Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many outpatients from Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin integrated care system (ICS) have been treated out of area by (a) other ICSs and (b) private providers in each year for which data is available.

The Government is committed to putting patients back at the heart of care. This includes supporting a patient’s right to choose, if they wish, where they go for their first appointment, including private providers holding contracts for National Health Services.

Information on the number of individual patients who have been treated out of area in the Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin Integrated Care System (ICS) is not held centrally. However, information on the number of outpatient appointments taking place outside of the ICS is available, although it should be noted that a patient may have had more than one outpatient appointment. The following table shows the combined outpatient activity in English NHS hospitals and English NHS commissioned activity in the independent sector, and the number and percentage of appointments made outside of the ICS, for each of the last three years:

Source: Hospital Episode Statistics, NHS England.