What happens if the nhs is privatised

The hospital was franchised to a private sector operator, Circle, in a process initiated in In January , Circle announced that it would hand management of Hinchingbrooke back to the NHS as a result of financial pressures and having been put into special measures as a result of significant failures of care.

Further management franchises seem unlikely because of policy changes and the financial challenges facing the NHS that may make these contracts less attractive to the private sector. More recently, in , the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has said that there is no intention to award new contracts being developed for integrated care providers to private health care providers.

Identifying NHS spending on the private sector is not straightforward. Detailed data on individual contracts is not available, and judgements must be made on what is included as spending on the private sector. For example, if spending on GP services and voluntary sector organisations delivering health care services were included, the total spending on the private sector would be higher than the figures contained in the Department of Health and Social Care accounts.

Following the Health and Social Care Act , the number of contracts awarded to private providers increased, though there was not a significant increase in the share of spending on private providers — even if a very broad definition of private care spending is used. In many cases the use of private providers to treat NHS patients reflects operational challenges within NHS providers and is a continuation of longstanding practices.

Provided that patients receive care that it is timely and free at the point of use, our view is that the provider of a service is less important than the quality and efficiency of the care they deliver. The NHS can also benefit from partnerships and joint ventures with the private sector to deliver some clinical and non-clinical services. Overall, there is no evidence of a significant increase in spending on private providers or widespread privatisation of services in recent years.

Subscribe to our newsletters to keep up-to-date with the world of health and social care and hear the latest news and views from The King's Fund. In addition, some ambulance trusts have sub-contracting arrangements with private ambulance services to support them at periods of high demand.

Clinical commissioning groups, the bodies that plan and fund care at a local level, work closely with local authorities. Where individuals have both health and social care needs, the CCG may provide funding for their care via the local authority. Councils today largely contract out social care to private providers. How privatisation has changed under recent governments has been a subject of especially heated election debate.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn says privatisation has doubled since Data from Department of Health and Social Care publications makes both claims look dubious. Here, his claim that it has doubled is correct in cash terms , although the context is that health spending overall has risen by a third.

But even in terms of proportion, we do see a notable expansion in private spending in these areas. Even on the narrow measure, private spending has flatlined for the last three years. This may reflect that while the to coalition government had several initiatives to increase competition and private provision, there have been no more major moves in this direction since.

The higher estimates include things like GPs and pharmacies, which are technically private providers but might not be thought of that way. While the NHS has always used private providers, their role was formalised and expanded through the s. There's a suggestion that a US trade deal might hinder the ability of any future government to reduce the levels of private provision within the NHS.

It also fits with US priorities from past trade negotiations. However, increased drug prices aren't a sure thing. Writing in Time magazine in , Stephen Brill said that the cost of treatment in US hospitals was often hard to assess because of a lack of transparency.

The NHS is often seen as a one-size-fits-all system by its detractors, while a privatised service might allow patients to better choose where to be treated — and what treatment to have. In fact, a substantial degree of patient choice has been introduced into the service since the mid s, The Guardian reported.

Thomas Cawston of think tank Reform told the BBC that competition within the NHS maximises choice for patients and that more privatisation would therefore be a good thing. In rural parts of the country, most patients would only want to visit their nearest hospital — in fact it may be impossible for them to travel anywhere else. While he stopped short of recommending privatisation, he says the current system is unsustainable. Should prescriptions be subsidised for those who can afford them, and should we charge for GP appointments like the Scandinavians do?

Might the NHS offer a basic service, with health insurance required for the extras? In his report, Darzi suggested privatisation is neither the problem nor the solution. Skip to header Skip to main content Skip to footer.