To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an estimate of when single-step scaffold insertion will be available on the NHS for people with torn cartilage injuries.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is currently consulting on draft interventional procedures guidance that recommends single-step scaffold insertion as an option for repairing symptomatic chondral knee defects, with standard arrangements in place for clinical governance, consent, and audit. The NICE currently expects to publish final guidance in September 2024. Once the NICE has published final guidance, National Health Service organisations will be expected to take it fully into account, but the guidance does not override the individual responsibility of healthcare professionals to make decisions appropriate to the circumstances of the individual patient.