Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of neuroscience centres in meeting NHS England service specifications of neurological care.

As part of NHS England’s Quality Assurance programme, an annual assessment is conducted for all specialised services. This commences with a provider self-declaration against a range of key requirements drawn from the service specification. The provider declaration is then considered alongside a range of other quality data such as information derived from the specialised services quality dashboards and from local commissioners who meet routinely with providers.

This process, undertaken in full for the first time in 2016/17, has provided NHS England with a strengthened ability to assess provider compliance. Where non-compliance is identified, local commissioners have assessed what areas are affected, and whether the issue is amenable to a short term action plan which the provider develops and implements with oversight from local commissioners. Where the non-compliance is not considered to be amenable to a short term action plan, commissioner action is required to ensure availability of a compliant service for the future.

The compliance level for the specialised neurology services specification is very high with only a small number of services requiring a provider action plan or commissioner action.