Oral Answers to Questions

Colleen Fletcher Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[James Morris]

Given the size of England and the diversity of the health needs of different communities, we believe that commissioning should be locally led, so there are no current plans for a national eye health strategy. However, I am delighted that NHS England has appointed the first-ever national clinical director for eye care, Louisa Wickham, who will want to set priorities in this area. It is also worth mentioning that we continue to be committed to the national eye care recovery and transformation programme, which is looking to transform secondary care ophthalmology services in order to use existing funding to improve service quality and patient outcomes. That remains a top priority for us.

[Colleen Fletcher (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

10. What steps his Department is taking to support innovation in the treatment and care of NHS patients.

[The Minister of State, Department for Health and Social Care (Maria Caulfield)]

The NHS has made significant progress in recent years in embracing innovations, from the NHS app where patients can now access their medical records, to the expansion of electronic patient records making it easier for healthcare professionals to share information for better, safer care for patients.

[Colleen Fletcher]

I recently visited Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust’s wound healing service and saw the ground-breaking work being undertaken there, which is changing the lives of people who were thought to be living with unhealable wounds. By adopting innovative methods of healing, the service has not only healed the unhealable, giving patients back the quality of life they deserve, but reduced the average cost of healing at the trust. Will the Minister look at how this approach could be adopted more broadly to improve patient care, save money, and reduce on-costs incurred through unhealed wounds?

[Maria Caulfield]

I thank the hon. Lady, because it is the first I have heard of that and it sounds very exciting. I know how difficult it is with chronic wound management to get wounds to heal. Often these are patients with multiple co-morbidities such as diabetes that make the wounds very difficult to treat. I am keen to visit her constituency and her trust to learn more about it.