Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether compliance with national learning disability improvement standards will be mandatory for NHS funded services and whether those services will be (a) regulated and (b) rated for national learning disability improvement standards.

The NHS Standard Contract 2019/20 mandated by NHS England for use by commissioners of all healthcare services except primary care, requires all providers in England to have regard to the national learning disability improvement standards and guidance. The NHS Long Term Plan outlines the expectation that all National Health Service funded care providers should have implemented the improvement standards by 2023/24 and the Care Quality Commission is working with NHS Improvement to consider how they can ensure adoption of the improvement standards by trusts.

To monitor and ensure compliance with the improvement standards, NHS Improvement has commissioned the NHS Benchmarking Network to facilitate national data collection across all NHS trusts. NHS Improvement has provided tools for trusts to self-assess their performance against the improvement standards which auto-generate performance and ratings scales. NHS Improvement can use these outcomes to identify where there are exemplary assurances processes in place and excellence in care delivery.