Valerie Vaz – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Valerie Vaz on 2016-02-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many people with epilepsy have been offered a personalised care plan since 2013 in accordance with the Department of Health’s mandate to NHS England; and what steps he is taking to increase the number of such people.

Jane Ellison

This information is not available in the format requested. The GP Patient Survey measures the number of patients with a long term condition (LTC) who say they have care and support plans.

NHS England advises that information from the patient survey for 2013/14 shows that of the 9,540 people with epilepsy that responded, 15% (1,463) reported they had a care plan, whilst 79% said no and 6% did not know. This survey does not record the number of people who were offered a care plan but did not feel they needed or wanted one.

As set out in our Mandate to NHS England, all patients with a LTC should be offered a personalised care plan.

To deliver this, NHS England is implementing the House of Care model for care planning, which takes into account the expertise and resources of the people with LTCs and their communities to provide a holistic approach to their lives and help them achieve the best outcomes possible.

NHS England has developed tools and guidance on personalised care planning and provided examples of delivery for the local National Health Service. They have also provided a LTC dashboard providing a wealth of data about LTCs in each local area, helping clinical commissioning groups to plan services for local people.