Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make it his policy to consult on any future changes to pathology services in South East London.

The South East London pathology network is being created as part of a national strategy to network all National Health Service pathology services in England, following identification of significant opportunity in the 2016 Carter review.

Due to the significant benefits to quality and cost of service, all NHS trusts are expected to network as per the direction set out by NHS Improvement in September 2017.

There are different ways to approach networking and the delivery of pathology services and the trust may wish to lead public consultation on any chosen delivery model, however the decision to consult would be for the South East London hospitals involved to decide. Neither the Department or NHS England have plans to consult on this specific network.