Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to the Answer of 28 November 2012 to Question 129969 and pursuant to the Answer of 17 November 2014 to Question 213610, what the reason is for the different figures for the number of people eligible for £25,000 top-ups to their Skipton Fund lump sum payments; and what steps his Department took to contact those people to inform them of their eligibility.

The figure of 901 quoted in the Answer of 28 November 2012 to Question 129969 was an estimate provided by the Skipton Fund. Similarly, the eligibility figure of 886 quoted in the Answer of 17 November 2014 to Question 213610 is the Skipton Fund’s current estimate. The difference between the two estimates has arisen because it took some time for the Skipton Fund to update its processes when the stage 2 payment was increased from £25,000 to £50,000 in January 2011. As a result, some new stage 2 recipients received two payments of £25,000, rather than one payment of £50,000. Those individuals were also included in the estimate of 901.

The changes to the scheme were advertised on the Skipton Fund website and everybody who registered a telephone number with the Fund was telephoned on multiple occasions. An email was sent to everybody who registered an email address with the Fund. For anybody still not found using telephone numbers and/or email addresses a letter was sent to the doctor who completed their stage 2 application form.