Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he has taken to help ensure that people with Parkinson’s in Newcastle-under-Lyme constituency receive (a) an early diagnosis and (b) swift treatment.

NHS England’s RightCare toolkit and Getting It Right First Time programme aim to improve care for people with Parkinson’s disease by reducing variation and delivering care more equitably across the country.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s (NICE) guidance, Parkinson’s disease: Diagnosis and management in primary and secondary care, updated in 2017, sets out best practice for clinicians in the identification and treatment of Parkinson’s, in line with the latest available evidence. The guidance states that if Parkinson's is suspected, people should be referred quickly and untreated to a specialist with expertise in the differential diagnosis of this condition.

There are 27 specialised neurological treatment centres across the National Health Service in England, with the nearest to Newcastle-under-Lyme being in the University Hospitals of North Midlands, which provide access to neurological multidisciplinary teams to ensure that patients with Parkinson’s can receive specialised treatment and support, according to their needs.

We expect integrated care boards (ICBs) and NHS trusts to have due regard to relevant NICE guidelines. It is the responsibility of the ICBs, including the Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent ICB which covers Newcastle-under-Lyme, to make available appropriate provision to meet the health and care needs of their local population, in line with these NICE guidelines, including diagnosis and treatment.