Private hospitals can only play a ‘limited’ role in bringing down NHS waiting times, a study has concluded, despite the government’s keenness to make more use of spare private healthcare capacity.
The report from think-tank the Health Foundation has concluded that, while having an important role to play, making greater use of the independent healthcare sector will only have a limited impact on the NHS backlog and is no substitute for addressing wider issues such as staff shortages.
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This is despite the fact the government’s Elective Recovery Taskforce has been tasked by ministers with “turbocharging” efforts to cut waiting times by making more use of independent sector providers (ISPs).
At the same time, Labour’s shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, has called for such providers to be used to cut the backlog of treatment.
With more than 7.2 million people currently waiting for hospital treatment – and more turning to private healthcare as an alternative if they can afford to do so – the Health Foundation has looked in detail at the use of ISPs in the delivery of NHS-funded ophthalmic and orthopaedic care, two areas where the independent sector’s share of care has grown most.
The report, Waiting for NHS hospital care: the role of the independent sector in delivering orthopaedic and ophthalmic care, has concluded that:
- The number of NHS-funded treatments has only just recovered to pre-pandemic levels. The share of this activity delivered by ISPs stands at 8.7%, an increase from 7.7% pre-pandemic.
- The independent sector has rapidly increased the number of inpatient ophthalmic care procedures it carries out for the NHS, with four in 10 (38.6%) procedures conducted by ISPs in February 2022 – up from around two in 10 (23.3%) pre-pandemic.
- Much of this growth is for cataract procedures, which are relatively simple and can easily be scaled up. This rapid scaling is not happening for most ophthalmic procedures apart from cataracts, or for orthopaedic care.
- ISPs delivered nearly a third (31.2%) of NHS-funded inpatient orthopaedic care in February 2022, up from more than a quarter (26.8%) pre-pandemic, a much smaller increase.
- The study also identified important questions about inequalities in access to independent sector-delivered NHS care. In ophthalmology, overall treatment volumes in the most deprived areas were still 1% lower than before the pandemic, while in the richest areas they were 5% higher. This is largely driven by faster growth in areas where ISPs are more likely to be located.
- White patients are consistently more likely to receive NHS-funded care delivered by the independent sector than patients from other ethnic groups.
Moreover, while greater use of the independent sector is a key policy for elective recovery, the public remains divided on its use, the foundation has pointed out.
Recent polling by Ipsos for the foundation found that 39% of people support the NHS paying for more patients to be treated in private hospitals, with 34% opposed and 24% say they neither support nor oppose.
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Charles Tallack, director of data analytics at the Health Foundation, said: “Patients are facing unacceptable waits, and the NHS has a huge challenge to increase activity to the levels needed to bring down waiting lists. Our study shows that, while it has an important role to play, the independent sector is not a panacea for bringing down waiting lists, despite it being at the heart of the elective recovery plan.
“To truly increase activity and bring down waiting lists, the government must address the major problems facing the NHS – from the lack of an adequate workforce plan to historic under-investment, as well as pressures in social care.”
