Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans his Department has to increase the use of shared decision making for people who are being considered for joint replacement surgery including for people with arthritis.
NHS England and NHS Improvement are developing programmes and resources to support clinicians and prepare patients to have better shared decision-making conversations. This is part of NHS England’s commitments in Universal Personalised Care to deliver the Shared Decision Making component of the Comprehensive Model of Personalised Care to all systems and includes musculoskeletal services in the National Health Service.
Resources include Decision Support Tools and national guidance to support clinicians in having conversations with orthopaedic patients whose surgery was postponed during COVID-19. Both are due to be available in the autumn.