Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to NHS England's press release entitled Hundreds of thousands of NHS patients to be offered the chance to travel for treatment, published on 31 October 2023, if she will make an estimate of the number of patients that have been supported through the travel reimbursement scheme to access treatment further from home.

To support access to treatment at providers further afield, the Healthcare Travel Costs Scheme (HTCS) is available and, for those not eligible for the HTCS, NHS England has requested that integrated care boards make appropriate provision to support patients with travel where necessary. Information on the number of patients supported through the travel reimbursement scheme is not held centrally.