Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the cost to the public purse was of outsourcing radiology scans to external teleradiology companies in each of the last five years.

From the years 2018/19 to 2022/23, the National Health Service spent £1,096,083,822 on outsourcing radiology scans. Over this five-year period, 18 million outsourced radiology scans were provided, representing 7.9% of the total cost of all imaging services during this time.

The outsourcing of teleradiology scans by the NHS is used to help deliver targets on diagnostic waiting times and activity, including the diagnosis of illnesses such as cancer. Outsourcing allows the NHS to maintain important diagnostic activity whilst the Government continues to invest into building up diagnostic capacity, including through an increased number of community diagnostic centres. The following table shows the cost of outsourcing radiology scans to external teleradiology companies each year from 2018/19 to 2022/23 and in total, as well as the number of activities outsourced: