Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he will take to ensure people with no fixed abode can access non-urgent medical care.

NHS England has issued guidance making clear that lack of identification or proof of address is not grounds for refusing National Health Service primary care treatment, including general practitioner, dental and eye care services. In these circumstances, individuals can use the primary care services’ address or an address of a hostel, where appropriate. Where this guidance is not being followed, cases should be brought to NHS England’s attention, as the commissioner should be able to reinforce the guidance locally. Ultimately, the commissioner can issue a remedial notice and can terminate a contract or practice that still does not abide by its obligations.

To help improve the commissioning of dental services for vulnerable people, including homeless patients, NHS England is developing a Commissioning Standard, which will consider options, such as looking at commissioning ‘time’ rather than treatments (measured through ‘units of dental activity’) to help incentivise high street practices to treat patients expected to need a greater investment of time, including homeless people.