NHS Waiting Lists

HC Deb 11 March 2002 vol 381 c807W

Ms Drown

To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment he has made of a correlation between NHS waiting lists and consultants' income from private patients. [34664]

Mr. Hutton

I apologise to my hon. Friend for the delay in responding to this question. I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State gave my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble) on 5 March 2002,Official Report, column 192W.

From the small number of studies related to this issue no conclusions either way can be drawn from the current evidence on any correlation between NHS waiting lists and consultants' income from private patients.