Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment his Department has made of the potential effect of the removal of the interventional radiology best practice tariff from the 2016-17 tariff proposals on (a) the number of lower limb amputations associated with diabetes and peripheral arterial disease and (b) patient access to uterine fibroid embolisation.

Proposed changes to the national tariff are subject to impact assessment. Monitor has published an initial analysis of the impact of the draft 2016/17 price relativities ‘Impact assessment 2016/17 national tariff proposals: Currency design and relative prices’. A copy of this is attached.

A more comprehensive impact assessment will be published by Monitor alongside the statutory consultation on proposals for the 2016/17 national tariff.