29 July 2005
The head of the government body set up to encourage private investment in primary care trust accommodation has confirmed that the government is 'pushing' the initiative as a way of increasing private delivery of clinical services.
Speaking to Public Finance, Brian Johns, chief executive officer at Partnerships for Health, said the scope of Local Improvement Finance Trusts, intended to provide facilities such as GP surgeries, will be expanded.
'There is already a capability for Lift companies to procure clinical services, and indeed other services, on behalf of their participants. The take-up to date in clinical services has been low [but now] the Department of Health is encouraging and actually asking us to push that possibility for the fourth wave of Lift projects. They are emphasising the possibility of Lift companies procuring services for their PCTs in the long term.'
Johns' comments, made at a 4Ps conference on the Lift programme on July 26, will dismay many NHS professionals. They are unhappy with the move, as it threatens to tie PCTs into 20-year 'exclusivity' deals in which private Lifts are granted exclusive rights to provide stipulated services.
Such exclusivity conflicts, they say, with the DoH's expressed intentions to inject 'contestability' into service provision.
However, the National Audit Office's report on Lift arrangements published in May said these 20-year deals were value for money. Much of this assessment is based on a 'benchmarking' facility that PF has now been told does not happen in practice.
Mark Thomas, health policy officer at Unison, told PF: 'To the extent that benchmarking is going on, it's the Lift companies themselves that are doing it.'
Rob Hann, director of legal and joint services at 4Ps, admitted that the benchmarking facility was at present only 'theoretical' and was 'difficult to deliver in practice'.
Sue Slipman, director of the Foundation Trust Network, said: 'It's very strange to have this arrangement when what you want is more contestability in the system. So if the exclusive component applies to clinical services, that's clearly something that ought to be looked at again because it goes against the grain of government intention.'
The current, fourth wave of Lift projects covers nine PCTs, including two in the Midlands, south-east Essex, Kensington and Chelsea and Rochdale.
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