Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment his Department has made of the suitability of current commissioning arrangements for services provided to patients after a stem cell transplant.

The Manual for Prescribed Specialised Services describes which elements of specialised services are commissioned by NHS England and which are commissioned by clinical commissioning groups (CCGs):

https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/prescribed-specialised-services-manual-2.pdf

NHS England is responsible for commissioning and funding the transplant related care which takes place 30 days before transplant and continues until 100 days post-transplant. After 100 days post-transplant, commissioning responsibility for the routine follow-up of patients switches from NHS England to CCGs, as outlined in the Manual.

In the event that transplant patients experience serious complications post-transplant, elements of their care would likely continue to be planned, organised and funded by NHS England specialised commissioning. For example, if a patient requires Extracorporeal Photophersis, which is a treatment for acute and chronic graft versus host disease following transplantation, NHS England commissions this care post-transplant.

There are no current plans to review the responsibilities of services commissioned by NHS England and CCGs for blood and marrow transplantation (BMT). However, NHS England will be assessing BMT in more detail over the next 18 months and will take the opportunity to further support improved pathway planning and commissioning of services that it and CCGs fund.