Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what proportion of patients diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis received an annual review in each of the last five years.

Information on the number of people diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is not available.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) clinical guideline Rheumatoid arthritis: The management of rheumatoid arthritis in adults, published in 2009, recommends that people with RA have a comprehensive annual review that is coordinated by the rheumatology service. The NICE RA Quality Standard, published in 2013, also includes the provision of an annual review as one of the seven quality statements that define high quality RA care.

The 2013-14 Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) added new performance indicators on RA care, including ‘the proportion of people with RA diagnosed more than 1 year ago whose last comprehensive review was within 12 months of the previous review.'

The QOF is a voluntary incentive scheme that provides additional reward to general practitioner practices for how well they care for patients based on performance against a number of agreed indicators. The report of the results of the 2013-14 QOF is expected for publication in autumn this year.