(2) what assessment he has made of the ease of access by vulnerable and elderly persons to chiropody services on the NHS;
(3) how many NHS chiropody clinics have closed in (a) Wirral, (b) Merseyside, (c) the North West and (d) England in the last five years;
(4) what the funding per head of the population for chiropody services was in England in the latest period for which figures are available.
No central assessment has been carried out and there are no plans to require primary care trusts (PCTs) to undertake an assessment of local foot health needs. It is up to PCTs to assess the needs of their local population and to determine what proportion of their resources are spent on commissioning chiropody services based on those needs. Strategic health authorities are responsible for ensuring that PCTs fulfil this duty.
We know healthy feet have a huge impact on the quality of life and we expect PCTs to provide high quality chiropody services. Guidance for access to these services is included in the national service frameworks for older people, diabetes, and long-term conditions. Chiropody is also included in practice based commissioning: early wins and top tips, and the White Paper, “Our health, our care, our say: a new direction for community services”.
Information about how much funding PCTs allocate to chiropody services and the number of chiropody clinics are not collected centrally.