning healthcare services, ICBs must also have due regard to the Integrated Care Strategy. The Integrated Care Strategy is prepared by the Integrated Care Partnership and should include measures to improve health and wellbeing outcomes and experiences across the whole population, including addressing the wider determinants of health and wellbeing.