Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that Clinical Commissioning Groups have adequate funding to maintain the provision of NHS-funded acupuncture services.

Clinical commissioning group (CCG) funding is determined through the CCG funding allocation formula, a statistical formula used to make geographic distribution of funding fair and reflective of local healthcare needs. CCGs have a statutory responsibility to commission services which meet the needs of their local population, however the National Health Service does not have unlimited resources and CCGs may have to make difficult decisions about commissioning high-quality care cost-effectively.

CCGs have the flexibility within the legislative framework to decide how far to commission these functions and have the flexibility to commission any service provider that meets NHS standards and costs.