Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies and those of NHS England of the gastroenterology Getting It Right First Time Programme National Specialty Report: Proposed Recommendations; and what steps (a) his Department and (b) NHS England plan to take in response to those recommendations in helping to ensure that people living with inflammatory bowel disease receive consistent care across the country.

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.