Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure that patients are not disadvantaged when accessing NHS care after accessing treatment privately due to a previous lack of NHS availability.

The General Medical Council (GMC) has published guidance on shared care agreements, which supports clinicians in deciding whether entering into a shared care agreement is appropriate for an individual patient. The GMC guidance is clear that shared care agreements are voluntary, and that a general practitioner cannot be mandated to enter a shared care agreement and may decline requests on clinical or capacity grounds.

If a shared care arrangement cannot be put in place after the treatment has been initiated, the responsibility for continued prescribing falls upon the specialist clinician, and this applies to both National Health Service and private medical care.

If a patient receives a treatment privately which subsequently becomes available on the NHS, they should discuss arrangements for transferring or sharing care with their NHS clinician.