Orthopaedics

(asked on 19th December 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans his Department has to tackle regional differences in rates of major lower limb amputations between the north and south of England; and if he will make a statement.


Answered by
Jo Churchill Portrait
Jo Churchill
Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This question was answered on 10th January 2020

NHS England and NHS Improvement are working with regional teams and alongside the ‘Getting It Right First Time’ programmes to jointly improve vascular services, including reducing variation in care and waiting times.

The NHS Long Term Plan includes a commitment to “ensure that all hospitals in future provide access to multidisciplinary footcare teams and diabetes inpatient specialist nursing teams to improve recovery and to reduce lengths of stay and future readmission rates”.

NHS England has made available approximately £105 million of transformation funding into local services to target variation and improve performance in the treatment and care of people living with diabetes since 2017/18 which has been focused on interventions such as:

- Improving the uptake of structured education;

- Improving the achievement of the three National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommended treatment targets;

- Putting in place new or expanded Multi-disciplinary Footcare Teams; and

- Putting in place new or expanded Diabetes Inpatient Specialist Nursing teams.

Reticulating Splines