Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential implications for his policies of comparative data for GPs undertaking advice and guidance with hospital specialists in different (a) geographical areas and (b) medical specialisms.

The Elective Reform plan commits to expanding the use of Advice and Guidance to ensure two-way communication between general practitioners (GPs) and hospital specialists, and ensure more patients are seen in the right clinical setting.

Officials routinely review data on the variation in performance and delivery of interventions to reduce the waiting list. It is recognised that variation in the use of Advice and Guidance by specialty or within specialties, based on the local patient population, is to be expected. The Elective Reform Plan commits to actions to spread effective practices and address unwarranted variation, including in the uptake of Advice and Guidance, and will focus on the specialties where it demonstrates the most value to clinicians and to patients.

In order to optimise the use of Advice and Guidance for both GPs and hospital specialists, the Elective Reform plan commits to providing access to new metrics and dashboards on the Model Health System, and to providing and regularly updating resources on referral optimisation, as well as the NHS England Getting It Right First Time team’s Advice and Guidance toolkits and templates.