Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department is taking steps to help ensure that sickle cell services receive increased (a) staffing and (b) funding levels.

No specific assessment has been made. NHS England has launched an end-to-end sickle cell clinical pathway review led by the Health Inequalities Improvement team. The end-to-end clinical pathway for patients with sickle cell disease is being reviewed to identify opportunities for delivering improvements. The review is at an early stage but has highlighted a number of opportunities to improve current services, including in relation to workforce, the digitalisation of care plans and general education of the public about the condition.

In addition, NHS England is undertaking an exercise to assess compliance of Specialist Haemoglobinopathy Teams and Haemoglobinopathy Coordinating Centres with the respective service specifications which are published on the Haemoglobinopathies Clinical Reference Group webpage.

Resources have been invested in raising awareness of sickle cell disease amongst medical staff. There have been recent improvements to the haematology medical curriculum, with sickle cell disease and thalassemia now described in the curriculum as core competencies. Health Education England (HEE) also provides a range of e-learning that includes sickle cell disease content. HEE has held discussions with the Royal Colleges of Pathology and Physicians to ensure this curriculum is deliverable to all four nations, in line with General Medical Council standards. The Haemoglobinopathy Coordinating Centres also provide network development, leadership, learning and education across their network area.