Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to support people living with arthritis in (a) South Holland and the Deepings constituency and (b) Lincolnshire.

Services for those with musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions, including arthritis, are commissioned locally by integrated care boards (ICBs), including NHS Lincolnshire ICB, which serves the South Holland and the Deepings constituency. The Department expects MSK services to be fully incorporated into integrated care system planning and decision-making.

In Lincolnshire, arthritis patients at United Lincolnshire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (ULTH) are seen as part of two cohorts, namely early inflammatory arthritis (EIA) or arthritis patients identified during grading of referrals and then put into ULTH’s general rheumatology urgent/routine cohort. For early inflammatory arthritis, ULTH works to a target of six weeks to treatment. This broadly necessitates patients having their first appointment at between two and three weeks. At present, most new patients referred today would be seen in clinic at approximately six to seven weeks and commence treatment within a few further weeks.

Our recently published 10-Year Health Plan will deliver the three big shifts our National Health Service needs to be fit for the future: from hospital to community; from analogue to digital; and from sickness to prevention. All of these will help deliver improvements to arthritis care in all parts of England.

More tests and scans delivered in the community, better joint working between services, and greater use of apps and wearable technology will all support people to manage their long-term conditions, including arthritis, closer to home.