Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what information his Department holds on whether the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence plans to publish guidelines for the (a) diagnosis and (b) treatment of chronic urinary tract infections.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has an established prioritisation process overseen by a prioritisation board, for the identification of priorities for guidance development. Anyone can suggest a topic through the NICE website at the following link:

https://www.nice.org.uk/forms/topic-suggestion

NICE has no current plans to develop guidance on chronic urinary tract infections (UTIs) at this time and the topic has not been considered by its prioritisation board. However, NICE has produced a clinical guideline on antimicrobial prescribing for recurrent UTIs which provides recommendations on treatments and self-care for the prevention of recurrent UTIs. This guideline is available at the following link:

https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng112