Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what plans he has for who will provide staff security and security management advice to primary care contractors after the dissolution of NHS Protect.

Employers in the National Health Service are responsible for assessing risks to staff and addressing those risks. Any abuse of NHS staff and primary care contractors is unacceptable and should not be tolerated. Any form of abuse should be reported and primary care organisations should have no hesitation in involving the police. The role of NHS Protect was to develop national guidance to assist NHS organisations locally in their security management work. Comprehensive and detailed guidance is available to NHS employers to assist them in assessing and managing the risks accordingly and involving the police where appropriate.

The standards for security management work are imposed through the relevant clauses of the standard commissioning contract between commissioners and providers. It is commissioners’ responsibility to ensure that security management standards are met in accordance with the contract. NHS England is responsible for the standard commissioning contract and the clauses within it and the standards to which it refers.