Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 14 July 2014 to Question 204136, from the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West, if he will estimate the likely cost to the NHS of specialist eating disorder clinics in (a) 2013-14 and (b) 2014-15.

NHS England is responsible for the commissioning of specialist eating disorder services and has provided the following estimate of cost to the NHS of specialist eating disorder services in 2013-14 and 2014-15:

Notes:

1. These costs relate to funding of the service that NHS England is solely responsible for and not the whole eating disorder pathway that will also include clinical commissioning group services. These financial values will include inpatient and outpatient services.
2. These figures are indicative as the 2014-15 financial year is still to be completed.
3. It is not possible to estimate the future cost of specialist eating disorder clinics based on the historic ‘reference cost’ data used in the reply to Question 204136. Reference costs are the average unit cost to National Health Service trusts and foundation trusts of providing defined services in a given financial year to NHS patients.
4. The estimates from NHS England include both NHS service direct costs and independent sector services, and as such are not directly comparable with the reference costs.