Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of a widespread adoption of the NICE Quality Standard on Spondyloarthritis.

No recent assessment has been made.

On 28 June 2018, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) published a new Quality Standard (QS) on spondyloarthritis. The QS includes four quality statements identified as the markers of high quality spondyloarthritis care. QSs are important in setting out to patients, the public, commissioners and providers what a high quality service should look like in a particular area of care. Whilst providers and commissioners must have regard to NICE QSs in planning and delivering services, they do not provide a comprehensive service specification and are not mandatory.