Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord O'Shaughnessy on 18 December 2017 (HL3813), what assessment, if any, they have made of the impact of cuts by clinical commissioning groups to homeless and rough sleeping mental health teams, including the decision by Camden NHS Clinical Commissioning Group to reduce its financial support for the Focus Homeless Outreach.

The Department has not made any such assessment. It is the responsibility of commissioners and health and wellbeing boards to ensure services meet local need as part of the Joint Service Needs Assessments.

The Government has set an aim to halve rough sleeping by 2022 and eliminate it entirely by 2027. The Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 introduces new duties for specified public services, including the National Health Service, to refer service users they consider may be homeless or threatened with homelessness to a local housing authority.