Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make it his policy to ensure that any point-of-care diagnostic tests for urinary tract infections approved by NICE are made available to women in (a) rural, (b) deprived and (c) other areas.

NHS England and the Anti Microbial Resistance Programme is working to support the development and deployment of point-of-care diagnostic tests approved by National Institute for Health and Care Excellence for urinary tract infection (UTI) diagnosis, and education on the use of these tests will form a key part of ensuring equitable accesses to women, including in rural and deprived areas.

NHS England are also working with industry partners, charities, pathology and clinicians to understand the clinical need for new point of care diagnostics as this will help ensure the future pipeline of UTI diagnostics are fit-for-need.