Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the APPG for Sickle Cell and Thalassaemia’s Inquiry report entitled No One’s Listening, published on 15 November 2021, what steps his Department is taking to reduce regional variation in access to treatment and care for people living with sickle cell disease.

The Department will work with relevant organisations to consider the recommendations in the report. NHS England and NHS Improvement’s National Healthcare Inequalities Improvement Team have created Core20PLUS5 to support the reduction of health inequalities, with a focus on those living in areas of high deprivation and certain ethnic groups, such as black, Asian and ethnic minority groups where thalassemia and sickle cell disease is most common.