Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what guidance he has issued to integrated care boards on commissioning pathways that guarantee immediate access to plasma exchange for patients with acute inflammatory neurological disorders.

NHS England’s Specialised Neurology service specification outlines a networked model of care for neurology and stipulates that all specialised neurology centres should have access to timely plasma exchange services to patients with severe autoimmune neurological disorders. Although secondary care hospitals will not ordinarily have plasma exchange services on site, all secondary care hospitals are linked to a regional specialised neurology centre that can offer this treatment in a timely way.