14 October 2005
The private sector will carry out more than 18% of operations to NHS patients by 2008, a report by the authoritative health market analysts Laing & Buisson has estimated.
The figure far exceeds the Department of Health's contention that the private sector would ultimately account for no more than 15% of NHS elective treatment.
The Laing & Buisson figure - included in its report Laing's healthcare market review 2005-2006 - is based on the accumulated volumes the DoH is purchasing through block contracts and the new private treatment centres, and estimates of NHS patients who will who will opt to be treated by the private sector once given the choice in 2008.
Using DoH data, the report reveals that, even without Patient Choice, the NHS is on track to contract out 680,000 operations a year by 2008 - almost 16% of current NHS elective surgery.
Laing & Buisson estimates that once Patient Choice begins in earnest in 2008, a further 120,000 patients a year will 'migrate' to the private sector, bringing the percentage of private sector work with NHS elective patients to 18%.
A DoH spokesman said the report was authoritative but questioned the accuracy of its estimates. He said that Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt had estimated that, by 2008, the private sector would be providing only 10% of NHS elective treatments.
'I think we're best placed to know what we're planning. We're fairly confident of the pattern of growth we've got planned,' he said.
Philip Blackburn, a senior economist at Laing & Buisson, said: 'The NHS is becoming a much larger benefactor of the independent acute medical/surgical hospital sector, and has energised a major restructuring of operations by independent sector hospital groups to deliver health care at prices the NHS is willing to pay.'
PFoct2005
