Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the potential savings that self care for self-treatable conditions can achieve in (a) general practice and (b) A&E.

There is a growing body of evidence for the benefits of self-care both in improved patient outcomes and reductions in demand on the National Health Service. ‘Self-care’ covers a broad spectrum of interventions and is defined in different ways in different situations. We do not hold national data on the potential savings linked directly to self-care.