Department of Health and Social Care written question – answered at on 21 January 2020.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of trends in the rate of misdiagnosis of (a) brain and (b) spinal injuries.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much funding he has allocated from the public purse to support avoidance of misdiagnosis of (a) brain and (b) spinal injuries.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the number of (a) brain and (b) spinal injuries mistakenly diagnosed as post concussion syndrome.
This information is not collected, and no assessment of trends or estimates of misdiagnosis incidence has been made. Furthermore, the funding of the vast majority of NHS services is a local matter, with services commissioned by clinical commissioning groups according from individual resource allocations according to local need.
To support clinicians in the assessment and diagnosis of head injuries, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has produced the evidence-based guideline, ‘Head injury: assessment and early management’. Updated in 2019, the guideline sets out best practice in the diagnosis and treatment of people with head injuries, including the use of appropriate diagnostic tools. In 2017 NICE also published a guideline on assessment and early management of spinal injuries, which references sections of the head injury guideline to support consistent diagnostic and assessment approaches. Both sets of guidance can be found at the following links:
Yes1 person thinks so
No0 people think not
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