The role of the private sector in reducing NHS waiting lists in England increases by 20%

Private hospitals will offer NHS patients in England as many as a million extra appointments, scans and operations a year as part of the government’s drive to tackle the care backlog.

The move represents a significant expansion of the independent sector’s role in helping the health service tackle the long wait times for treatment that emerged under the Conservatives.

Keir Starmer unveiled the NHS’s increasing use of private healthcare on Monday in a major speech, setting out his new elective reform plan to tackle a planned care waiting list, with 6.4 million people waiting for 7.5 million treatments .

Private operators will receive an additional £2.5 billion in government funding annually, bringing the total to almost £16 billion, if they improve the care and treatment the Prime Minister outlined. The initiative is a key element in a plan to ensure that patients no longer have to wait more than 18 weeks for non-urgent hospital care by spring 2029.

The independent sector already provides around five million outpatient appointments, diagnostic tests and operations per year to the NHS – around 10% of all its elective activity. The planned additional appointments of 1 million would increase this by approximately 20%.

According to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) last month, the private sector currently receives £12.3 billion a year for treating NHS patients. annual report.

The relationship with the NHS has become so intertwined that private hospitals now carry out almost one in five health-funded operations on people on the waiting list. They already carry out around a quarter of all hip and knee replacements performed on NHS patients, and the same percentage of ophthalmic procedures such as cataract removals.

The additional capacity expected to be delivered by the NHS and the Independent Sector Partnership Agreement will help the health service reduce waiting times for people who face particularly long delays for certain types of care, particularly gynecology and orthopedic treatments.

The deal will “encourage the establishment of longer-term contractual relationships” between NHS organizations and private sector providers, the DHSC said.

Starmer said in his speech that he would not let critics of the privatization of the NHS stop him from relying more heavily on the independent sector, because people’s health needs must come first.

“When waiting lists reach 7.5 million, we will not allow ideology or old ways of doing things to get in the way of getting people’s lives back on track.

“It would be a dereliction of duty not to use all available resources to get patients the care they desperately need,” he said.

But Keep Our NHS Public co-chairman Dr Tony O’Sullivan said the private sector was a parasite damaging the health service and would lose out as a result of the deal because its own staff would make up the majority of healthcare would provide. the expansion of private healthcare.

“As in the 2000s, the NHS could deliver those million appointments and build sustainable capacity if money were invested to reopen theatres, provide equipment and support more NHS GPs, community and hospital staff,” he said .

“That’s value for money. Keir Starmer claims to be putting aside ‘ideology’ and choosing to invest in expensive long-term contracts for the private sector. Private ‘spare capacity’ relies on NHS staff and funding to fund their expansion.

“Keir Starmer’s ‘choice’ is to ignore the rising profits of the private sector operating NHS patients for routine cataract surgery, while NHS eye departments lose that funding and their staff are unable to treat many patients with other sight-threatening treat conditions in time.

“The private sector needs NHS funding and NHS staff need to reduce their NHS hours to ‘reserve capacity’. Feeding the parasite undermines the health of the NHS host.”

Independent Healthcare Providers Network CEO David Hare said the new agreement was “a clear statement from government, the NHS and the independent sector that independent healthcare providers are a crucial part of the recovery and renewal of the NHS in the long term”.