§ .Dr Mawhinneyasked the Secretary of State for Social Services based on the most recent summary of accounts for hospital authorities in England, if he will list the firms who supply 90 per cent. or above of any particular products to the National Health Service and specify for each firm which product or products they supply.
§ Mr. Kenneth ClarkeA full list of firms and products is not readily available and could be obtained only by exhaustive enquiries of every Health Authority. I would expect there to be very few instances where individual companies supply 90 per cent. or more of the NHS market. At our request, the Health Service Supply Council is pursuing policies to encourage greater competition among suppliers with a view to achieving better value for money.