Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to help support people diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

To support the provision of optimal support for people with multiple sclerosis (MS) and other neurological conditions, NHS England has established the Neuroscience Transformation Programme, a multi-year, clinically led programme aimed at improving specialised adult neuroscience services in England and developing a new model of integrated care for neurology services.

The Neuroscience Transformation Programme seeks to support emerging regional teams in addition to Integrated Care Systems in the National Health Service, through establishing a ‘what good looks like’ for specialised neuroscience services for a local population.

NHS England has also established the Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) national programme, which is designed to improve the treatment and care of patients through in-depth, clinically led review of specialties to examine how things are currently being done and how they could be improved.

The GIRFT National Specialty Report on Neurology, published in September 2021, focuses on improving access to care and ensuring services are available close to patients’ homes where feasible. The report highlights differences in how services are delivered and highlights examples of local good practice to improve patient services nationally.

NHS systems should also continue to implement the guidance set out in the Progressive Neurological Conditions RightCare Toolkit, which was developed in collaboration with key stakeholders such as the MS Trust and the MS Society. The Toolkit supports improvements to pathways for progressive neurological patients, ensuring that commissioners focus on quicker and more accurate diagnoses and increasing the availability of neurorehabilitation, reablement, and psychosocial support.