Asked by: Baroness Wheeler (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the number of lives saved as a result of measures in the National Stroke Strategy.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
No such assessment has been made.
Asked by: Baroness Wheeler (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what funding was allocated by the Department of Health to the Act FAST campaign in 2014–15 and 2015–16.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
Public Health England took over all the public health campaigns formerly run by the Department of Health on 1 April 2013 including Act FAST.
The funding allocated to the Act FAST marketing campaign is as follows:
Table: Act FAST campaign funding
Financial Year | Media Spend |
2014-15 | £850,000 |
2015-16 | £940,000 |
Marketing spend is defined for this purpose as advertising spend covering only the media costs (inclusive of agency commission). | |||
These figures do not include recruitment/classified advertising costs and ad hoc spend under £10,000. All figures rounded to the nearest £10,000. | |||
Asked by: Baroness Wheeler (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the average profit margin projected by private sector providers in contracts for NHS-funded services; and what is the average margin of profits actually made.
Answered by Earl Howe - Deputy Leader of the House of Lords
The Department does not hold this information centrally.
Asked by: Baroness Wheeler (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what mechanisms are in place to prevent private sector providers making excess profits in contracts for NHS-funded services.
Answered by Earl Howe - Deputy Leader of the House of Lords
The Government has always been committed to minimising scope for some providers to earn excess profits by treating less complex and cheaper cases: so-called “cherry picking”.
Prices payable to providers, under the National Tariff, would take account of the patients they treat and the range of services they offer to ensure a fair level of pay for providers. As a result, providers undertaking only the more simple interventions would be paid a suitably lower price.
Asked by: Baroness Wheeler (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the consultation on the NHS National Tariff Payment System 2015–16, what steps they have taken and are planning to take to ensure that health providers treating complex patients are not under-reimbursed by the payment by results system; and whether a more cost-reflective tariff system will be implemented in 2015–16.
Answered by Earl Howe - Deputy Leader of the House of Lords
Following the outcome of the consultation on the 2015/16 National Tariff Payment System, Monitor has to decide whether to refer the matter to the Competition and Markets Authority or develop further proposals on which to re-consult. In deciding on the way forward, Monitor will carefully consider responses received through the consultation. However, this process, and resolution under either option, will take time, which means that a new tariff will not be in place by 1 April 2015.
On 18 February 2015, NHS England and Monitor wrote to providers of National Health Service-funded care to offer the choice of an enhanced alternative, the Enhanced Tariff Option (ETO), for 2015/16, which involves a set of local variations under the 2014/15 national tariff rules. If adopted by the whole sector, it would be worth around £500 million more to providers than the 2015/16 tariff proposals consulted on last year. A copy of the letter is attached. The ETO includes a change to the proposed acute specialised services gain and loss share rule, whereby providers of specialised services will retain 70% of the value of any over-performance against baseline, rather than 50%. The list of providers who chose this alternative is attached. Those who have not accepted the ETO will remain on 2014/15 tariff arrangements in the interim.
For future years’ tariffs NHS England and Monitor are considering the use of a more recent version of the Healthcare Resource Group currency as the basis for setting national prices, known as HRG4+. This currency is designed to better reflect the differences in the costs of treating routine (typically non-specialised) and complex (typically specialised) patients. NHS England and Monitor will begin engagement on future plans with the sector shortly.
Asked by: Baroness Wheeler (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the planned consultation highlighted in Monitor's publication "The new NHS provider licence", what plans they have to implement the risk pool levy in order to ensure the continuity of commissioner-requested services in the event of provider failure; and whether such a levy system will be implemented in 2015–16.
Answered by Earl Howe - Deputy Leader of the House of Lords
There are currently no plans to implement the risk pool or risk pool levy in 2015 or later. The Department may review the implementation of a risk pool position at a later date once there is a better understanding of the Commissioner Requested Services market.
Asked by: Baroness Wheeler (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they have taken and are planning to take to prevent service providers in the National Health Service from targeting (1) lower-cost patients, and (2) more profitable services.
Answered by Earl Howe - Deputy Leader of the House of Lords
A provider of non-primary care services is contractually obliged, under the provisions of the NHS Standard Contract it has entered into with National Health Service commissioners, to provide the range of services commissioned under that contract. Once contracted to provide a service, the provider may not pick and choose to whom that service is provided.
Asked by: Baroness Wheeler (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what mechanisms are in place to prevent providers who bid for contracts for NHS-funded services bidding at a loss in order to undercut other providers.
Answered by Earl Howe - Deputy Leader of the House of Lords
The terms of each contract are decided by clinical commissioning groups, and by doing this they outline what they expect from each provider.
The Government is clear that where National Health Service commissioners decide to use competition this must always be as a means to improve the quality of NHS services and achieve best value, as opposed to being driven by price alone.