Health Services and Social Services: Information
(asked on 6th May 2025) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if his Department will take steps to (a) implement and (b) enforce the Accessible Information Standard for organisations that provide (i) NHS care and (ii) publicly-funded adult social care.
Since 2016, all National Health Service organisations and publicly funded social care providers are expected to meet the Accessible Information Standard (AIS), which details the recommended approach to supporting the information and communication support needs of patients and carers with a disability, impairment, or sensory loss. The AIS conformance criteria, published in 2016, set out how organisations should comply with the AIS, with further information available at the following link:
The responsibility for monitoring compliance with the AIS sits with the commissioner of the service.
NHS England has been undertaking a review of the AIS to help ensure that the communication needs of people with a disability, impairment, or sensory loss are met in health and care provision. A self-assessment framework has been developed to support providers of NHS and social care services to measure their performance against the AIS, and develop improvement action plans to address gaps in implementation. The Care Quality Commission takes the AIS into account when regulating health and social care services, considering whether people using the services have accessible communications, in line with the relevant regulations, as set out in their assessment framework.
A revised AIS will be published in due course. In the meantime, the current AIS remains in force and therefore there should not be a gap in provision for people using services. NHS England is working to support implementation of the AIS with awareness raising, communication, and engagement, and with a review of the current e-learning modules on the AIS. The intention is to ensure that staff and organisations in the NHS are aware of the AIS and the importance of meeting the information and communication needs of disabled people using these services.
Section 95 of the Health and Care Act 2022, once commenced, and if Parliament agrees to the procedural regulations, would make compliance with information standards mandatory for health and care providers, and my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care would be responsible for enforcement, with appropriate support from NHS England. A programme of work has been set up to ensure readiness for the publication of mandatory information standards, including ensuring compliance functions are in place.