Nick is a member of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Epilepsy. In his work with the group Nick investigated the human and economic cost of epilepsy in England. Along with the Joint Epilepsy Council the Group produced a report, which highlighted the fact that over £189 million is spent needlessly every year whilst there are 74,000 people taking drugs they do not need resulting in 400 avoidable deaths each year.

Nick speaking in the House of Commons

The APPG recommends a number of actions that can be taken to improve epilepsy services in England. The three key recommendations are:

1. that the government urgently puts in place a programme to increase the number of neurologists and other clinicians to levels recommended by the Royal College of General Practitioners.
2. that the Healthcare Commission carries out, as a matter of urgency, an Improvement Review into the state of epilepsy services to formally asses the state of epilepsy services in individual healthcare organisations and develop an action plan to improve services where these are shown to be failing people with epilepsy.
3. that the Health Select Committee considers an Inquiry into the provision of health services for people with epilepsy in England and require the government to formally account for decades of under investment in this neglected condition.

In addition to Nick work with the APPG on Epilepsy Nick has tabled Parliamentary Questions to ensure epilepsy care remains on the agenda.

A full copy of the report by the All Party Group on Epilepsy can be found at: http://www.epilepsynse.org.uk/pages/pdf/wasted_money_wasted_lives.pdf