To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to his Answer of 11 March 2003, Official Report, column 246W, on private health schemes, what procedures are in place to monitor national health service trusts and primary care trusts to ensure that the offering of private patient services is not interfering with the performance by a trust of its functions or of its obligations under NHS contracts. [104053]

Strategic health authorities are responsible for the performance management of national health service trusts and primary care trusts. It is, however, primarily for those trusts themselves to establish arrangements to monitor and review the appropriateness of their private patient provision.