Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much Monitor spent in 2013-14 on supporting NHS trusts in relation to the competition aspects of mergers and acquisitions; how much Monitor intends to so spend in 2014-15; which trusts have received such support to date; and which trusts he anticipates will require such support in 2014-15.

The information requested is not available. Such expenditure is not disaggregated in Monitor's internal report systems.

Monitor provides informal advice to organisations considering mergers on a confidential basis and Monitor is therefore unable to provide a list of trusts that have received support. However I can state that in 2013-14 Monitor provided advice relating to mergers to 21 Trusts.

Monitor's statutory advice to the Competition and Markets Authority on merger transactions is published on its website:

www.gov.uk/government/organisations/monitor

It is not possible for Monitor to predict how many trusts will require such support in future.