Private providers of NHS services

[citation needed] The 1997 Labour Party manifesto made a specific commitment to end the Conservatives’ internal market in health care, but in government they retained the split between purchasers and providers of healthcare.

In 2000 the Labour Government agreed A Concordat with the Private and Voluntary Health Care Provider Sector with the Independent Healthcare Association.

These centres played a role in reducing the price paid for ‘spot purchases’ with private providers.

Although NHS waiting lists had risen significantly there did not appear to be any concrete plans to employ private providers to reduce it.

[5] The UK has the fifth largest share of healthcare financed through government schemes out of the 36 OECD member states.

The money paid to local authorities is intended for social care, which is largely privately provided.

Large parts of the hospital estate which were previously designated as long-stay geriatric wards were closed in the 1980s and 90s.

Previously homes were provided by local authorities but the funding regime was engineered in such a way as to make that unsustainable.

[15] In March 2020 NHS England block booked most of the private hospital sector’s services, facilities and nearly 20,000 clinical staff at cost price in a deal brokered by the Independent Healthcare Providers Network to expand capacity during with the pandemic.

In January 2022 a further three month ‘covid surge deal’ was negotiated where providers agreed that they would suspend their private activity to “make facilities and staff available to the NHS system” in areas where covid patient numbers or staff absences “threatened the NHS’s ability to provide urgent care”.

The Independent Healthcare Provider Network said that available staffed capacity in the private sector had simply gone unused.

[18] In 2019 the Care Quality Commission reported that ambulance services were relying on private providers because of lack of capacity.

Some firms had failed to obtain references or carry out criminal record checks and a lack of staff training was leading to serious patient harm.

[21] In August 2022 there were 238 independent NHS mental health providers licensed by the Care Quality Commission in England.

Claire Murdoch of NHS England announced a “very major quality improvement programme that will focus hugely on inpatient care, and including very much the independent sector”.

[22] The issue of privatisation of health services was a topic of debate during the 2015 United Kingdom general election.

[24] Scottish health boards spent at least £130,866,841 on private providers from 2015 to 2018, about 0.5% of the budget compared to 7.3% in NHS England.