Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of complaints and accountability processes for NHS patients referred to private healthcare providers.

The Local Authority Social Services and National Health Service Complaints (England) Regulations 2009 set out in law the minimum standards National Health Service organisations, and independent providers of NHS-funded care, must adhere to in respect of their complaint handling arrangements.  Under the regulations, patients who have received NHS-funded care and wish to make a complaint can do so to either the provider or the commissioner that paid for the service.

In our 10-Year Health Plan for England, we acknowledged that the NHS complaints procedure is far from where it needs to be. Through Change NHS, the biggest ever conversation on the future of the NHS, we heard from patients and carers about their struggle to get responses to their concerns. As committed to in the 10-Year Health Plan, we intend to improve the complaints process across all NHS commissioners and providers, setting clear standards for both the timeliness and the quality of responses to complaints.