Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to ensure an acceptable level of care for patients in Ashfield constituency following changes to the provision of urgent out-of-hours GP and care home support services provided by Central Nottinghamshire Clinical Services.

This is a matter for the National Health Service locally. Mansfield and Ashfield Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) advises that the needs of people in Ashfield are now being met by Nottingham Emergency Medical Services, which is providing urgent and
out-of-hours care, and by Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust’s care home support service.

The CCG advises that it took all necessary action as soon as it knew that Central Nottinghamshire Clinical Services (CNCS) was no longer in a position to continue providing services. Despite very short notice of the extent of CNCS’s difficulties, the CCG states that it has safely executed a smooth handover of services. It has rigorously monitored the quality of the caretaker providers’ performance during the handover, and will continue to do so.

The CCG will now review procurement options for the long-term delivery of local out-of-hours and urgent care services.