Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, in view of the requirement from NHS England for health and social care organisations to collect information on patients' sexual orientation in order to comply with the requirements of the Equality Act 2010, whether they intend to introduce a requirement to ask patients whether they consider themselves disabled; and if not, why not.

All health bodies and local authorities with responsibility for adult social care are required under the Equality Act (2010) to ensure that no patient is discriminated against. The sexual orientation information standard is designed to help NHS bodies be compliant with the law by collecting, only where relevant, personal details of patients such as race, sex and sexual orientation.

In relation to other protected characteristics under the Equality Act (2010), a scoping exercise is currently underway to consider the feasibility of a Unified Information Standard which would also cover disability as a protected characteristic.