Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans his Department has to ensure that there is a geographical spread of rare disease diagnosis centres to ensure that patients are able to attain timely and accessible access to accurate diagnosis.

The Government is committed to improving the lives of those living with rare conditions and recognises the importance of patients across all areas of the United Kingdom being able to obtain a quick and accurate diagnosis.

The Government will be publishing a new UK Rare Diseases Framework by the end of 2020 which will outline the high-level direction for rare diseases in the UK. Helping patients across the UK access specialist care and get a final diagnosis faster will be priorities of this Framework, as identified by extensive stakeholder engagement with patients, their families, researchers and clinicians. The policies to deliver these priorities will be set out in future nation-specific action plans and will be supported by the recently published Genome UK Strategy, which outlines the Government’s vision to help people live longer, healthier lives using new genomic and other technologies to diagnose and treat rare disease.