Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions he has had with (a) Coeliac UK and (b) other patient representative groups on access to gluten-free staple products in England.

My Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has not held any meetings with integrated care boards (ICBs) or patient groups on the provision of gluten free (GF) bread and flour mixes for patients diagnosed with coeliac disease.

Following consultation, the legislation restricting the prescribing of GF foods to bread and mixes came into force in December 2018, and NHS England’s guidance on prescribing GF foods in primary care was subsequently issued to clinical commissioning groups, now ICBs. Following a review in 2019, the position in England remains that GF bread and mixes can be provided to all eligible coeliac patients on a National Health Service prescription, and a wide range of these items continue to be listed in Part XV of the Drug Tariff. NHS England currently has no plans to update the guidance.