Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential effect of changing the boundary of the South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw Integrated Care System area on waiting list times for patients awaiting operations postponed during the covid-19 outbreak.

Following discussions between the Department and NHS England and NHS Improvement, Integrated Care System (ICS) boundaries which are not aligned with local authority boundaries are being reviewed to ensure future arrangements can support effective partnership working between the National Health Service and local government. South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw ICS has been identified as one of the areas included in this boundary review. NHS England and NHS Improvement will continue supporting any affected ICS to ensure they are able to achieve the greatest effectiveness and opportunity from their current working arrangements.

Along with placing ICS on a statutory footing, greater alignment of ICS and local authority boundaries will help bring together the delivery of health services, the delivery of social care and the delivery of local public health advice and services into and across shared geographical footprints. This will support areas to continue to address issues that rely on joined up approaches such as tackling health inequalities.