Podiatry: Finance

(asked on 6th January 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to increase funding for community foot protection services as part of the preventative agenda for foot and lower limb care to help avoid acute issues occurring for patients; and if he will make a statement.


Answered by
Jo Churchill Portrait
Jo Churchill
Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This question was answered on 27th January 2021

To help decrease the numbers of people developing foot ulceration and undergoing foot and lower limb amputation, NHS England and NHS Improvement support the Vascular Society’s ‘Peripheral Arterial Disease Quality Improvement Framework’, launched in April 2019, and currently being implemented at a number of early adopter sites. This programme aims to achieve revascularisation in 60% of patients with chronic limb threatening ischaemia (CLTI) within five days of non-elective admission to vascular provider units in England.

Studies have shown a correlation between timely revascularisation as part of a vascular limb salvage service and a reduction in major amputation rates. The programme is being actively supported by the Vascular Society and the National Vascular Registry through to 2024 and NHS England and NHS Improvement are currently examining the feasibility of an incentive scheme to support implementation.

The implementation case estimates that investment in such initiatives would achieve improvements in foot and lower limb care and the NWCSP is currently recruiting three initial implementation sites to test the assumptions of the economic case before making any decisions regarding future funding arrangements.

Reticulating Splines