Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking with stakeholders to ensure the implementation of the June 2018 NICE Quality Standard on Spondyloarthritis; and if he will make a statement.

The Department is not involved in the direct promotion of quality standards.

Whilst healthcare and other professionals in the National Health Service are expected to take clinical guidelines which offer education and self-management for patients diagnosed with arthritic conditions fully into account. Clinical guidelines do not override the responsibility of healthcare clinicians to make decisions appropriate to the circumstances of each patient.

On 28 June 2018, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence published a new Quality Standard (QS) on spondyloarthritis. The QS includes four quality statements identified as the markers of high quality spondyloarthritis care. The first statement sets out that adults with suspected axial or peripheral spondyloarthritis are referred to a rheumatologist. The standard advises that this may be monitored through local data collection, such as audit of patient records.