Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps is taking to help ensure that the NHS tariff price for ear wax removal is affordable.

The national tariff is a set of prices and rules used by providers of National Health Service care and commissioners to deliver the most efficient, cost effective care to patients. To ensure tariffs are affordable, all NHS England and NHS Improvement prices are reviewed by stakeholders and clinicians to ensure that they are correct and relative to one another and that they reflect the differential amount of resource needed for different treatments or procedures. Their prices are set in reference to data sent from NHS trusts and then adjusted for efficiency and inflationary factors, and to fit within the envelope of funding available to nationally priced activity.