Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps are being taken to help improve diagnosis of Aortic Dissection.

NHS England Specialised Commissioning has a published service specification for cardiac surgery, to support national standards, which include this highly serious condition.

It is recognised that survival rates for emergency interventions are better when care is delivered by a surgeon supported by interventional specialists undertaking higher volumes of these procedures. This point was also highlighted in the Cardiac Surgery Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) 2018 document, and the NHS England Specialised Cardiac Improvement cardiac surgery work stream is taking forward the GIRFT recommendations, which will also look at how pathways of care for this and other specialised cardiac conditions can be improved by better network working across providers.