Today we reach another milestone towards realising a national plan for rare diseases in the UK as the UK’s four health departments publish their summary of responses to the public consultation.

This document summarises the responses that were submitted as part of the public consultation process which closed at the end of May earlier this year. This is not the final plan, but nevertheless it represents another step forward towards the final rare disease plan, which we hope to be published early next year.

The summary of responses can be viewed here: http://www.dh.gov.uk/health/2012/11/response-rare-disease/

RDUK will be analysing the health departments’ summary to ensure that it does adequately reflect the views of the rare disease stakeholder community and we will be making representations to each health department accordingly.

As we are a Rare Disease UK Partner, we took part by responding to the questions that were sent to us by Rare Disease UK in order that they could be submitted.