Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to the recommendations of the Health Quality Improvement Partnership National Clinical Audit for Rheumatoid and Early Inflammatory Arthritis, what steps his Department is taking to encourage clinical commissioning groups to take a more proactive approach towards rheumatology commissioning.

The National Clinical Audit and Patient Outcomes Programme (NCAPOP) is managed on behalf of NHS England by the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP). The first annual report of the National Clinical Audit of Rheumatoid and Early Inflammatory Arthritis was published on 22 January 2016. NCAPOP audits help drive improvement by providing local trusts with individual benchmarked reports on their performance against a range of measures, feeding back comparative findings to help participants identify necessary improvements for patients. The Rheumatoid and Early Inflammatory Arthritis audit has set recommendations for local NHS services including: improved support and training for primary care; increased clinical capacity in rheumatology services; and to improve the collection of outpatient data.

Following the first national Rheumatoid and Early Inflammatory Arthritis Audit, HQIP has reported that a number of trusts have successfully reconfigured their services in order to improve patient care. More information can be found at the following link:

www.hqip.org.uk/national-programmes/a-z-of-nca/arthritis-rheumatoid-and-early-inflammatory