Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the operation of the NHS Standard Contract for acute services.

The NHS Standard Contract provides a mechanism through which providers of NHS-funded services, including acute services, can be held to account. The Contract includes detailed requirements in relation to the provision of safe, high-quality services and compliance with national policies and NHS Constitution standards. It includes mechanisms which commissioners can use to ensure that services to patients are of a high standard and that providers take prompt action to remedy any failings.

The Contract provides a national framework, but there is scope for commissioners to include local detail appropriate to the services being commissioned (service specifications, specific quality standards). Management of agreed contracts is undertaken not at a national level but by the local commissioner.

Commissioners, providers and representative bodies from all service sectors, as well as national stakeholder bodies including the Department of Health, have been invited to contribute to NHS England’s review of the NHS Standard Contract for 2016/17.