Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 13 March 2025 to Question 36169 on Health Services, what tests (a) his Department and (b) NHS England require before a substantial planned service change.

The tests the Department requires are set out in NHS England’s guidance to the National Health Service on planning, assuring and delivering service change, which is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/planning-assuring-and-delivering-service-change-for-patients/

The Government’s four tests of service change are:

• strong public and patient engagement;
• consistency with current and prospective need for patient choice;
• clear, clinical evidence base; and
• support for proposals from clinical commissioners.

In any proposal includes plans to significantly reduce hospital bed numbers, NHS England will expect commissioners to be able to evidence that they can meet one of the following three conditions: demonstrate that sufficient alternative provision, such as increased general practice or community services, is being put in place alongside or ahead of bed closures, and that the new workforce will be there to deliver it; and/or show that specific new treatments or therapies, such as new anti-coagulation drugs used to treat strokes, will reduce specific categories of admissions; or where a hospital has been using beds less efficiently than the national average, that it has a credible plan to improve performance without affecting patient care, for example in line with the Getting it Right First Time programme.