Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what additional support his Department is providing to people living with cystic fibrosis during the covid-19 outbreak.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, NHS England and NHS Improvement have worked with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and the cystic fibrosis (CF) clinical community to ensure additional guidance has been available to support care for patients with CF, both in hospital and away from hospital when appropriate. NICE published the ‘COVID-19 Rapid Guideline: Cystic Fibrosis’ in April 2020, which was updated in October 2020. This sets out guidance for clinicians and commissioners to maximise the safety of patients with CF and make the best use of National Health Service resources, while protecting staff from infection. The guidance is available at the following link:

www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng170