Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the (a) National Homecare Medicines Committee and (b) NHS England have taken steps to enforce homecare medicines services standards in the last two years.

The National Homecare Medicines Committee’s (NHMC) regional lead members and NHS England’s Commercial Medicines Unit use the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s ‘Professional Standards for Homecare Services in England’ which is embedded into all framework agreement service specifications for providers of this service. This supports teams involved in homecare services to deliver a safe, effective and high quality service for patients.

Homecare providers are assessed on a monthly basis against key performance indicators (KPIs) and more formally through regular meetings with the NHMC and NHS England. Providers which do not meet these KPIs are held to account and action is taken to ensure that levels of service are delivered according to the relevant professional standards. The NHMC and NHS England are aware of concerns within the homecare medicines market. Action has been taken to ensure providers return to acceptable KPIs and quality and patient safety is monitored.