Luciana Berger – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-05-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to ensure that the pricing rules set out in the national tariff guidance take into account the different costs bases of mental and physical healthcare.

Alistair Burt

NHS Improvement sets out local pricing rules in the national tariff which are designed to encourage commissioners and providers to set appropriate prices that reflect local conditions and priorities for services that do not have a national price. This includes mental health and community services.

NHS Improvement is leading the cost transformation programme which aims to improve the quality and use of patient-level cost information for all National Health Service funded services. This information will have local and national benefits from helping inform commissioner and provider decision making to setting prices and rules in the national tariff.

NHS Improvement has started the process for developing new costing standards for mental health and ambulance services. The draft costing standards for these services is expected to be published in 2017 and the final standards will be published in 2020.