Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if the Government will introduce legislative proposals to allow the NHS to recoup the cost of treating patients who are admitted from private hospitals.

National Health Service patients should expect to receive the same safe, high quality standards of care, wherever they are treated.

When things go wrong, commissioners can hold private providers to account through the NHS Standard Contract, which can involve financial sanctions, or the termination of contracts where service improvements are not made. The NHS Standard Contract already places a duty of candour on providers of NHS services, including private providers. From next year, we will implement a legal duty of candour through regulations that will mean private hospitals are legally required to report and apologise for mistakes, increasing transparency for patients and families.