Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether he or Ministers of his Department plans to meet NHS Improvement and the Care Quality Commission to discuss accident and emergency closures in the next four weeks.

The Department’s Ministers hold regular meetings with NHS Improvement and the Care Quality Commission to discuss a range of issues.

The redesign and delivery of front-line health services is a matter for the local National Health Service – clinically led by front line NHS organisations and clinicians who are closest to the needs of communities and therefore best-placed to make decisions in the interests of their patients.

All reconfiguration proposals are assured by NHS England taking into account the four reconfiguration tests as mandated by the Government in 2010, and which all local reconfiguration plans should demonstrate:

- support from general practitioner commissioners;

- strengthened public and patient engagements;

- clarity on the clinical evidence base; and

- support for patient choice.