Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what has been the average time taken to respond to public inquiries by his Department in each of the last five years; and whether he plans to introduce measures to improve this.

We monitor public enquiries performance by how many cases are responded to within 20 working days of receipt. We have implemented a performance recovery plan to improve our achievement in this area.

Our performance against this measure is set out in the Department of Health and Social Care Annual Report and Accounts, which are available at the following links:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dhsc-annual-report-and-accounts-2018-to-2019

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dhsc-annual-report-and-accounts-2019-to-2020

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dhsc-annual-report-and-accounts-2020-to-2021

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dhsc-annual-report-and-accounts-2021-to-2022