Health: Post-polio Syndrome

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2015 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will develop a strategy for post-polio syndrome.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Prior of Brampton) (Con)]

My Lords, the NHS Five Year Forward View sets out a number of high-level objectives that will support better care for people living with long-term conditions, including post-polio syndrome. Our overall approach is to enable person-centred care so that health services can work in partnership with people to manage their symptoms and improve their quality of life. The Government wish the British Polio Fellowship every success with its post-polio syndrome awareness day this Thursday.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sure that the Minister’s response on that latter point will be very welcome. He will be aware that an estimated 120,000 people are affected by post-polio syndrome. This will often occur years after they contracted polio and it brings pain and tiredness. The problem is that the NHS is largely unaware of the condition. There are very few specialist consultants, GPs do not usually recognise it, and the orthotic services are not geared up to provide some of the appliances that are necessary to ease the pain. Is the Minister prepared to look at this again to see whether some kind of national strategy or care pathway could be produced which would lead to a much greater consistency of provision in the health service?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

The noble Lord is right that there is no specific pathway for people suffering from post-polio syndrome. NHS England will approach this on the basis of all long-term conditions rather than segmenting them by individual disease categories. I will be very happy to meet with him outside the House to discuss this.