Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent assessment he has made of progress in the urgent and emergency care vanguard run by South Devon and Torbay System Resilience Group.

In July, NHS England and the NHS Five Year Forward View partners announced eight urgent and emergency care vanguards. This included the South Devon and Torbay System Resilience Group.

The new care models programme team visited the vanguard on 21 October 2015. This was an opportunity for the new care models programme team and vanguard team to jointly explore the vanguard’s proposals in more detail and to better understand the challenges they may face in delivering them.

As the vanguard is still in its mobilisation phase, the new care models team cannot, at this stage, comment in detail on progress. However, from visits and assessments carried out to date, the new care models programme team has stated that it is clear that the vanguard has ambitious plans, a clear vision and is moving at pace. This will enable it to establish the infrastructure required to deliver new models of care effectively, building on existing local relationships and structures and good practice.