Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what monitoring his Department carries out of who is in receipt of funds allocated through the NHS Healthcare Travel Cost Scheme, and what oversight he has of how this money is spent.

The information on funding distributed to National Health Service trusts to deliver the NHS Healthcare Travel Cost Scheme (HTCS) is not held centrally as funding is included within NHS Trusts’ baselines. No central monitoring is undertaken on who is in receipt of funds allocated through HTCS, or on how the money is spent. The scheme is administered by the NHS locally.

As part of its review into non-emergency patient transport services (NEPTS), including HTCS, NHS England has developed a National Minimum Data Set to monitor provision of NEPTS, including elements of HTCS, at integrated care system (ICS) level.