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 whether the powers of local authorities to scrutinise NHS service reconfigurations would be diminished as a result of proposals in the Integration and Innovation White Paper.

Under the proposed changes to the reconfiguration process, local authorities would continue to play an important role in the scrutiny process, taking into account the effect of proposed reconfigurations on service quality and patient safety and systems should continue to aim to resolve reconfiguration issues locally. In cases where this could not be achieved, it would remain possible for local authorities to request that the Secretary of State looks at cases they are not content with.