Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if his Department will make an assessment of the potential financial benefits to the NHS of increasing the NHS Injury Cost Recovery tariff beyond the Hospital and Community Health Services inflation rate.

The Injury Cost Recovery scheme is a scheme in place for the recovery of treatment costs that applies to patients who subsequently go on to make a successful claim for personal injury compensation against a third party. Funds recovered come primarily from a third-party compensator or insurer.

The information requested is provided in the following table.

The Department recognises that treatment type and costs change and therefore we do keep the setting of the tariffs under close review. However, we believe the scheme currently strikes the right balance between risk and reward by having a simple to administer, low cost scheme that provides significant benefit for the National Health Service.

Over 90% of cases recovered fall within the current tariff cap. Whilst increasing the level of the cap may lead to increased recoveries, this is likely to be offset by increased administrative efforts and costs, for example with more cases becoming subject to legal challenge.

The Department’s most recent assessment of the impact associated with the scheme is available here:

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2018/141/memorandum/contents