Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much of the (a) £15 million convergence funding allocated for specialised augmentative and alternative communication services and (b) £7.5 million convergence funding allocated for specialised environmental control services is forecast to have been spent by the relevant specialised services by the end of the 2014-15 financial year.

Since 1 April 2013, NHS England has been responsible for commissioning Alternative and Augmentative Communication (AAC) aids for patients with complex disability whose needs require specialised assessment.

NHS England has advised that details of contracts for AAC providers are held at local area team level. Contracts are in place (or a contract variation with a supporting implementation plan) in the following areas:

- South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw (covering Yorkshire and the Humber)

- Cheshire, Warrington and Wirral (covering North West and Wessex)

- Birmingham, Solihull and the Black Country (covering the West Midlands)

The following areas have agreed plans with providers and are in the process of finalising the contracts:

- Leicestershire and Lincolnshire (covering East Midlands)

- London

- Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear (covering the North East)

- Bristol, North Somerset, Somerset and South Gloucester (covering the South West)

- Surrey and Sussex (covering the South East)

As there is currently no service in East Anglia, £2.1 million of the £15 million funding is held in a national reserve while work is undertaken to establish the service requirements. The local commissioners regard this as a priority and have committed £100,000 to spend immediately on equipment.

In January this year, it was agreed that Cambridge University Hospitals will act as the hub in a network model covering the East of England. The work to establish the service is now in train. It is intended that there will be a limited service up to April 2015 with priority given to people with degenerative conditions until the recruitment process is complete. The aim is to have the full service in place soon after this.

It has been agreed that there will be a further stocktake of progress on all the agreed contract changes and action plans in the next few weeks.

Information is not collected at a national level regarding the number of additional speech and language therapists recruited. Recruitment is underway and progress is being monitored by the local commissioning teams of NHS England as part of the routine contract management arrangements.

Information is not collected at a national level regarding the spend by providers on AACs. The full year allocations of £15 million and £7.5 million will be provided recurrently in full from 1 April 2015.

NHS England has confirmed that the service specification on its website is the current version that is in use and was signed off by the Clinical Priorities Advisory Group in 2014 before it was published. There are proposals to review this in light of the allocations of new funding to new providers from October 2014 and this will form part of NHS England’s proposed work programme for 2015/16.