Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he has to ensure arthritis services resume as soon as possible following the disruption resulting from the covid-19 outbreak.

A range of guidance has been made available to healthcare commissioners and clinicians to support the resumption of arthritis services following the COVID-19 outbreak, which have now been restarted.

The National Institute of Health and Care Excellence guidance ‘COVID-19 rapid guideline: rheumatological autoimmune, inflammatory and metabolic bone disorders’, updated on 2 July 2020, sets out best practice for clinicians and commissioners on managing disorders, including arthritis, during the COVID-19 pandemic. The guidance is available at the following link:

www.nice.org.uk/guidance/NG167

NHS England and NHS Improvement and the Federation of Specialty Surgical Associations have also provided a range of prioritisation advice for restarting community services, which set out how to meet the needs of people with conditions such as arthritis safely and effectively, including where surgery is required. This guidance can be found at the following links:

www.england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/publication/covid-19-prioritisation-within-community-health-services-with-annex_19-march-2020/

fssa.org.uk/_userfiles/pages/files/covid19/prioritisation_master_240820.pdf