Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to support NHS trusts to meet their legal referral targets for disabled children’s health services.

There are no legal referral targets for disabled children’s health services. The NHS Constitution for England provides that patients have the right to access certain services, which may include some disabled children’s health services, within maximum waiting times, or for the National Health Service (NHS) to offer suitable alternatives if this is not possible.

As part of COVID-19 recovery planning we are working with NHS England and NHS Improvement as well as the Department for Education to improve the provision of health services to disabled children. We have invested £6.6 billion from March to September 2021 to help NHS recovery and an additional £1 billion to reduce waiting times for patients, including disabled children, to access NHS services.