Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the workforce capacity in children’s community health services.

We are committed to reducing long waits and improving timely access to community health services, including for children’s community services. We are working closely with NHS England to improve access to community health services and on actions to reduce waiting times for these services.

NHS England continues to monitor community service waiting times via the Community Health Services SitRep data collection, to assess the number of people on them and the length of time they wait for services. Data is published monthly and is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/community-health-services-waiting-lists/

The National Health Service has also published an overview of the core community health services that integrated care boards, service providers, and their partners should consider when planning services for their local population, which is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/standardising-community-health-services/