Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to (a) help ensure equitable access to care for people diagnosed with interstitial lung diseases and (b) support local health services to improve (i) immediate and (ii) long-term care.

The commissioning responsibility for interstitial lung disease (ILD) services has been delegated to the integrated care boards (ICBs), to facilitate joined up care and the configuration of services that will meet local needs.

Early and accurate diagnosis is a priority for NHS England, and the work to improve this area of clinical care is underway, which should have an impact on reducing delayed diagnosis of ILD. The Specialised Respiratory Clinical Reference Group is looking to update the national service specification during 2025/26, and this refresh will include an Equality Health Impact Assessment to support local implementation. The specification will cover diagnosis, management, and ongoing care for patients with ILD.

NHS England also funds the cost of anti-fibrotic treatments for ILD. Access to these treatments has recently been expanded to patients with non-idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis following the publication of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s technology appraisal, Nintedanib for treating progressive fibrosing interstitial lung diseases, in November 2021.

Furthermore, pulmonary rehabilitation plays an important role in the management of patients with ILD and should be made available to all patients who would benefit from this intervention, not just those with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). To better understand the uptake of this intervention, NHS England is aiming to modify the current National Asthma and COPD Audit Programmes so that conditions other than COPD are included, and service availability can be tracked.