Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health, Jane Ellison MP on 21 July (HC Deb, col 1009W), what assessment they have made of NHS England’s Spinal Cord Injury Service Specification of a minimum of 20 beds per unit against the criterion of providing a "safe and effective service".

The fluctuations of waiting times and the ability to discharge a patient to the next phase of their care are key factors in enabling the admission of new patients to a centre. NHS England, the eight specialist centres in England and the Spinal Injuries Association are working together to recommend changes to the continuing care process that would enable spinal cord injured patients to move to the next stage of their care as soon as clinically appropriate.

The overall bed complement for England is being reviewed through a demand and capacity project, led by the Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) Clinical Reference Group (CRG). The CRG aims to produce a report in 2015-16.

NHS England’s SCI service specification clearly sets out what providers must have in place to offer evidence-based, safe and effective services. It sets a core requirement that each specialised SCI Centre can demonstrate they have a minimum of 20 beds dedicated exclusively for the treatment and rehabilitation of SCI patients.

This requirement was developed by the SCI CRG and endorsed and was adopted by NHS England as the responsible commissioner.