Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what oversight will be given to services funded by the NHS in relation to the implementation of national learning disability improvement standards.

The NHS Long Term Plan outlines the expectation that all National Health Service funded care providers in England should have implemented the learning disability improvement standards by 2023/24.

Inclusion of the improvement standards in the NHS Standard Contract 2019/20, mandated by NHS England for use by commissioners of all healthcare services except primary care, means that all providers must have regard to the improvement standards and associated guidance.

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, including NHS community trusts and NHS ambulance trusts.