Plantar Fasciitis: Health Services
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to help improve access to (a) podiatry and (b) physiotherapy services for patients with plantar fasciitis.
Answered by Ashley Dalton
Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for commissioning services to meet the needs of their local populations, which includes the provision of physiotherapy and podiatry services for the management of plantar fasciitis.
NHS England does not hold condition-specific data that would allow identification of access issues for patients with plantar fasciitis. However, aggregate data on community health services, including physiotherapy and podiatry, is available at the following link:
It is important to note that this data set does not include services delivered by acute providers. For information on waiting times for specific conditions, individual providers would need to be approached directly, although such data is unlikely to be routinely collected or reported at that level of detail.
The Getting It Right First Time Musculoskeletal (MSK) Community Delivery Programme is funded by the Joint Department for Work and Pensions and Department of Health and Social Care Work and Health Directorate with a key objective being the reduction of waiting times for community MSK services. The programme is using a six-point plan, a handbook with case studies, and regular meetings with senior ICB officials to support 17 systems in the reduction of their waiting times. This programme is currently being evaluated with the aim of sharing lessons across the National Health Service.
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