Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will publish (a) his letter to NHS Improvement and (b) NHS Improvement's letter to NHS trusts of 24 June 2017 on the need for fire safety tests on NHS buildings.

My Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State has sent no such letter.

On 24 June, Jim Mackey, the chief executive of NHS Improvement, sent an e-mail to all National Health Service trust and foundation trust chief executives, seeking their urgent and full co-operation in inspecting their properties, and outlining the help that would be available to them. It said:

“Dear colleagues,

I would be grateful for your immediate help with the urgent actions outlined in this email. Please cascade this to the relevant on-call directors and estates on-call within your organisations.

Thank you for the enormous effort that you and your teams have put in to completing the questionnaires sent last week, following the tragic events at Grenfell Tower.

Following discussions with Secretary of State, I am requesting that we take further proactive and precautionary measures and instigate, with immediate effect, an inspection by your local fire and rescue services of all your properties by close of play tomorrow evening, to ensure that there are no urgent risk safety risks. I am aware that many of you have already undertaken a fire assessment with the relevant fire authorities – so please only take action if you have not done so already.

Upon completion of this inspection, please confirm by way of letter (signed by both trust CEO and fire inspector) that this has been concluded, and whether there are any immediate risks that need resolving. We will then work with trusts directly where an urgent decisions are required. Please send your email confirmation and attachment to [redacted]

We understand that it might be difficult to mobilise support from your end at such short notice, and so efforts are in train to ensure that these actions are also prioritised through Home Office.

You will also be aware, from [redacted] letter on Monday, that we will be taking action to mobilise further local support where this is required. This process is being managed in parallel to this request.

Once again may I thank you for you cooperation in this matter.

Best wishes

Jim”