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 ensure NHS compliance with the Accessible Information Standard in the event that more NHS services are delivered online and by phone because of the covid-19 outbreak.

NHS England has undertaken significant communications activities to raise awareness of the Accessible Information Standard with organisations required to implement and follow it, including National Health Service trusts. A range of resources have been made available to support effective implementation and compliance. Conformance with the Standard is a specific legal duty – as set out in section 250 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012. It is also a requirement of the NHS Standard Contract.

In developing the Standard, we have worked alongside a number of partners, including the Care Quality Commission, who have stated that they will be looking at how services implement the Accessible Information Standard as part of their inspections.