Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department has taken to implement the NHS Accessible Information Standard effectively.

Since 2016, all National Health Service organisations and publicly funded social care providers have been expected to meet the Accessible Information Standard (AIS), which details the approach to supporting the information and communication support needs of people with a disability, impairment, or sensory loss.

NHS England is working to support implementation of the AIS with awareness raising, communication, and engagement. The intention is to ensure that staff and organisations in the NHS are aware of the AIS and the importance of meeting the information and communication needs of disabled people using services.

NHS England published a revised AIS on 30 June 2025 to help ensure that the communication needs of people with a disability, impairment, or sensory loss are met in health and care provision. This guidance document is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/accessible-information-standard/

A self-assessment framework has been developed to support providers of NHS and social care services to measure their performance against the AIS, and develop improvement action plans to address gaps in implementation, with further information available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/accessible-information-standard-self-assessment-framework/

The AIS conformance criteria published in 2016 and revised in 2025 set out what organisations need to do to meet the AIS, as the responsibility for monitoring compliance with the AIS sits with the commissioner of the service. Further information is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/accessible-information-standard-requirements-dapb1605/

The Care Quality Commission does not assure the AIS but takes the AIS into account when regulating health and social care services, considering whether people using services have accessible communications, in line with the relevant regulations, as set out in their assessment framework.