(2) what recent assessment he has made of effect of changes to the national tariff on the financial position of specialist orthopaedic centres.
There are no plans to revise the 2009-10 national tariff for specialised orthopaedic treatments.
Analysis of the impact of the changes to the tariff, using historical activity data and national assumptions, was undertaken centrally at several stages of tariff development and calculation. With the release of the final tariff for 2009-10, organisations are able to undertake their own impact analysis using locally available up-to-date activity data.