23 April 2004
Health Secretary John Reid this week sought to give fresh impetus to the independent sector treatment initiative with the announcement of the first major contracts for UK-based providers.
Capio Healthcare UK and the not-for-profit Nuffield Hospitals will provide almost 25,000 elective operations for NHS patients under one-year contracts. Work will begin next month and Reid hopes the deals will help cut waiting lists in areas where the NHS is short of capacity.
Around 70% of the work will be orthopaedic operations, where waiting times are often the longest.
The announcement is a much-needed boost to the scheme that aims to treat thousands of NHS patients in private hospitals. Last week the Department of Health deselected Anglo-Canadian as the preferred provider for three fast-track surgery centres in London and in February Mercury Health withdrew as preferred bidder for a chain of ten centres. Capio has since taken Mercury's place.
When contracts for the first wave of Independent Sector Treatment Centres were announced last September, no major deal was awarded to UK-based firms. It is believed that the department felt their prices were too high and was worried that UK firms would poach NHS staff.
This week Reid said this tactic had produced results – the cost of operations and associated care under the Capio and Nuffield deals would be the same as NHS tariffs.
'The department's tough negotiation with independent companies on a planned, national level has allowed us to drive down costs for the NHS,' he said. 'I'm encouraged to see that UK providers can offer well-priced bids, competitive with overseas providers. I understand there was some disappointment that UK providers did not secure treatment centre contracts last time, and am pleased that radical steps have been taken to reduce prices.'
The department insisted the extra staff would not come from the NHS but from independent hospitals in England, Sweden, Ireland and other parts of Europe.
Unison said a twin-track approach was needed to cut waiting lists – using spare capacity in the private sector in the short term while building health service capacity so non-NHS providers would not be needed in the longer term.
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