To ask the Minister of Health to detail the number of people diagnosed with any form of arthritis in each of the last five years, broken down by Health and Social Care Trust.

The information is not available as requested. Rheumatoid arthritis is one of the disease registers in the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF), the purpose of which is to reward General Medical Service’s contractors for the provision of quality care. The rheumatoid arthritis register contains the number of people aged 16 and over diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis.

QOF disease prevalence data is published annually. Information for the last 5 years broken down by Local Commissioning Group (which equates geographically to HSC Trusts) is available at the following link: https://www.health-ni.gov.uk/articles/prevalence-statistics.