Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that the needs of LGBT people are recognised when planning and commissioning health and social care services; and how his Department plans to monitor its progress in recognising such needs.

It is for local commissioners to decide how best to meet the needs of their local population. However, when arranging services themselves, commissioners of health and social care must ensure their practices and the services delivered on their behalf comply with the requirements of the Equality Act 2010, and do not discriminate against people with protected characteristics; this should include monitoring delivery against the requirements of that Act.

The Equality and Diversity Council, on behalf of the Department, NHS England and Public Health England, asked NHS Digital to manage the development of a data standard to cover data collection of sexual orientation across all data sets relating to adults and young people over the age of 16 in England. This will aid all health and social care organisations in providing equitable access for lesbian, gay and bisexual individuals and increase the understanding of the impact of inequalities on health outcomes for different populations in England, similar to monitoring of ethnicity and gender.

NHS England funded the LGBT Partnership led by the LGBT Foundation, to work with the Department, Public Health England and a range of stakeholders to develop a specification and seek the agreement of Standardisation Committee for Care Information (SCCI). The Foundation will submit the final application to the SCCI Board for approval in January 2017.