NHS: Private Sector
(asked on 27th February 2015) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he has taken to ensure that Ministers with financial interests in private health companies do not (a) make a profit from and (b) have influence over the award of NHS contracts to private healthcare companies.
NHS England and clinical commissioning groups, not Ministers, make decisions to award contracts to providers of NHS services. In doing so, they must ensure that they act proportionately, transparently, fairly and in the interest of patients, and that all potential conflicts of interest for those involved in awarding contracts are declared and managed appropriately at the outset of the process.
In May 2010, the Government published the Ministerial Code, which sets out the standards of conduct expected of Ministers and how they discharge their duties. Section 7 of this guidance specifies that “Ministers must ensure that no conflict arises, or could reasonably be perceived to arise, between their public duties and their private interests, financial or otherwise”.
A full list of ministerial interests is published online, and can be found at the following link: