Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps the Government is taking to help ensure GPs have the (a) knowledge and (b) resources to adequately diagnose and arrange treatment for rare health conditions.

Increasing awareness of rare diseases among health care professionals is one of the four priorities of the 2021 UK Rare Diseases Framework. England’s Rare Diseases Action Plan was published on 28 February 2022 and includes specific actions to increase knowledge and improve the resources available to health care professionals, including general practitioners, to diagnose and arrange treatment for rare diseases.

This includes determining how to include rare diseases in health professional education and training programmes and developing an innovative digital resource, integrated into existing digital platforms or websites to provide easily accessible information on rare diseases. Action plans from the devolved administrations will follow later in 2022.