Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether his Department has offered guidance to NHS trusts on how to deal with potential black alerts during winter 2016-17.

This is an operational matter for trusts, clinical commissioning groups and their local partners. NHS England and NHS Improvement have provided guidance to all National Health Service organisations to ensure there are robust plans in place for winter which are assured regionally and nationally.

NHS England published the Operational Pressures Escalation Levels Framework in October 2016. This guidance provides best practice around triggers and actions to be taken when considering escalation in response to operational pressures, as well as protocols and standardised terminology to follow.

The guidance is available at the link below:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/operational-pressures-escalation-levels-framework.pdf