Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what progress he has made on implementation of the provisions of the Health and Social Care (Safety and Quality) Act 2015.

The intention of this Act is to improve patient safety and the quality of care through three measures; reducing harm in care, continuity of information and the objectives of professional regulation. Progress varies on each of the measures.

Section 1 of the Act makes clear that the requirements for registration with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) must secure that services cause no avoidable harm to patients and service users. The Fundamental Standards which include the new registration requirements for the CQC, came into force on 1 April 2015, and contain a requirement on safety. A failure to meet Regulation 12 of these standards will be an offence; therefore this standard meets the duty on the Secretary of State as set out in section 1 of the Act.

Sections 2 to 4 of the Act impose duties on providers and commissioners of health and adult social care services in England to share information, and to use consistent identifiers, where this is likely to facilitate the provision to the individual of health services or adult social care, and is in the individual’s best interests.

Regulations will be made to provide that the prescribed consistent identifier is the NHS Number, and to dis-apply the duties to share information, and to use consistent identifiers, from certain bodies. Regulations will be laid later this year.

Guidance will be made available to affected bodies to help them to comply with the duties.

Section 5 of the Act and the Schedule seek to give an overarching objective of public protection to the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care and seven professional regulators; the General Chiropractic Council, General Dental Council, General Optical Council, General Osteopathic Council, Health and Care Professions Council, Nursing and Midwifery Council and the General Pharmaceutical Council. This objective is based on the proposals set out by the Law Commissions in their review published in April 2014.

The commencement of the objectives for the Professional Standards Authority and these professional regulators will be implemented following discussions with those bodies which will take place shortly.