Asked by: Catherine Atkinson (Labour - Derby North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if his Department will make an estimate of the number of NHS patients who have registered to have adjustments made to their patient record under the Accessible Information Standard.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Under the Equality Act 2010, public sector organisations are required to make changes in their approach or provision to ensure that services are accessible to disabled people, as well as to everybody else, by making reasonable adjustments.
National Health Service organisations and publicly funded social care providers must meet the Accessible Information Standard, to meet the communication needs of patients and carers with a disability, impairment, or sensory loss.
The Reasonable Adjustment Digital Flag was developed to enable health and care workers to record, share, and view details of reasonable adjustments, across the NHS and social care, wherever the person is seen or treated. Following the launch of the Reasonable Adjustment Digital Flag Information Standard (2023) DAPB4019, published September 2023, the flag went live in the National Care Record Service and is being rolled out across England.
Asked by: Catherine Atkinson (Labour - Derby North)
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 NHS England's revision of the Accessible Information Standard on compliance among NHS organisations.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
National Health Service organisations and publicly funded social care providers are expected to meet the Accessible Information Standard (AIS), which details the approach to supporting the information and communication support needs of patients and carers with a disability, impairment or sensory loss.
NHS England has been undertaking a review of the AIS to help ensure that the communication needs of people with a disability, impairment or sensory loss are met in health and care provision. One of the aims of the review was to strengthen assurance of implementation of the AIS, and a self-assessment framework has been developed to support providers of NHS and social care services to measure their performance against the AIS and develop improvement action plans to address gaps in implementation. The AIS self-assessment framework is designed to enable enhancements around assurance and allows organisations, commissioners, and the Care Quality Commission to judge performance and compliance.
A revised AIS will be published in due course, and in the meantime, NHS England continues to work to support implementation with awareness raising, communication and engagement and a review of the current e-learning modules on the AIS. The intention is to ensure that staff and organisations in the NHS are aware of the AIS and the importance of meeting the information and communication needs of disabled people using services.
Asked by: Catherine Atkinson (Labour - Derby North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what information his Department holds on the number and proportion of NHS organisations that do not have adequate IT systems in place to support the delivery of the Accessible Information Standard.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department does not hold information on the adequacy of IT systems to support specifically the delivery of the Accessible Information Standard. NHS England publishes criteria for how organisations can assess their compliance with the Accessible Information Standard, which is available at the following link:
The Frontline Digitisation programme is supporting integrated care systems and trusts in England do a baseline level of digital capability, as defined in the Minimum Digital Foundation.
Asked by: Catherine Atkinson (Labour - Derby North)
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 adequacy of access to NHS dental services.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We are determined to rebuild dentistry for the long term.
We will deliver an additional 700,000 urgent dental appointments; reform the dental contract; and introduce supervised toothbrushing for three- to five-year-olds in the most deprived communities.
We are working with the dental sector, including the British Dental Association, to deliver these shared ambitions.