Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what guidance his Department provides to integrated care boards on costs that may be excluded from costs associated with a self-funded course of treatment.

Where a patient opts to pay for private care, their entitlement to National Health Services remains and may not be withdrawn. However, the NHS should not subsidise private care. Therefore, it is important that there is as clear a distinction as possible between private care and NHS-funded care.

In 2009, the Department published guidance on NHS patients who wish to pay for additional private care, setting out the interaction between NHS care and private care. Local systems are expected to uphold this when caring for patients who have used private healthcare, including self-paying for their care.