Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of the care pathways for patients with hidradenitis suppurativa.

Hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) affects around 90,000 people in England. The Department’s National Institute for Health Research Clinical Research Network (CRN) is providing research infrastructure to enable molecular genetic analysis of HS, although expenditure on this cannot be disaggregated from total CRN spend.

Information on the diagnosis, treatment care and support of patients with HS can be found on the NHS Choices website. This also provides links to the British Association of Dermatologists, which has produced a patient information leaflet on HS, and the HS Trust, which is the United Kingdom‘s leading charity for the condition. More information can be found at the following link:

www.nhs.uk/conditions/hidradenitis-suppurativa/Pages/Introduction.aspx

In terms of the care pathway for the condition, HS can usually be managed with treatments including antibiotics, antiseptic washes and immunosuppressive treatments such as steroids or ciclosporin, which a general practitioner may prescribe. For those patients with the most serious forms of HS who cannot be managed through routine access to treatments provided through primary or secondary care, a referral to a specialised dermatology service may be appropriate. NHS England commissions services for people with rare and complex skin conditions and has set out what providers must have in place in order to offer specialist dermatology care. These services may provide more intensive therapies with the involvement of a range of health and care professionals, subject to a patient’s needs. More information can be found at the following link:

www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/a12-spec-dermatology.pdf