Liver Disease Treatment Pathways

What plans he has to improve liver disease treatment pathways.

The NHS is working to improve care for patients with all types of liver disease. Development and improvement of clinical care is supported via NHS England’s hepatobiliary clinical reference group. This clinical reference group has started work on the development of liver networks in England to enable quicker access to specialised liver services, as well as providing clinical advice on disease prevention and referral practice.

Liver disease has become one of the major causes of premature mortality in the UK, and covid has highlighted the susceptibility of people with liver disease to more serious cases of the virus. With that in mind, what plans does the Minister have to include improvements to liver care in the NHS recovery plan?

Last autumn’s spending review included £1 billion of funding to address backlogs, tackle long waiting lists and support up to 1 million extra checks, scans and additional operations in the NHS. As the NHS recovers, for liver care, as for other areas of treatment, we will look to not only make good the backlogs but continue to improve the care provided and help people to live healthier lives to prevent illness in the first place.