Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what changes have been made to the NHS Constitution in each of the last three years.

In the past three years, the NHS Constitution has been amended twice. In April 2013, the NHS Constitution was updated to reflect a number of key areas, including:

- patient involvement in discussions and decisions about their care and treatment, including end of life care;

- a duty of candour;

- the addition of a pledge to welcome feedback;

- integrated care, reflecting the needs and preferences of patients;

- new patient rights on complaints;

- amending the language to better reflect patient involvement in managing their own care;

- the addition of further staff rights, responsibilities and commitments; and

- ensuring patients will not have to share hospital sleeping accommodation with patients of the opposite sex.

Between February and April this year, the Department consulted on a package of further changes to the NHS Constitution. This included:

- reflecting recommendations made by Sir Robert Francis QC in his Inquiry Report on Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust;

- incorporating a series of fundamental standards, below which standards of care should never fall;

- highlighting the importance of transparency and accountability within the National Health Service;

- giving greater prominence to mental health, through reflecting a parity of esteem between mental and physical health problems; and

- making reference to the Armed Forces Covenant.

The updated NHS Constitution will be published alongside a revised version of the Handbook to the NHS Constitution on 27 July 2015. The Handbook outlines the contents of the NHS Constitution in further detail.