Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what (a) financial and (b) healthcare support the Government is providing to people born with a cleft palate.

NHS England commissions all specialist cleft palate services provided by Cleft Lip and Palate Centres, including services delivered on an outreach basis as part of a clinical network of services.

The service provides surgery and specialist care for patients with cleft lip and/or palate and non-cleft velopharyngeal dysfunction in order to ensure that patients achieve an aesthetic and functional facial appearance, and to maximise oral feeding, hearing, speech and psycho-social wellbeing.

Delivery of the service is through a network of care managed and delivered from the specialist centre. The network will commonly include outreach services and relies on strong links to and coordination with local community services. These local community services are commissioned by clinical commissioning groups including local speech and language therapy; local ear, nose and throat services and audiology; and community and local paediatric care. These locally delivered services work collaboratively with the Centres.

Spend on related cleft lip and palate services in 2018/19 (the most recent year for which financial data is currently available) was £28.6 million.