Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the annual cost to the NHS of undiagnosed conditions and conditions picked up while in hospital.

No estimate has been made of the annual cost to the NHS of undiagnosed conditions.

Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) record details of all admissions, outpatient appointments and Accident and Emergency attendances at NHS hospitals in England. However, the HES diagnosis code(s) used to describe the reason(s) a person is in hospital does not differentiate between a pre-existing condition and a condition being diagnosed for the first time. Therefore, no estimate can be made of the cost of conditions being picked up in hospital.