Will the Cabinet Secretary outline how much each health board has spent in the last five financial years on commissioning independent or private organisations to provide health or social services?
Welsh Government does not collect information from health boards on their spending on commissioning independent or private organisations to provide health or social services.
The annual statutory accounts of the health boards do include their expenditure on healthcare from other providers, but this would not include social services spending, and only specifies expenditure with private providers.
These amounts are included annually in their accounts that are laid before the Assembly, and are re-provided in the table below:
|
Note 2.2 Expenditure on healthcare from other providers - Private Providers |
2012/13 |
2013/14 |
2014/15 |
2105/16 |
2016/17 |
|
|
£m |
£m |
£m |
£m |
£m |
|
Abertawe Bro Morgannwg |
1.785 |
0.693 |
1.366 |
5.562 |
8.155 |
|
Aneurin Bevan |
0.831 |
1.193 |
2.476 |
3.258 |
6.935 |
|
Betsi Cadwaladr |
1.183 |
0.504 |
0.193 |
1.416 |
5.177 |
|
Cardiff & Vale |
5.637 |
5.919 |
6.314 |
9.314 |
9.121 |
|
Cwm Taf |
0.786 |
0.926 |
0.852 |
4.661 |
7.667 |
|
WHSSC hosted by Cwm Taf |
22.438 |
21.105 |
24.251 |
20.023 |
22.758 |
|
Hywel Dda |
2.493 |
3.023 |
5.581 |
4.044 |
4.448 |
|
Powys |
0.181 |
2.05 |
2.229 |
1.827 |
1.793 |
|
Consolidation adjustments |
-1.533 |
-0.695 |
-0.247 |
-0.373 |
-0.155 |
|
|
33.801 |
34.718 |
43.015 |
49.732 |
65.899 |
Consolidation adjustments relate to technical accounting eliminations required for the preparation of the summarised account, where transactions arise between health boards.
The activities of the Welsh Health Specialised Services Committee (WHSSC) are disclosed within the accounts of Cwm Taf – its host Local Health Board – but shown separately in the table above. WHSSC is responsible for the joint planning of Specialised and Tertiary Services on behalf of Local Health Boards.
The note to the accounts requires disclosure of payments to private providers of health care such as private hospitals.
I expect NHS Wales to use the private sector for healthcare activity only when there is insufficient capacity in the NHS. The majority of activity should be within NHS Wales, or NHS England when appropriate.
Welsh Government does not require health boards to provide detailed information on their private provider spending. These amounts would include their expenditure with independent sector providers for additional capacity, but would not include payments to NHS Wales staff for additional waiting list work, or to English NHS providers. It is worth noting that expenditure on specialist services accounts for over a third of private patient activity. This includes services such as parenteral nutrition, specialist mental health services such as medium secure, as well as proton beam therapy.
It is worth noting that the equivalent expenditure on private providers by the English NHS in 2016-17 was over £ 9 billion. That equates to nearly eight times the spending by NHS Wales when adjusted using the Barnett formula.