Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has issues guidance to Integrated Care Boards to support disabled adults who are unable to access primary care, including GP registration, without specialist advocacy support.

Since 2016, all National Health Service organisations, including general practices, are expected to meet the Accessible Information Standard (AIS), which details the approach to supporting the information and communication support needs of people with a disability, impairment, or sensory loss. NHS England is working to support implementation of the AIS across NHS organisations, including integrated care boards, with awareness raising, communication, and engagement. The intention is to ensure that staff and organisations in the NHS are aware of the AIS and the importance of meeting the information and communication needs of disabled people using services.

In addition, NHS England is also rolling out a Reasonable Adjustment Digital Flag (RADF) which enables the recording of key information about a disabled patient or client and the reasonable adjustments to care and treatment that they need, to ensure support can be tailored appropriately and equitably.

Under the new RADF information standard, all publicly funded health and social care service providers must be able to share, read, and write reasonable adjustment data by 30 September 2026. This means that IT systems must be able to read the information stored in reasonable adjustment digital flags and update records as and when an individual’s adjustment needs change.