Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of the tightening of eligibility criteria for NHS Continuing Healthcare by Integrated Care Boards on disabled people's ability to (a) access and (b) remain in employment.

The Department is responsible for Continuing Healthcare (CHC) policy and legislation. We have provided statutory guidance, setting out clear processes for CHC, which all integrated care boards (ICBs) must have regard to. CHC is funded by ICBs, and it is for individual ICBs to make assessments and decisions in a consistent manner in line with their statutory duties and guidance. This guidance has not changed and ICBs are expected to maintain CHC delivery in line with their statutory duties.

NHS England holds ICBs accountable and engages with them to ensure that they discharge their functions. This includes monitoring eligibility rates and undertaking detailed work to compare ICBs with similar demographics, including further investigation of outliers for drivers of variation.