Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to support clinical commissioning groups that need improvement or have the greatest need for improvement for diabetes care under the Clinical Commissioning Group Improvement and Assessment Framework.

NHS England will work with health communities/clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) in need of improvement against CCG Improvement and Assessment Framework indicators to mutually identify the nature of the change needed and the type of support required to achieve this. A key focus of improvement will be to support CCGs and providers to locally map their services against nationally recognised best practice diabetes pathways and to identify where local pathways need to change in order to improve outcomes. NHS England is developing plans for additional support to be available from 2017/18 onwards:

- The NHS Operational Planning and Contracting Guidance 2017-2019 included an announcement that NHS England intends to launch a major programme of investment in the treatment and care of people with diabetes, for which CCGs will be able to bid for additional funding of approximately £40 million per year, focused on the key areas of diabetes care where improvements in outcomes will be most beneficial.

- A Diabetes CCG Improvement and Assessment Framework Independent Panel has been developed, chaired by the Chief Executive of Diabetes UK and includes panel members with a wide range of other diabetes clinical expertise. This will consider CCG positions in relation to the diabetes Improvement and Assessment Framework indicators and advise on actions to support improvement.

- Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs). As part of supporting the development of STPs, a “How to” guide for diabetes has been issued which sets out advice the actions which CCGs can take to support improvements.

- NHS England regional teams: NHS England has funded diabetes programme leads within each of the National Health Service regions to work with CCGs to support improvement.