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Anger as private company wins contract to run an NHS centre
Opponents say £144m deal will be costlier than current treatment arrangement
NORTH London’s first NHS independent sector treatment centre contract to deliver services normally provided in hospitals has been awarded – and it’s worth £144million over five years.
Clinicenta Limited, a private company – subsidiary of the UK construction giant Carillion – has convinced NHS London it can deliver 50,000 treatments and home visits in the deal.
Opponents of the scheme, which is designed to move hospital services “into the community”, say the company will charge more than it currently costs the health service.
The Independent Sector Treatment Centre will provide day surgery for patients wanting non-emergency surgery – including for varicose veins, hernia, orthopaedics, gynaecology and urology – from its base in St John’s and Elizabeth Hospital, St John’s Wood.
Clinicenta will hire private agency nurses to staff thousands of home visits to terminally ill patients or those needing cardiac and coronary rehabilitation home treatment.
The firm has been told it cannot use NHS employees.
Dr Stephen Amiel, representing doctors as chairman of the Camden and Islington Local Medical Committees, said: “So far treatment centres of this kind have been under no obligation to provide information about the number of treatments that have been performed. It has meant private providers have been given huge amounts of NHS funding to do very little. To my mind, this is just a gimmick that is all about the government’s policy of driving up competition in the health service.”
Independent Sector Treatment Centres (ISTCs) are the brainchild of junior health minister Lord Darzi whose recommendations for health care in London, A Framework for Action, urge more care to be provided outside of hospitals.
The contracts underpinning privately run ISTCs – already in operation outside the capital – have been widely criticised after it emerged NHS London, the funding body, was guaranteeing payment irrespective of the number of procedures carried out.
“It meant we were getting nine operations for the price of 10,” said Dr Wendy Savage, a founder of the campaign group Keep Our NHS Public.
A spokeswoman for Clinicenta said: “We will be monitored regularly through independent audits with Camden Primary Care Trust.”
A NHS London spokesman said all nursing staff would have to meet standards set by the Royal College of Nursing, adding: “We do not want the ISTC poaching NHS staff because that would lead to a gap in services in hospitals.” |
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