Will the Cabinet Secretary provide the number of patients treated over the border in 2014-15, 2015-16 and 2016-16, including a breakdown of the hospital that provided the treatment/operation, and what it was for?
The attached pdf shows the number of patient episodes for Welsh residents who were treated across the border, broken down by speciality and hospital for each of the last three years. Specialities where there are less than three patient episodes for every financial year have been excluded. A patient episode is the time a patient spends in the continuous care of one consultant (or GP acting as a consultant). Therefore the attached pdf does not show unique patients, which are shown in Table 1.
A number of Welsh residents are routinely referred to England for elective treatment where those services are not provided in Wales, including some specialised services. In addition, health boards in Wales, particularly those along the border, have contracts with providers in England for elective care. These are a small number of episodes compared to overall number of patients treated in Welsh hospitals which is shown in Table 2:
Table 1: Welsh patients treated in English hospitals
| Financial Year | Patients |
| 2014/15 | 35,569 |
| 2015/16 | 35,654 |
| 2016/17 | 36,040 |
Source: Patient Episode Database Wales, NHS Wales Informatics Service
Table 2: Number of patient episodes in Welsh hospitals
| Financial Year | Episodes |
| 2014/15 | 942,378 |
| 2015/16 | 914,983 |
Source: Patient Episode Database Wales, NHS Wales Informatics Service