Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what his Department's policy is on requiring NHS trusts to record avoidable deaths; and if he will make a statement.

NHS Improvement and NHS England wrote to all National Health Service providers on 17 December 2015 to ask them to conduct a self-assessment of their rate of avoidable mortality.

On the same date, my Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State gave a Written Ministerial Statement (HCWS421) to the House in which he announced that the Care Quality Commission would undertake a wider review into the investigation of deaths and how the NHS learns from them across all types of NHS trust (acute, mental health and community trusts) in different parts of the country.

We intend to respond to the publication of that review setting out our plans for ensuring that the NHS reports and learns from such incidents, including how avoidable mortality is recorded and generates learning at a local level.