HC Deb 15 January 2003 vol 397 cc683-4W
Lynne Jones

To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the present annual cost is to the NHS of recurrent services provided by the private sector; what his estimate is of the likely cost over the next three years; and what proportion of total NHS spending this represents. [90040]

Mr. Hutton

Data are not held centrally on all service contracts held by national health service bodies with private sector organisations and could be collected only at disproportionate cost. Information is available centrally on private finance initiative (PFI) schemes and spending on healthcare provided by non-NHS bodies.

Data on the revenue consequences of NHS PFI schemes, for example estimated payments to the private sector under signed PFI contracts, is provided each year to the Health Select Committee of the House and to the Office of Government Commerce for their biannual returns to Parliament on PFI transactions contained in the budget report. Outturn figures for the last closed financial year (2001–02) and estimated payments for the following three years are in the table:

Payments (£000) As a proportion of total NHS revenue expenditure1(%)
2001–02 221,334 0.5
2002–03 314,613 0.6
2003–04 405,303 0.7
2004–05 419,465 0.7
12001–02 as measured on Stage 1 Resource Budgeting basis.
2002–03 onwards on Stage 2 Resource Budgeting basis.

In 2001–02 (the latest year for which information is available), NHS trusts, primary care trusts and health authorities in England spent approximately £1.8 billion on the purchase of health care from non-NHS bodies. This figure includes expenditure on services provided by all non-NHS bodies, including local authorities and other statutory bodies, as well as private healthcare providers, and cannot be broken down by type of provider. This represents around 3.8 per cent. of total NHS revenue expenditure. We have not estimated the level of equivalent spending in future years.