Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what governance arrangements his Department plans to put in place for overseeing the implementation of each sustainability and transformation plan.

Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs) are an opportunity for providers and commissioners of health and care services to come together within a local area and ensure they have a plan for how they, as a group, expect to deliver services over the coming years. Ultimately it is for local areas to decide how best to deliver these plans but NHS England and National Health Service Improvement continue to have roles in ensuring that commissioners and providers respectively deliver on their plans.

STPs are a tool for local organisations to help ensure that their strategic planning decisions are better aligned. They are not statutory bodies. It is for local organisations to decide how best to implement plans and to ensure that they have the support of National Health Service bodies, local government and the communities they serve.