Orthopaedics
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential implications for his policies of trends in the number of amputations for vascular and venous disease; and what discussions he has had with experts in this area on taking steps to reduce the number of amputations.
Answered by Karin Smyth
The 10-Year Health Plan, once published, will set out the Government's overarching vision for delivering the critical shift from a focus on treating illness to preventing conditions. Disease prevention is crucial in reducing the number of amputations arising from vascular and venous disease.
NHS England has implemented a range of initiatives aimed at improving the prevention and early diagnosis of conditions which increase the risk of needing lower-limb amputations. These include NHS Health Checks, for early detection of cardiovascular disease, the NHS Diabetes Prevention Programme, and expanding community diagnostic centres to improve early detection.
NHS England commissions the National Vascular Registry (NVR) to provide information on the quality and outcomes of care for adults who have major vascular procedures. The NVR provides annual and quarterly reports for emergency and elective vascular procedures, including for those people with peripheral arterial disease who undergo either a lower limb angioplasty/stent, a lower limb bypass surgery, or a major lower limb amputation. From Quarter 1 of 2022 to Quarter 4 of 2024, NVR data demonstrated that vascular providers achieving the Commissioning for Quality and Innovation framework had increased from 47% to 55%. During this period, the number of providers submitting data to the NVR had increased by approximately 14%, and every National Health Service region showed an improvement in chronic limb threatening ischemia revascularisation quality.
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