Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 12 March 2019 to Question 229815 on Tomography: Procurement, through what methods NHS England drew attention to the public engagement process to test the phase II procurement approach for PET-CT scanning services.

NHS England completed a 30 day public engagement about the Phase II procurement proposals between January – February 2016. This was publicised on both NHS England’s website and its Engage portal. Further details of public engagement can be found at the following link:

https://www.engage.england.nhs.uk/survey/pet-ct-services/

This was a public engagement exercise open to all stakeholders, including patients and members of the public. There were three webinars held as well as focus groups to further inform this engagement process. All of the relevant Clinical Reference Group registered stakeholders were notified of the engagement process via email.

The feedback received as part of this public engagement process led to further work being undertaken in 2016 on the procurement approach, before a public engagement report was published in 2017. There was no subsequent public engagement while the procurement process was underway, as this could have affected or been seen to affect the impartiality of the process. The Government and NHS England are committed to ensuring that the public are involved in decision making and where new service proposals would result in substantial development or variation, such as location change, further public involvement activities will be undertaken.

NHS England has secured, on average, approximately 10% savings on the national cost of PET-CT provision as a result of procurement activity. Alongside this, the National Health Service has benefited from significant investment in new equipment and scanning locations.