Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the relationship between cost savings to the NHS and improved patient safety; and if he will make a statement.

The Department commissioned Frontier Economics to investigate the costs of unsafe care in the National Health Service. The final report, Exploring the cost of unsafe care in the NHS suggests that the costs of preventable, adverse events is likely to be more than £1 billion per year, but could be up to £2.5 billion annually. The report, which was published on 16 October, is available at:

http://www.frontier-economics.com/publications/exploring-the-costs-of-unsafe-care-in-the-nhs/

The Sign up to Safety campaign launched in June is now working with healthcare organisations to make the NHS one of the safest healthcare systems in the world and contribute to the goal to halve avoidable harm and save 6,000 lives over the next three years.

It is difficult to disaggregate direct cash releasing savings from this evidence which must take into account the upfront costs of investing in safer care.