Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to reduce waiting times for children who have suffered brain injuries.

There is variation nationally in the length of time some children and young people wait for paediatric neurorehabilitation services and further data is required to fully understand and address this. NHS England’s Women and Children’s Programme of Care Board and the Paediatric Neuroscience Clinical Reference Group are leading on work to gather the data and will report back to the Women and Children’s Programme of Care Board in spring 2019.

The NHS Long Term Plan identified children and young people’s (CYP) services as a priority and commits to a reduction in serious brain injury of 50% by 2025. We know that early intervention for CYP with a brain injury leads to improved outcomes, with United Kingdom paediatric neurorehabilitation networks and teams playing an important role.

To ensure there is funding to support this, the Government is providing an extra £20.5 billion a year to the National Health Service by 2023/24, £33.9 billion in cash terms, – supporting commitments in the Long Term Plan to reduce long waits for life-changing treatment. The additional funding will drive the reforms that deliver a better and more sustainable NHS with improved care for patients.