Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what measures they have put in place to enable assessment of the performance of integrated care boards in prioritising community care services.

Community health services are a fundamental part of the health and care system and an essential building block in developing a neighborhood health service.

We know people are waiting too long for community services. That is why, for the first time, we have set a clear target for systems to work to reduce long waits in NHS England’s Medium-Term Planning Framework.

The Medium Term Planning Framework outlines how integrated care boards (ICBs) should strengthen community services in line with the left shift ambitions set out in the 10-Year Health Plan. Specifically, it asks that in 2026/27 all ICBs:

- increase community health service capacity to meet growth in demand, expected to be approximately 3% nationally per year; and

- actively manage long waits for community health services, reducing the proportion of waits over 18 weeks and developing a plan to eliminate all 52-week waits.

As part of the medium term planning process, and to hold the system to account, ICBs have to submit plans which set out how they will implement this ambition. NHS England is currently in the process of assuring these plans and will continue to monitor their implementation.

To support the shift to neighbourhood health, we published in 2025 an overview of the core community health services, called Standardising Community Health Services, that ICBs should consider when planning for their local populations to support improved commissioning and delivery of community health services, a vital part of neighbourhood health. Further guidance was published in February 2026, providing more detailed descriptions of the core components of community health services for ICBs. Codifying community health services will help to better assess demand and capacity. It will also help commissioners make investment choices as they design neighbourhood health provision that shifts care to community-based settings.