Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the measurable outcomes of the Healthier Together programme.

No assessment has been made. These are matters for the local National Health Service.

We are advised by NHS England that clinicians working within the programme have started to share best practice across Greater Manchester which has already improved patient outcomes.

Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS+) involves pre-operative patient assessment, using exercise testing, to assess how well a patient should cope with surgery. This is used at Central Manchester NHS Foundation Trust and has demonstrated a 50% reduction in significant post-operative respiratory complications across a group of a thousand patients. In addition, ERAS+ has led to shorter stays in hospital for patients.