Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent discussions he has had with (a) NHS bodies and (b) patients' groups on the effectiveness of the NHS Choose and Book service.

My Rt hon Friend the Secretary of State has regular meetings with both National Health Service bodies and patient groups in which a number of different issues are discussed.

In addition to these conversations, teams within the Health and Social Care Information Centre have carried out extensive conversations on both the effectiveness of Choose and Book and the vision for the new NHS e-Referral Service.

Between September 2013 and 31 August 2014, a total of almost 5,000 users representing almost 500 different NHS and independent organisations have taken part in stakeholder engagement events about Choose and Book.