Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will take steps to ensure greater uptake of the recommendation in NICE Clinical Guidance 19 that podiatrists with specialist training should lead foot protection services.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidance to commissioners and providers states that the foot protection service should be led by a podiatrist with specialist training in diabetic foot problems, and should have access to healthcare professionals with skills in Diabetology, Biomechanics and Orthoses and wound care.

The Chief Allied Health Professions Officer’s team is working with NICE to increase Allied Health Profession (AHP) submissions to the NICE local practice collection, which showcases examples of best practice in health and social care. There are currently two examples of best practice for NICE Clinical Guidance 19 available at the following link:

https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng19/resources/shared-learning

We anticipate the ‘NICE into Action’ awards may generate further examples of how the guidance is being implemented and the impact this is having.

The National Diabetes Footcare Audit (NDFA) requests and collects data from each clinical commissioning group on whether or not they have in place an established foot protection service pathway.

For the 2016 NDFA commissioner survey, 83% of respondents had an established foot protection service pathway (response rate of 51.9%). The 2017 NDFA commissioner survey is due to be published in March 2018.