Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what guidance is issued to NHS Trusts to help ensure the independent, objective and impartial oversight of formal reviews into service incidents.

NHS England's Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF) requires National Health Service trusts to have robust governance and oversight arrangements for incident reviews, supported by national guidance on oversight roles and responsibilities, to help ensure reviews are objective, proportionate, focused on learning, and conducted to consistent national standards. The full set of guidance that underpins PSIRF is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/patient-safety-incident-response-framework-and-supporting-guidance/