Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether Clinical Commissioning Groups and NHS trusts are responsible for the funding or provision of incontinence pads to residents of (1) care homes for personal care, and (2) care homes with nursing care.

The legislation under which NHS England and clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) commission services requires them to arrange for the provision of services for which they are responsible, to such extent as they consider necessary to meet all reasonable requirements.

For CCGs, this includes offering continence services as part of their obligation to provide community health. Although CCGs often focus on prevention and treatment, it is expected any standard continence service should include access to products. The criteria for the provisioning of continence products are set by individual CCGs. To support CCGs, NHS England has recently published new guidance to help improve the care and experience of children and adults with continence issues. This encourages much greater collaboration between health and social care.

A copy of the guidance Excellence in continence care is attached.