Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the potential financial effect of NHS healthcare trusts failing to properly record data on outpatient procedures.

The information is not collected centrally, therefore no assessment has been made.

The Audit Commission published a report in April 2012, By definition - Improving data definitions and their use by the NHS. The report identified that the decision as to whether activity should be recorded (and paid) as an inpatient or outpatient is often down to local discretion, yet its impact on finances can be considerable.