Written question asked by Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat) on Tuesday, 23 May 2000, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Tuesday, 6 June 2000. It was answered by Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston (Labour) on Tuesday, 6 June 2000 on behalf of the Department of Health.

Dept of Health

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the average cost is of sending externally a 1Mb message from an NHS organisation; if his Department has estimated the cost of sending externally a 1 Mb message from an NHS organisation using an alternate SMPT (Internet Mail) system. - Includes figure.

Answer: Mr. Edward Davey: To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what the average cost is of sending externally a 1Mb message from an NHS organisation; [124090] (2) if his Department has estimated the cost of sending externally a 1Mb message from an NHS organisation using an alternate SMPT Internet Mail system. [124091] Ms Stuart: From 1 April 1999 the full cost of messaging is now met directly by the National Health Service Information Authority and financed by money from health authority annual allocations. The current tariff and discount structure is negotiated centrally with the service providers and is based on overall volume of traffic, so that incremental costs per individual message are not calculated. The average cost per message at current use and discount rates is 1.2p.

Secondary information