Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many requests for advice on competition related issues Monitor received from each (a) NHS trust and (b) foundation trust in 2013-14.

Monitor receives a variety of requests for support from stakeholders including National Health Service trusts and foundation trusts. These include requests for advice and support on issues including commissioning, the development of integrated care models and service reconfiguration. It is not possible to determine which of these requests are ‘competition related' as they represent a wide variety of issues and scenarios. In 2013-14, Monitor's Co-operation and Competition Directorate had 12 general requests for advice from NHS trusts and 23 general requests for advice from NHS foundation trusts.