Mrs Sharon Hodgson

I welcome the development of the Clive Treacey safety checklist. It is an important part of Clive’s legacy, notwithstanding the comments that my hon. Friend made about his legacy being much wider than that. We would encourage commissioners and service providers to use the checklist and its accompanying guidance as a key tool when designing services for their local populations, and to ensure that steps outlined in the checklist are followed whenever a patient experiences a significant change in their care. We hope that is being rolled out, followed and used. At the national level, there are a number of programmes and tools supporting safer, more consistent epilepsy care. NICE guidance recommends that people with a learning disability have monitoring reviews at least annually, and information should be tailored and adapted. They should have access to specialist care and co-ordinated, multidisciplinary support. NICE is clear that where young people are transitioning into adult services, planning should begin early. While NICE guidance is not mandatory, the Government expect commissioners and service providers to take it fully into account when making decisions on how best to meet the needs of their local communities. NHS England’s RightCare programme has developed an epilepsy toolkit to support commissioners and clinicians in improving epilepsy care and reducing preventable deaths. The toolkit makes structured risk assessment and risk reduction, and proactive conversations about SUDEP, a core part of guidance, and it signposts practical resources, such as the SUDEP and seizure safety checklist, to support consistent risk communication in line with NICE guidance. Health Education England, which is now part of NHS England, has developed an epilepsy programme in collaboration with SUDEP Action. That includes evidence-based training modules, delivered through the NHS England e-learning for healthcare platform, covering practical diagnosis and management, medication adherence and SUDEP risk factors. Alongside that, Government-supported frameworks, including the national bundle of care for children and young people with epilepsy, are helping to drive more equitable access to timely intervention and rehabilitation. In closing, I thank the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage for securing this very important debate; it is great to see it so well attended. I thank all hon. Members who took part in it and made interventions, including my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Peter Swallow), the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), and my hon. Friends the Members for Stroud (Dr Opher), for Lichfield, and for Southgate and Wood Green (Bambos Charalambous). They made a number of very important points, and if I need to follow up on any of them with colleagues in other Departments or in my Department, I definitely will. I also thank those with lived experience of epilepsy, and the families who have lost loved ones to SUDEP. Their courage in speaking out continues to drive change through the work that we do in this place. We will continue to work with partners across the health system to support people with epilepsy and, ultimately, reduce deaths from epilepsy. Question put and agreed to.