Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what arrangements his Department has put in place to ensure that long-term funding is available for the transfer of care for people with learning disabilities from inpatient facilities to community care settings outlined in NHS England's Transforming Care programme.

In national service model and Building the right support published in October 2015 NHS England, the Local Government Association and the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services set out how areas would be supported to deliver lasting change to people with a learning disability and/or autism who display behaviour that challenges.

To develop community capacity, clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), local authorities and NHS England’s specialised commissioners have formed 48 transforming care partnerships (TCPs) to plan for the future. TCPs have been asked to use the total sum of money they spend as a whole system on people with a learning disability and/or autism to deliver care in a different way to achieve better results. This includes shifting money from some services (such as inpatient care) into others (such as community health services including mental health services or individual packages of support). The costs of the future model of care will therefore be met from the total current envelope of spend on health and social care services for people with a learning disability and/or autism.

During a phase of transition, commissioners will need to invest in new community support before closing inpatient provision. To support them to do this NHS England will make available up to £30 million of transformation funding over three years, to be matched by CCGs, and £15 million in capital funding. This funding is in addition to the £10 million made available to six fast track areas in 2015/16.