Policy
England Rare Disease Action Plan, 2023 Iteration The UK government and devolved administrations published the UK Rare Diseases Framework in January 2021, setting out a shared vision for addressing health inequalities and improving the lives of people living with rare diseases across the UK.
The framework outlined 4 key national priorities: ⦁ Helping patients get a final diagnosis faster. ⦁ Increasing awareness among healthcare professionals. ⦁ Better co-ordination of care. ⦁ Improving access to specialist care, treatment and drugs. To turn this vision into action, each of the 4 UK nations has committed to developing nation-specific action plans detailing how these priorities will be addressed. On the 28th of February 2023 (Rare Disease Day), the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) released the 2023 iteration of the England Rare Disease Action Plan (ERDAP) which both reports against progress towards meeting the 16 actions laid out in the ERDAP for 2022, whilst introducing 13 new actions in response to stakeholder consultation throughout 2022.
Progress towards meeting the actions of 2022: The DHSC have made progress towards meeting the actions set out in the 2022 ERDAP and these achievements are shown in the infographic below:
