Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the effect on NHS service provision for seriously ill children and their families of the specialist senior nurses posts funded by the charity Well Child.

We have not made any central assessment of this role. We are aware of the valuable work which Well Child does, and we were able to support Well Child with a grant in 2010-11 from the £19 million we made available for funding local schemes to support children's palliative care services.

We understand that Well Child funds each nurse for a period of three years after which time the individual National Health Service health provider commits to continue the post. Each nurse is employed and managed by the local healthcare trust in which they work and therefore it would seem that the providers would be best placed to comment on the impact they have made.