Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment her Department has made of the effectiveness of the Care Quality Commission in enforcement of the Accessible Information Standard across the NHS.

Compliance with the Accessible Information Standard (AIS) is not directly assured by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). However, the performance of organisations in meeting people’s needs is considered in CQC assessment and ratings. Where the CQC has information through NHS England’s AIS self-assessment framework, or other sources, that an organisation is not meeting accessible communication needs, it can use its regulatory powers.

NHS England has completed a review of the AIS to help ensure that everyone’s communications needs are met in health and care provision. An AIS self-assessment framework has been developed to support providers of National Health Service and social care services, to measure their performance against the AIS and develop improvement action plans to address gaps in implementation. The AIS self-assessment framework is designed to enable enhancements around assurance and allows organisations, commissioners, and the CQC to judge performance and compliance.