Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the real terms budget of NHS Protect was in each of the last five years.

Spending on NHS Protect does not represent the total spend on anti-fraud activity across the Department of Health group. In November 2014 the Department created a DH Anti-fraud unit which is responsible for developing, implementing and reviewing the group wide anti-fraud strategy.

Further investment of £5.87m has been made to tackle prescription charge evasion and dental contractor losses in 2014/15 and 2015/16.

NHS England, Clinical Commissioning Groups and NHS providers also invest in anti-fraud activity to tackle fraud that can be dealt with locally.

The real terms spending on anti-fraud activity by NHS Protect is shown in the following table: