HL Deb 14 September 2001 vol 627 cc15-6WA
Lord Jacobs

asked Her Majesty's Government:

How the cost of the following operation in the United Kingdom National Health Service compares with the costs in France shown in brackets, as reported in The Sunday Times on 22 July:

  1. (a) cataract removal (£1,000);
  2. (b) heart bypass (£7,000);
  3. (c) hernia operation (£1,000); and
  4. (d) knee replacement (£4,000). [HL620]

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath

The costs within the National Health Service compare favourably with those quoted in the article. The following list shows the straightforward comparison, based on the definitions used in the NHS.

NHS Article
(a) cataract removal (day cases) £568 £1,000
(b) coronary bypass £4,956 £7,000
(c) hernia operation £809 £1,000
(d) knee replacement £4,390 £4,000

In addition the following points should be noted for the figures supplied on the costs within the NHS:

  1. (i) the NHS costs are the full costs of the NHS service, including ward and nursing costs etc. associated with the inpatient or day case stay and not just the costs of the surgery itself, except for any stay in critical care;
  2. (ii) the average cost of a stay in a coronary care (intensive) care ward is £388 per day and the length of stay in critical care will be dependent on the individual patient;
  3. (iii) any ongoing physiotherapy etc. undertaken after the surgery on an outpatient basis is not included;
  4. (iv) the day case cost is quoted for cataract surgery as the majority of this type of surgery is undertaken as day cases (81 per cent in 1999–2000);
  5. (v) any costs associated with outpatient attendances before and after surgery are separately identified. This is standard practice across the NHS and allows comparison with the private sector, which charges for each element separately.

Source: Reference Costs 2000 (published November 2000 by Department of Health).