Inflammatory Bowel Disease: Health Services

(asked on 12th November 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps (a) his Department and (b) NHS England are taking to ensure that best practice set out by the Getting It Right First Time programme in areas including inflammatory bowel disease are adopted throughout the NHS.


Answered by
Edward Argar Portrait
Edward Argar
Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
This question was answered on 18th November 2021

The Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) national specialty report on gastroenterology was published in September 2021. Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is one of the conditions covered under gastroenterological services in the report. The report sets out actions and recommendations to improve patient care in gastroenterology. The aim is to reduce unwarranted variation in treatments and services in, which will ensure consistent care is provided to IBD patients across the country.

The GIRFT programme is now embedded within NHS England and NHS Improvement’s programmes to improve quality and productivity, so that best practice is adopted throughout the NHS. NHS England and NHS Improvement are encouraging individual sites to evaluate how best to take forward these recommendations. The recommendation on IBD is estimated to reduce emergency admissions by 6,600 per year. The Department and NHS England and NHS Improvement expect National Health Service trusts and clinical teams to consider how best they can implement these recommendations for individuals to ensure the consistent and high quality care for IBD and other gastroenterological conditions.

Reticulating Splines