To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the advice given by healthcare practitioners to patients with knee osteoarthritis.
Answered on
24 July 2014
No assessment has been made of the advice given by healthcare practitioners to patients with knee osteoarthritis. In 2008, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) published ‘Osteoarthritis: the care and management in adults’, which sets out best practice on the diagnosis treatment, care and support of patients with this condition, including patients suffering from osteoarthritis of the knee.
Healthcare practitioners in the National Health Service are expected to take NICE clinical guidelines fully into account when exercising their clinical judgement. However, the guidance does not replace the knowledge and expertise of practitioners, who should make decisions on a case by case basis, taking into account the individual circumstances of each patient.
The NICE Osteoarthritis clinical guideline was updated and replaced in February 2014 and can be found on the NICE website at the following link:
www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg177/resources/guidance-osteoarthritis-pdf.