16.03.15
Firms criticised for poor care included in largest-ever NHS privitisation
The NHS has agreed a £780m deal with 11 private firms to provide a range of treatments and tests in the biggest privatisation of health services to date.
The deal has been arranged by NHS Supply Chain, which is itself an outsourced company run by DHL Logistics on behalf of NHS Business Services. It will see diagnostic tests, scans, x-rays and heart and joint operations carried out by the private firms, with many provided in mobile units.
The NHS has been using mobile services for breast screening programmes and some other services, but the contracts mark a large expansion into other areas of treatment and testing. While mobile services are seen as more patient-friendly, they will also allow the NHS to rapidly buy in services from firms to help meet key waiting times targets.
The deal is broken down into five national contracts with individual values of £240m, £240m, £160m, £80m and £60m.
Circle Health is the winner of a £240m contract to provide imaging services as well as operations, while Vanguard Healthcare Solution won the £160m contract to undertake surgical procedures in mobile operating theatres.
However the deal has been criticised for awarding the contracts to companies who have a previous record of poor care.
Vanguard is facing legal action over a series of eye operations carried out in 2014 at Musgrove Park Hospital in Somerset. A confidential NHS report into the company said the operations appeared “rushed” and surgeons were allowed to continue even after patients reported serious complications. The hospital terminated its contract with Vanguard after just four days as a result of the problems.
Circle Health is the company which recently pulled out of its contract to be the first company to privately run an NHS hospital at Hinchingbrooke. Shortly following that announcement the CQC also recommended the trust be put into special measures in a scathing report that criticised safety and care at the hospital.
Care UK, another company included in the deal, have also been criticised by the CQC for the quality of care at two nursing homes it runs in Suffolk.
The other companies included in the contract are: Alliance Medical, Cobalt Unit Appeal Fund, Diagnostic World, Inhealth, Medical Imaging Partnership, Nuffield Health, Ramsay Health Care UK and Regents Park Cardiovascular Solutions.
A Department of Health spokesman said: “It’s nonsense to suggest that this contract means significant outsourcing of clinical services. Use of the private sector in the NHS represents only 6% of the total NHS budget – an increase of just 1.7% since May 2010.
“Charities, social enterprises and other providers continue to play an important role for the NHS as they have done for many years and the NHS should hold providers to account if they do not meet the high standards of care that patients expect.”
The DH declined to comment on the three companies that have been criticised for poor care winning fresh NHS contracts to treat patients.
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