§ Mr. BaronTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to reduce the number of epilepsy sufferers estimated to be misdiagnosed or inappropriately treated following referral to an epilepsy clinic. [141877]
§ Dr. Ladyman[holding answer 4 December 2003]I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave him on 19 November 2003,Official Report, column 1111W. We expect several related policies to help reduce the number of people who may be misdiagnosed and inappropriately treated following referral to an epilepsy clinic.
The National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) has already made its report of the "National Clinical Audit of Epilepsy Related Death" available to local national health service clinicians and organisations to help improve the management of epilepsy and epilepsy-related death. The NICE clinical guideline for the diagnosis, management and treatment is planned for publication next year and will be available to the NHS to support improvements in services. Additionally, implementation of the clinical quality standards of the new general medical services contract from next April will help improve the management of epilepsy in primary care.
We are also developing the national service framework (NSF) for long term conditions, which will focus on improving the standard of neurology services across England for conditions such as epilepsy. We currently plan to publish the NSF late next year for implementation from 2005.