Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department and NHS England are taking to support clinical commissioning groups in the gathering of data to allow them to source evidence for the commissioning needs of smaller population groups.

As set out in the NHS Outcomes Framework 2015/16, the Department plans to identify key health inequalities measures, based on NHS Outcomes Framework indicators, following the Department’s stakeholder engagement exercise over the summer of 2015. These will be integral to assessing NHS England’s progress using the NHS Outcomes Framework. It will be for NHS England to decide how this will be reflected in their Clinical Commissioning Group Outcomes Indicator Set.

A copy of the NHS Outcomes Framework 2015/16 is attached.