Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if his Department will make an estimate of the number of NHS patients who have registered to have adjustments made to their patient record under the Accessible Information Standard.

Under the Equality Act 2010, public sector organisations are required to make changes in their approach or provision to ensure that services are accessible to disabled people, as well as to everybody else, by making reasonable adjustments.

National Health Service organisations and publicly funded social care providers must meet the Accessible Information Standard, to meet the communication needs of patients and carers with a disability, impairment, or sensory loss.

The Reasonable Adjustment Digital Flag was developed to enable health and care workers to record, share, and view details of reasonable adjustments, across the NHS and social care, wherever the person is seen or treated. Following the launch of the Reasonable Adjustment Digital Flag Information Standard (2023) DAPB4019, published September 2023, the flag went live in the National Care Record Service and is being rolled out across England.