Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether NHS bodies are permitted to award contracts in which the contractor's remuneration is linked to reductions in patient care expenditure.

National Health Service bodies are permitted to award contracts in which the contractor's remuneration is linked to reductions in patient care expenditure. NHS bodies, which are the contracting authority, design their procurements in a way that is both commercially and legally compliant, delivering the required patient outcomes, and ensuring maximum value for money. They often encourage bidders to propose innovative ways in which the contracts can be delivered, and these may also seek to include proposals for risk/gain sharing, or performance targets/incentive payments linked to delivery ahead of schedule which should also see a reduction in overall costs of patient care and better patient outcomes.