Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government to what extent the scale and provision of NHS services are linked to individual treatment episodes in contracts for NHS services provided by private hospitals.

The majority of services provided by independent sector hospitals are charged per individual treatment episode, according to the prices set out in the NHS Payment Scheme. There are some independent sector providers who are re-imbursed on the basis of local prices for treatment episodes, usually where no national price is available or, very occasionally, local pricing may be based on a block payment or total packages of care.

Independent sector providers of healthcare services to integrated care boards or NHS England are procured under the terms of the Provider Selection Regime Regulations and are contracted using the NHS Standard Contract.