Hewitt commits to private operations
Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt today said the Government would not turn back from its strategy of using the private sector to deliver NHS operations as it tries to transform the health service.
In her first major speech since being appointed Health Secretary, she announced a new wave of contracts for 1.7 million operations – worth around £3 billion over five years – to be carried out by independent treatment centres run by private companies.
The treatment centres were an essential part of the Government’s plan to reform the NHS around the needs of patients, she said.
Ms Hewitt admitted that using private companies to deliver NHS operations had been controversial, but insisted it was working. Private treatment centres had helped cut waiting lists in a range of areas – including cataracts, where no elderly patient had to wait more than three months for treatment.
“This is not about privatising or dismantling the NHS, accusations that do get flung around, this is part of transforming the NHS,” she told an NHS Employers conference in Birmingham,
“Don’t underestimate the revolution in healthcare that is taking place right across the world. If we are going to not just reform but transform our health and care system so that it really is the best in the world, we’ve got to be innovating … using those independent treatment centres.”
But health service union Unison condemned what it saw as rushing to the private sector.
Unison head of health Karen Jennings said: “What a disappointing start to a third term Labour Government. The new health secretary has hardly had time to draw breath, let alone listen, and here she is rushing headlong into the arms of the private sector.”
She added: ” This latest announcement doubles the amount of money going into the private sector at the expense of the NHS. The private sector will cherry pick the easiest operations, leaving the NHS to carry out all the more expensive, difficult ones.
The Health Secretary conceded that the first wave of treatment centres had experienced “real problems” as well as successes because they had left health workers with the feeling that patients were being “driven out” of NHS hospitals into the private centres.
The second wave would fix that problem by removing the requirement that a predetermined number of operations had to be carried out in the treatment centres, she said.
Ms Hewitt stressed her appreciation of the work done by NHS workers, and vowed to listen closely to their concerns.
“My priority is to spend time listening and learning from the real experts: the patients and the staff.”
Liberal Democrat health spokesman Paul Burstow said private treatment must offer value for money.
He commented: “The private sector should be used to add to, not substitute for, NHS capacity. If the Government is to use the private sector it must deliver good quality care and value for money.
“The evidence to date has been that the Government has been too willing to sign contracts that allow cherry picking of the tastiest work and guaranteed payments regardless of the amount of work.”
