Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the criteria is for which hospitals are listed as being supported by the Emergency Care Intensive Support Team.

In 2015/16, increased resources were provided to the Emergency Care Intensive Support Team (ECIST). This was to enable it to provide a programme of deeper support to 27 health communities in England selected on the basis of poor performance against the national 4-hour accident and emergency standard during 2014/15 and quarter one of 2015/16. ECIST is also resourced to provide expert input to the eight urgent and emergency care vanguards.

Since April 2016, the team has offered limited improvement support to a small group of trusts at the request of NHS Improvement regional teams.