Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 5 September 2014, Official Report, column 391W, on radiotherapy, when hospitals with contractual arrangements with NHS England are instructed by NHS England to treat patients presenting as clinically urgent at the hospital's own financial risk while NHS England decides whether to fund the patient, what guidelines are in place for those hospitals which have followed that instruction on receiving reimbursement for such expenditure if NHS England subsequently refuses to fund the treatment.

University College London Hospital (UCLH) located in Queen’s Square does not provide gamma knife services. However, an independent provider called Queen’s Square Radiotherapy Centre Limited based at a site in Queen’s Square owned by ULCH does. Individual funding requests are, therefore, submitted by Queen’s Square Radiotherapy Centre Limited.

NHS England became responsible for commissioning radiotherapy services on 1 April 2013 and has no record of University Hospital College London notifying commissioners that it was a provider of this service.

Where contractual arrangements exist between NHS England and the hospital providing treatment, all patients will be treated in accordance with the prescribed clinical pathways and in line with those contractual agreements. It is only where providers treat outside the required contractual agreements that they do so at their own financial risk. However, as NHS England commissions gamma knife services, and we understand there is no waiting list, it is highly unlikely that the clinically urgent situation described in the question would arise.