Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the annual cost of fraud in the NHS.

NHS Protect review and analyse information to indicate losses in specific areas of National Health Service spend, this enables targeted anti-fraud action to be undertaken in the areas most at risk. There is no overall comprehensive assessment of the annual cost of fraud to the NHS.

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. This unit will identify and prioritise new risks and co-ordinate the activity required to both reduce risk and further prevent financial loss.