Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the availability of dietitians with a special interest in chronic fatigue syndrome, and how many of those dietitians there are in England.

The Department does not hold information on the number of dieticians who hold specialist knowledge or experience relating to chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).

NHS England publishes monthly Hospital and Community Health Services workforce statistics, with the data is drawn from the Electronic Staff Record, which is the payroll and human resources system for the National Health Service. This means it allows for identification of staff by broad staffing groups, including dieticians, working in Hospital and Community Health Services, but it does not provide the level of detail needed to identify staff with the skills, knowledge or experience of working with patients with specific conditions or allow identification of the types of patients and service delivery areas that staff may be involved in on a day to day basis. The latest data is available at the following link:

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/nhs-workforce-statistics