Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much has been spent in England on NHS Continuing Healthcare in each of the last five years.

Primary care trusts held statutory responsibilities for NHS Continuing Healthcare until 31 March 2013 and the cost of funding such packages was not captured specifically in their audited accounts. From 2009, the Department collected information on the total cost of NHS Continuing Healthcare packages through a financial information management system1. The annual costs (England total) from that date were as follows:

2011/12 - £2,324,655,000

2012/13 - £2,762,532,000

From 1 April 2013, statutory responsibilities for NHS Continuing Healthcare transferred to clinical commissioning groups and to NHS England. The annual costs from that date (England total) are as follows:

2013/14 – £2,647,176,411

2014/15 – £2,824,041,529

2015/16 - £3,062,102,151

Note:

1 This is management information and is not audited for Departmental accounts.