Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of the proposals to make Ipswich Hospital the only general hospital in the East of England not to offer elective orthopaedic surgery on access to such surgery in that region.

It will always be for local commissioners to determine how to best deliver services to meet local needs. It is right that decisions on local services and service models are made by local commissioners, who can best assess how to meet the needs of people in their area.

NHS Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT), is a national clinically-led quality improvement programme that has made recommendations for improving orthopaedic services. These recommendations include the establishment of robust regional networks with regional centres to ensure appropriate critical mass for complex and low volume cases. There is good evidence that these centres offer patient excellent results.