§ Mr. ToddTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps he has taken to ensure that the risks of misdiagnosis of epilepsy are minimised in local delivery of services. [152302]
§ Dr. LadymanWe expect several related policies to help reduce the number of cases of misdiagnosis of epilepsy. 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. NICE is also planning to publish a clinical guideline for the diagnosis, management and treatment in July 2004 which 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 April 2004 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 in December 2004 for implementation from 2005.