Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the impact of (a) staffing levels and (b) response times on patient safety in the most recent period for which data is available.

No specific assessment has been made. Data on patient safety incidents is collected and reported through the National Reporting and Learning System (NRLS). However, the NRLS is a largely voluntary scheme for reporting patient safety incidents and does not provide the actual number of patient safety incidents occurring in the National Health Service.