§ Mr. Kirkwoodasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what plans he has to implement cross-boundary charging in England.
§ Mr. HayhoeI have no plans to do so. I welcome the experiments begun by a few health authorities in cross-boundary charging for certain specialist services. However costings systems are not yet sufficiently developed to support national arrangements; administrative costs could be heavy; and formal charging arrangements between health authorities for all their services might not be fully compatible with general practitioners' freedom to refer patients to the hospital consultant of their choice.
Existing resource allocation arrangements take account of patient flows across health authority boundaries in determining target allocations. This is one of the issues being examined in the review of the RAWP formula.