Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps NHS England is taking to encourage local communities to input into individual sustainability and transformation plans; and if he will publish contact details for lead officers co-ordinating proposals on the way maternity services are delivered in each NHS area.

NHS England, with other national health and care bodies, released guidance to the local areas developing Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STP) entitled ‘Engaging local people’ in September 2016 which can be found on their website. Local proposals for health and care transformation are not expected to have gone through formal local National Health Service or other organisations’ board approval and/or formal public engagement or consultation at this early stage. We expect that areas will publish a version of their Sustainability and Transformation Plans between late October and the end of the year. We would also expect that most areas will undertake public engagement during this period, building on the engagement they have already done to shape thinking. Every area will be working to a different timeframe, based on its own circumstances and how well-progressed its plan is.

As with the current arrangements for planning and delivery, there are layers of plans which can sit below STPs, with shared links and dependencies. STPs act as an umbrella, holding underneath them a number of different specific plans to address key local issues. Clinical commissioning groups remain accountable for securing high-quality healthcare services for their local populations.