Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to (a) improve the (i) prevention and (ii) management of meningitis in children and (b) enhance rehabilitation programmes for children who have had that disease.

Prevention of meningococcal disease is primarily achieved by vaccination. Two vaccines have been added to the national programme recently to help protect against meningitis and septicaemia; the meningitis B vaccine for babies and the meningitis ACWY vaccine for school leavers and university students. Where there is a case, local Public Health England Centres advise on the use of antibiotics and vaccination for appropriate close contacts.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has produced both a quality standard (QS) and a clinical guideline (CG) relevant to bacterial meningitis and meningococcal septicaemia in children:

- QS19 - ‘Meningitis (bacterial) and meningococcal septicaemia in children and young people’ available at:

https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/qs19

- CG102 - ‘Meningitis (bacterial) and meningococcal septicaemia in under 16s: recognition, diagnosis and management’ available at:

https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg102

Basic inpatient care combined with out-patient rehabilitation is delivered by Specialty Multidisciplinary Teams who will engage with other specialties as required to address any additional identified needs following recovery from infection.

Clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) are responsible for commissioning rehabilitation services, in line with their assessment of the specific rehabilitation needs of different groups within their localities. In 2016, NHS England published “Commissioning Guidance for Rehabilitation”, which is intended to support local CCGs in the commissioning of local rehabilitation services across a range of settings.