Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he will appoint an independent commissioner to oversee the closure of inappropriate inpatient care units and increased funding for community care to ensure that people can move from those institutions and be supported closer to home.

We do not currently have any plans to do so. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of health and adult social care providers in England and has a key responsibility in the overall assurance of safety and quality of health and adult social care services. All providers of regulated activities, including National Health Service and independent providers, must register with the CQC and follow a set of fundamental standards of safety and quality below which care should never fall. The CQC has a wide range of enforcement powers that it can use if the provider does not meet them. These include cancelling registration. The NHS Long Term Plan commits to increased investment in intensive, crisis and forensic community support for people with a learning disability and autistic people by 2023/24.