Podiatry
(asked on 13th February 2019) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department has taken to ensure that there are sufficient community podiatry services to meet demand in (a) Huddersfield and (b) England.
Podiatry services in Greater Huddersfield are provided by Locala Community Partnerships as part of a wider community services contract commissioned by Greater Huddersfield Clinical Commissioning Group.
Following a public consultation process undertaken in 2017, Locala has made a number of changes to the service to ensure that it is able to meet the current and predicted future demand. This will mean that those patients whose feet have been assessed as 'at risk' or people with significant podiatry need will be eligible for treatment by Locala Podiatry Services and will ensure those patients with the greatest clinical need and highest risks are seen at the right time, every time.
Locala have publicised the changes widely to service users and to local general practitioner practices. Those who are not eligible for the service are being provided with advice and guidance on foot care and signposted to alternative services including Huddersfield University Foot Clinic, independent podiatrists, and to a new nail cutting service which is being delivered by Age UK.
To address the shortfall in podiatrists nationally, NHS England has supported the development of bespoke recruitment campaigns for clinical professions where needed within any workforce shortfalls – this has recently included a focus on podiatry. Health Education England monitor closely the provision of training places and take up to support capacity provision.
Within community services, and podiatry services specifically, measures are in place to help review and improve services against targets for foot hygiene. National audit data is published through reports such as the National Diabetes Foot Care Audit which is available at the following link:
The National Diabetes Foot Care Audit enables all diabetes footcare services to measure their performance against the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence clinical guidelines and peer units, and to monitor adverse outcomes for people with diabetes who develop diabetic foot disease.