Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to improve inpatient foot care for people with diabetes who are admitted to hospital.

The National Inpatient Diabetes Audit has demonstrated yearly improvements in inpatient foot care. The 2013 report found that more patients were having foot examinations on admission to hospital and the number of hospitals with multidisciplinary foot care teams had increased. There had also been a significant reduction in hospital acquired foot problems. A link to the report is available at:

http://www.hscic.gov.uk/catalogue/PUB13662/nati-diab-inp-audi-13-nat-rep.pdf

A number of steps are being taken to continue to improve foot care for people with diabetes admitted to hospital.

The Department has made achieving a measurable reduction in variation in the management and care of people with diabetes by 2020 a mandate objective for NHS England. Improving foot care for people with diabetes is an important part of achieving this objective. NHS England will support clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) and providers in identifying the steps they need to take to improve outcomes for patients with diabetes, including foot care services for inpatients.

Improvements in outcomes for patients with diabetes will be monitored as part of the CCG Improvement and Assessment Framework. The National Diabetes Foot Care Audit, the first of which was published in March, provides data on all diabetes foot care services. This will enable all foot care services to measure their performance against the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence clinical guidelines and peer units, and to monitor adverse outcomes for people who develop diabetic foot disease.