Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure the NHS Liver Transformation Programme reduces health inequalities in liver disease outcomes for people living in areas with high levels of deprivation.

The resource for transforming liver services sits with integrated care boards, who will consider local need and the actions to progress alongside other clinical priorities.

The national team’s role has been to bring together relevant stakeholders to co-ordinate, influence and share learning to support local transformation.

NHS England has identified Clinical and Programme oversight resource to be active during reorganisation, with a lead programme management resource to support prioritised national workstreams.

The programme to date has prioritised reviews of the differential impact of liver disease in relation to health inequalities and deprivation. Examples include evidence of liver-related premature mortality being 4.8 times higher in the most deprived areas, 86% of liver disease deaths, which have increased by 400% since 1970, being related to alcohol harms, South Asian communities being at a higher risk of metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) and cirrhosis, and type 2 diabetes and MASLD disproportionately affecting the most deprived communities.

The transformation of the liver services programme includes a number of workstreams including awareness, early identification, and treatment of liver disease, and these will benefit people in these communities. Geographically specific data is available to local commissioners to assist them with focusing their work on deprivation and inequalities, to support their prioritisation.