Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an estimate of the average waiting time for podiatry appointments in (a) Halton' b) Cheshire West and (c) Cheshire.

Podiatry services are commissioned locally. The podiatry services catchment area for Halton, Cheshire West, and Cheshire is split between the Bridgewater Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust and the Cheshire and Wirrall Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. Both trusts record data in different ways, and as such there is no way to provide a consistent picture of waits across the area.

The Bridgewater Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust provides podiatry services in Halton. The average wait for podiatry services in Halton is 18 weeks. The Cheshire and Wirrall Partnership NHS Foundation Trust provides podiatry services in Cheshire West and Cheshire. The trust has advised that patients are waiting an average of six weeks for nail surgery, 15 weeks for podiatry biomechanics services, and for those patients that are high risk, with additional complex health needs like diabetes, the average wait is three weeks.