Question reference: S6W-23165
- Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
- Date lodged: 7 December 2023
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Current status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 21 December 2023
Question
To ask the Scottish Government what its assessment is of (a) any financial impact of NHS Scotland’s individual NHS boards referring patients to NHS England for magnetic resonance-guided focused ultrasound (MRgFUS) treatment, (b) whether individual NHS England trusts have the adequate resources to allow proper access by patients from Scotland to MRgFUS treatment in light of this cross-border referral system and (c) how much NHS Scotland has spent on referring patients from Scotland for MRgFUS treatment in England in each year since 2019.
Answer
A small service offering MRgFUS for benign Essential Tremor is available in NHS Tayside, to which people who live within the catchment area of other Scottish health boards can be referred for assessment and potential treatment. While the service in Dundee remains small, we understand it has capacity to increase the number of accepted patients if necessary.
For this reason the Scottish Government has not undertaken any assessment of any potential financial impact of referring patients to NHS England for MRgFUS, or of NHS England resources regarding MRgFUS.
The Scottish Government does not hold information on whether NHS Scotland Health Boards have spent any money referring patients to England for MRgFUS treatment since 2019. Specialist treatment provided outwith NHS Scotland is managed by the National Services Division (NSD) as part of NHS National Services Scotland (NSS). We can confirm that NSD Scotland has not incurred any costs associated with MRgFUS referrals since 2019.