Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 23 March 2023 to Question 172437 on Health Services: Waiting Lists, what personalised perioperative care plans for patients with arthritis will consist of.

From April 2023, providers are being asked to establish Perioperative Care Co-ordination teams. These are multidisciplinary teams who will assess health needs to proactively inform pre- and post-operative care and identify surgical risk factors in order to reduce the chance of cancellations and to improve patient outcomes.

Perioperative Care Co-ordination teams will work with patients to develop personalised preparation plans. These plans will detail both the clinical and the wider support needs of patients both leading up to the time of surgery and in the post-surgical period.

The teams will be able to refer people for specialist secondary care input where required and, in conjunction with social prescribing link workers, to connect people to the most appropriate community support for them.