Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of access to specialist cystic fibrosis services through (a) NHS Trusts in (i) Bath and (ii) Swindon and (b) other routes for patients in Wiltshire.

NHS England commissions 47 specialised cystic fibrosis centres for adults and children across England. This includes the Bristol Adult Cystic Fibrosis Centre, based at Bristol Royal Infirmary, the Oxford Adult Cystic Fibrosis Centre, based at John Radcliffe Hospital, and the Wessex Adult Cystic Fibrosis Centre, based at Southampton General Hospital, which serve patients in Bath, Swindon, and the wider county of Wiltshire.

Service specifications published by NHS England clearly define the standards of services, care, and outcomes that people can expect from these centres. Those service specifications aim to deliver improvements to life expectancy and quality of life for adults and children with cystic fibrosis.

In addition, NHS England is supporting the optimal monitoring of patients with cystic fibrosis at home and supporting best practice in remote consultations. In August 2024, NHS England published the RightCare cystic fibrosis toolkit to help improve cystic fibrosis services and reduce unwarranted variation. The toolkit is designed to help support systems to understand key priorities and ways of optimising cystic fibrosis care, by providing key actions for improvement. The toolkit should be used in conjunction with the NHS England service specification for cystic fibrosis and the Cystic Fibrosis Trust Standards of Care.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has produced guidance on the diagnosis and management of cystic fibrosis, which specifies how to monitor the condition and manage the symptoms to improve quality of life.