To ask the Secretary of State for Health what advice her Department provides to (a) health trusts and (b) strategic health authorities on taking steps to ensure that services provided in a hospital setting could not be provided in a community setting. (111487)

It is a matter for the national health service locally to plan and commission services which are appropriate to the needs of local people.

However, our vision for providing more services in settings that are convenient for patients was set out in “Our Health, Our Care, Our Say”.

We know from the listening exercise leading up to the White Paper that the public wants more health care closer to home and to support this vision we are evaluating 30 clinically driven closer to home demonstration sites.

These will test how teams of consultants from six clinical specialties, general practitioners, nurses and other health professionals can safely and effectively provide a range of operations and procedures closer to where people live.

The recommendations from this project will be used to help inform local commissioning decisions.

Although one of our goals is to treat people more quickly and conveniently closer to home, this should only be where this is consistent with safety and good quality care.