Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he has to support the continued delivery of SOS buses.

The Department is supportive of the work of volunteer initiatives, such as SOS buses. Voluntary, community, and social enterprise organisations (VCSEs) play a vital role in supporting communities up and down the country with a huge variety of issues. However, I recognise that the last few years have created a difficult environment for VCSEs, due to a number of challenges including those related to the COVID-19 pandemic and cost of living, and many are seeing increased financial pressures.

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is supporting VCSEs with their financial sustainability, including through the delivery of a number of grant programmes, growing other sources of funding such as the social investment market, and supporting the viability of local government contracts. There are a number of ways in which organisations can find available funding opportunities, including:

• the Find a Grant service, which allows you to search for Government grants. The filtering system allows you to select grants which are open to applications from non-profits, with further information available at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/find-government-grants;
• funding opportunities hosted by The National Lottery Community Fund, with further information available at the following link: https://www.tnlcommunityfund.org.uk/funding;
• funding and income guidance from the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, which includes a section on where to find grants available to charities, with further information available at the following link: https://www.ncvo.org.uk/help-and-guidance/funding-income/#/;
• most areas of the country have Community Foundations that manage at least one local grant fund, or can offer guidance, with further information available at the following link: https://www.ukcommunityfoundations.org/; and
• local civil society infrastructure organisations may be able to signpost people to local grants and funding. The National Association for Voluntary and Community Action members often provide this type of support, with further information available at the following link: https://www.navca.org.uk/find-a-navca-member.

The Government has made it a priority to reset the relationship with civil society and build a new partnership to harness its full potential by developing a Civil Society Covenant.

Further, if local healthcare commissioners judge that SOS buses would help meet the healthcare needs of their respective populations, they can choose to commission those services.

Such a decision would be taken at the local level as integrated care boards across England are responsible for managing the National Health Service budget and arranging NHS healthcare services which meet the needs of their respective populations.