Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps the Government is taking to ensure that homeless people can access NHS services.

The Government is committed to ensuring that homeless people can access health services. From April 2018 we will be implementing an ambitious legislative reform, the Homelessness Reduction Act, which received Royal Assent earlier this year. The Act will mean more people getting the help they need earlier, to prevent them from becoming homeless in the first place. The Department is currently considering how best to implement in the healthcare sector the ‘duty to refer’ to housing services that was introduced by this Act.

The homeless healthcare charity, Pathway, has led and developed best practice for health services to help people who are homeless. The Government has supported this project through the Homeless Hospital Discharge Fund. This has supported 52 voluntary sector-led projects to improve discharge arrangements for homeless people, and was positively evaluated by Homeless Link, the national membership charity for organisations working directly with people who become homeless in England.

Public Health England provides a resource, `Homes for Health’, that provides a single point of access for policymakers, commissioners and others to wide-ranging authoritative information on data, evaluation, evidence and research relating to homelessness, including people with multiple complex needs. It contains good practice prompts for commissioning for homeless people with drug or alcohol problems.

Homeless people are encouraged to sign up to a general practitioner (GP) service so they can get the treatment they need. Without an address, a GP can accept them by using the GP practice’s own address or an address of a hostel, where appropriate. Training is also available for receptionists and guidance for GPs to help them deliver essential frontline care to the homeless, thus creating a more joined-up workforce.