Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what oversight is NHS England exercising over ICBs whose conversion rates fall significantly below the national average.

We have interpreted ‘conversion rates’ as referring to the proportion of individuals found eligible for NHS Continuing Healthcare (CHC) by integrated care boards (ICBs), following the receipt of a positive CHC gateway ‘checklist’ or through another form of referral for assessment of CHC eligibility.

NHS England is responsible for the oversight of ICBs and engages with them regularly through well-established assurance processes to ensure they carry out their functions.

NHS England monitors CHC eligibility rates by undertaking detailed work to compare ICBs with similar demographics. This includes comparing eligibility, conversion, and referral rates and investigating outliers for drivers of variation.