§ Mrs. DeanTo ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will develop a national service framework for treatment of respiratory-related diseases. [66433]
§ Jacqui SmithWe have no plans to extend the national service framework (NSF) programme at present to include respiratory related diseases. People with respiratory related diseases will benefit from other initiatives to improve quality of treatment and care, and to improve access to services.
The NSF programme currently includes frameworks for mental health (1999), coronary heart disease (2000) the national Cancer Plan (2000), older people (2001) and diabetes standards (2001). The diabetes NSF delivery strategy is due to be published in 2002 and work is in hand on national service frameworks for renal services, childrens services and long term conditions. These frameworks amount to a significant programme of quality improvement across the national health service.