Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate his Department has made of the potential savings to the public purse of directing people to self care for self-treatable conditions.

No specific assessment has been made. However, there is a growing body of evidence for the benefits of self-care both in improved patient outcomes and reductions in demand on the National Health Service. ‘Self-care’ covers a broad spectrum of interventions and is defined in different ways in different situations.