Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the target in NHS England's publication entitled Implementing patient initiated follow-up: Guidance for local health and care systems, published on 17 May 2022, that outpatient follow ups should be reduced by a minimum of 25 per cent against 2019-20 activity levels by March 2023, what steps he is taking to ensure that an adequate level of care is provided to (a) patients with chronic illnesses and (b) other patients who receive reduced levels of outpatient follow ups.

The decision to follow-up with a patient will always be driven by clinical need and appropriateness. NHS England has produced guidance to support systems and providers to take a risk-based approach to reducing follow-ups, including the Clinically-led Specialty Outpatient Guidance, published in April 2023, which provides practical, condition-specific advice for services to focus on which are safe and clinically appropriate for specialities with the highest number of long waits.

NHS England’s guidance for Patient initiated follow-up (PIFU) is clear that people with long term conditions who are placed on a PIFU should still have a periodic review in line with clinical guidance for the specialty.