Request

Under the Freedom of Information Act, I would like to request the following information regarding the S2 funding route (or Planned Treatment Scheme).

1) The countries that patients granted S2 funding route applications travelled to for treatment, tabulated by financial year since 2010, up to the most recent full financial year, ending 05 April 2025. Please provide the number of patients who travelled to each country in each financial year. For instance:

2016-17: Lithuania - 17, France - 7
2017-18: Lithuania - 13, Belgium - 6

If you cannot provide the number of patients, please instead provide the number of successful claims received in each country.

2) A breakdown of how much the NHS paid to each country where successful S2 claims were made, and the total annual spend on successful S2 applications, tabulated by financial year since 2010, up to the most recent full financial year, ending 05 April 2025.

Please also confirm if the amounts represent spend on S2 applications by the NHS across the UK (ie all four nations), or specific devolved NHS services (ie NHS England only). If this cost data is segregated by nation, please provide the annual totals spent by each NHS service (ie NHS England, NHS Scotland, NHS Wales, and Health and Social Care in Northern Ireland) over the same period (from 2010 to the most recent full financial year, ending 05 April 2025).

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) received your request on Thursday 29 May 2025

We have handled your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).

Our response

I can confirm that the NHSBSA holds the information you have requested and a copy of the information and notes explaining it is attached.

Please read the below notes to ensure correct understanding of the data.

Notes relating to Question 1

We are unable to provide the number of patients with issued S2 entitlements, who travelled to receive a treatment in Member States. Therefore, we have provided the number of claims we have received from Member States, which we have approved for payment.  

The figures show the number of claims in a financial year based on the treatment start date reported to us by the member state. 

We have included the number of approved claims under S2 and E112, which is an entitlement issued before the S2. 

EEA regulations state healthcare authorities can return/reject a claim for reasons such as the claim is incomplete or there are concerns, the treatment has been provided outside the validity period of the entitlement. This may result in a decrease of the presented figures when reviewed back through the years allowing for the entitlements to be validated. 

The healthcare authorities in the Member States have several years to make a claim after treatment was received, therefore the figures may change in future, particularly for recent years. 

Notes relating to Question 2

The NHSBSA only processes claims. The approved claims are then forwarded to DHSC for a payment to be made. Therefore, we have provided figures, which show the amount of approved claims for each Member State for the financial year. 

The financial years are based on the date when the claim was approved for payment. 

We have included amounts of approved claims for S2 entitlements, including E112, which was an entitlement type issued before S2. 

The claims are received in local currencies of the Member States where the treatment was received. 

The amounts represent approved claims for S2 applications across the UK.  

Lithuania changed currency on 1st January 2015 from Lithuanian Litas to Euros.  

Croatia changed currency on 1st January 2023 from Croatian Kuna to Euro. 

EEA regulations state healthcare authorities can return/reject a claim for reasons such as the claim is incomplete or there are concerns, the treatment has been provided outside the validity period of the entitlement. This may result in a change of the presented figures when reviewed back through the years allowing for the entitlements to be validated. 

Publishing this response

Please note that this information will be published on our Freedom of Information disclosure log at:

https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/foimoved from the published response.

Data Queries

Please contact foirequests@nhsbsa.nhs.uk ensuring you quote the above reference if you have any specific questions regarding this response; or, if you feel you may be misunderstanding or misinterpreting the information; or, if you plan on publishing the data.

Reusing the data and copyright

If you plan on producing a press or broadcast story based upon the data please contact communicationsteam@nhsbsa.nhs.uk. This is important to ensure that the figures are not misunderstood or misrepresented.

The information supplied to you continues to be protected by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and is subject to NHSBSA copyright. This information is licenced under the terms of the Open Government Licence detailed at:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/versionfollowing statement: “NHSBSA Copyright 2025”. Failure to do so is a breach of the terms of the licence.

Information you receive which is not subject to NHSBSA Copyright continues to be protected by the copyright of the person, or organisation, from which the information originated. Please obtain their permission before reproducing any third party (non NHSBSA Copyright) information.