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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Norman Lamb on 2016-05-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will take steps to ensure that engagement and consultation with key stakeholders, communities and local voluntary sector organisations is undertaken within each Sustainability and Transformation plan footprint prior to finalisation of those plans.

George Freeman

As set out in the NHS Shared Planning Guidance, published in December 2015, the success of Sustainability and Transformation Plans will depend on having an open, engaging, and iterative process that involves patients, carers, citizens, clinicians, local community partners including the independent and voluntary sectors, and local government through health and wellbeing boards. The arm’s length bodies responsible for the NHS Five Year Forward View – NHS England, NHS Improvement, the Care Quality Commission, Public Health England, Health Education England and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence – have asked for local engagement plans as part of the Sustainability and Transformation Plan process, building where appropriate on existing engagement through health and wellbeing boards and other local arrangements. Where plans propose service changes, formal consultation will follow in due course in line with good practice and legislative requirements. The arm’s length bodies will be holding conversations with each area to assess their plans for local engagement.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Norman Lamb on 2016-05-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether he plans to assess the extent to which Sustainability and Transformation plans address (a) mental health provision in a locality and (b) the case for the integration of mental and physical health.

George Freeman

Sustainability and Transformation Plans are multi-year, high-level and place-based plans. Local health and care systems have been asked to ensure that they have a shared understanding of where they are in relation to the three challenges set out in the Five Year Forward View (health and wellbeing, care and quality, finance and efficiency) and where they need to be by 2020/21. They are expected to build on this to present an overall strategy for their geographic footprint and identify the 3-5 key priorities required to realise their vision. These priorities will not be the same for each area. Those areas with more advanced plans will be expected, in addition, to set out how they will deliver a number of national priorities including improvements in mental health services. In addition, NHS England and other arm’s length bodies have established a programme to implement the national strategy for mental health developed by the Mental Health Taskforce. The strategy is designed to reduce variations in access to and quality of support for people with mental health conditions and to ensure that services meet people’s physical and mental health needs in an integrated way.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Norman Lamb on 2016-05-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether he plans to ask NHS England to publish the initial Sustainability and Transformation plans submitted on 15 April 2016 to permit scrutiny of those plans.

George Freeman

The arm’s length bodies that developed the NHS Five Year Forward View – NHS England, NHS Improvement, the Care Quality Commission, Public Health England, Health Education England and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence – plan to publish Sustainability and Transformation Plans once they are final. They do not plan to publish the April submissions, on the basis that they are not formal plans but set out only an interim position.