Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment his Department has made on the suitability of support provided for people living with arthritis.

On 24 July 2016 the National Clinical Audit for Rheumatoid and Early Inflammatory Arthritis 2nd Annual report 2016 was published. This report, which includes data from 1 February 2015 – 29 January 2016, assesses the quality of care by specialist rheumatology services using criteria derived from sources such as the Rheumatoid Arthritis Quality Standard, published by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) in June 2013.

Commissioned on behalf of NHS England by the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP), the audit is an important tool that helps commissioners and providers to scrutinise local services, highlight variation and drive improvement. For example, in terms of support provided to patients the latest audit report shows that:

- 95% of patients agreed that they had a good experience of care, up from 78% in year one;

- 66% of patients recalled being asked about work in the course of their consultation up from 42% in year one; and

- 67 patients were offered education and self-management within one month of a diagnosis, up from 59% in year one.

The full audit report and NICE Quality Standard can be viewed at the following links:

www.hqip.org.uk/resources/rheumatoid-and-early-inflammatory-arthritis-2016

www.nice.org.uk/guidance/qs33/resources/rheumatoid-arthritis-in-over-16s-2098604563909

NICE has also published a best practice Clinical guideline and corresponding Quality Standard for Osteoarthritis, both of which highlight the importance of self-management approaches and lifestyle advice in supporting patients to manage their condition.