Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they have taken and are planning to take to prevent service providers in the National Health Service from targeting (1) lower-cost patients, and (2) more profitable services.

A provider of non-primary care services is contractually obliged, under the provisions of the NHS Standard Contract it has entered into with National Health Service commissioners, to provide the range of services commissioned under that contract. Once contracted to provide a service, the provider may not pick and choose to whom that service is provided.