Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the rate of NHS-specific inflation in each of the last five financial years.

The Department publishes an index; the Health Service Cost Index (HSCI), using information available to measure the price change for each of 41 sub-indices of goods and services purchased by the Hospital and Community Health Services sectors. The sub-indices are weighted together according to the proportion of total expenditure which they represent, to give the overall HSCI value.

The following table shows the growth over the past five years.

Due to resourcing and data issues we now publish the data quarterly, previously it was monthly. When published quarterly the data sources used are incomplete and require estimation. We have no method of testing whether the data we receive is correct. We are currently consulting to drop the index. A more appropriate, tailored measure for the National Health Service is being developed by the Carter team.