By Tash Shifrin
5 November 2009
The NHS has tripled the number of elective surgery procedures it buys from private hospitals in just one year, figures from industry analysts have revealed.
Statistics produced by Laing & Buisson showed that the number of cases treated in ‘mainstream’ independent sector hospitals but paid for by the NHS rocketed from 53,500 in 2007 to 151,000 in 2008.
The figures exclude another 163,700 procedures carried out in the controversial independent sector treatment centres, set up to plough through NHS waiting lists.
Laing & Buisson director William Laing said: ‘This is a big change in such a short space of time, and all the indications are that the surge in NHS-paid patients in mainstream independent hospitals has continued during 2009 as more English consumers have taken advantage of the government’s “choice” initiative.’
Laing’s Healthcare market review pointed to the significance of NHS-funded work for the private health care sector. It noted that the
NHS’s paid share of total inpatient and day-case surgery in non-ISTC private hospitals soared from 6% in 2007 to 16% last year.
Total NHS-funded elective surgery cases in private sector facilities hit 314,700 in 2008, compared with 807,100 privately funded operations.
The review noted: ‘In the past five years, funding patterns have shifted as unprecedentedly large-scale NHS contracting has reshaped the private health care provider environment through the
ISTC elective surgery procurement programme, major contracts for diagnostic services and other short-term contracting.’
The amount of money spent by the NHS in the private sector had been driven upwards by central ISTC and diagnostics procurement ‘and will continue to be boosted from this source in the medium term (2010–2015)’, it said.
Future levels of NHS contracting with the private sector would depend on several factors, including the level of demand from NHS patients, the private sector’s willingness to carry out the work at NHS tariff prices ‘and, crucially, the outcome of the next general election’, the review said.
John Appleby, chief economist at the King’s Fund think-tank, told Public Finance he did not expect the use of the private sector to continue to increase at the same rate.
‘I don’t think it will carry on in 2009,’ he said, suggesting that the reason for the sudden increase might be ‘the last push’ to meet the government’s 18-week waiting target.
He added that NHS contracting with the private sector was ‘still not huge in numbers. If you set it against treatment in the NHS, it’s 2% of NHS work.’
But Mark Hellowell, public-private partnerships expert at Edinburgh University, said the increase would probably continue in 2009.
5 November 2009
The NHS has tripled the number of elective surgery procedures it buys from private hospitals in just one year, figures from industry analysts have revealed.
Statistics produced by Laing & Buisson showed that the number of cases treated in ‘mainstream’ independent sector hospitals but paid for by the NHS rocketed from 53,500 in 2007 to 151,000 in 2008.
The figures exclude another 163,700 procedures carried out in the controversial independent sector treatment centres, set up to plough through NHS waiting lists.
Laing & Buisson director William Laing said: ‘This is a big change in such a short space of time, and all the indications are that the surge in NHS-paid patients in mainstream independent hospitals has continued during 2009 as more English consumers have taken advantage of the government’s “choice” initiative.’
Laing’s Healthcare market review pointed to the significance of NHS-funded work for the private health care sector. It noted that the
NHS’s paid share of total inpatient and day-case surgery in non-ISTC private hospitals soared from 6% in 2007 to 16% last year.
Total NHS-funded elective surgery cases in private sector facilities hit 314,700 in 2008, compared with 807,100 privately funded operations.
The review noted: ‘In the past five years, funding patterns have shifted as unprecedentedly large-scale NHS contracting has reshaped the private health care provider environment through the
ISTC elective surgery procurement programme, major contracts for diagnostic services and other short-term contracting.’
The amount of money spent by the NHS in the private sector had been driven upwards by central ISTC and diagnostics procurement ‘and will continue to be boosted from this source in the medium term (2010–2015)’, it said.
Future levels of NHS contracting with the private sector would depend on several factors, including the level of demand from NHS patients, the private sector’s willingness to carry out the work at NHS tariff prices ‘and, crucially, the outcome of the next general election’, the review said.
John Appleby, chief economist at the King’s Fund think-tank, told Public Finance he did not expect the use of the private sector to continue to increase at the same rate.
‘I don’t think it will carry on in 2009,’ he said, suggesting that the reason for the sudden increase might be ‘the last push’ to meet the government’s 18-week waiting target.
He added that NHS contracting with the private sector was ‘still not huge in numbers. If you set it against treatment in the NHS, it’s 2% of NHS work.’
But Mark Hellowell, public-private partnerships expert at Edinburgh University, said the increase would probably continue in 2009.
