To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to the answer of 6 May 2009, Official Report, column 208W, on NHS treatment centres: private sector, by what mechanisms his Department assesses the comparative cost-effectiveness of independent sector treatment centres. (275272)

The mechanism used to assess the comparative cost-effectiveness of independent sector treatment centres (ISTCs) is a Value for Money analysis performed during the procurement of all Wave One and Phase Two ISTC contracts.

In evidence to the Health Select Committee in 2006, the Department stated that: Value for Money (VfM) in the ISTC programme comprises two key components: the cost of the programme compared to the "NHS equivalent cost"; and the value of the additional benefits brought by the IS programmes.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health what methodology his Department used to make the estimate that operations carried out by independent sector treatment centres cost on average 11 per cent. more than operations in NHS hospitals. (275273)

The figure of 11.2 per cent., provided in evidence by the Department to the Health Select Committee in 2006, was a calculation of the average premium for operational Wave One schemes derived by comparing contracted independent sector treatment centre provider prices against an estimated national health service equivalent cost.