Private business and the NHS
The NHS has always used private contractors. GPs, Dentists, Pharmacists and opticians are almost all privately owned. There have always been private providers of various services in mental health.
It can make a difference if private companies deliver services:
- instability: they may move out when profits drop
- cost: they may have to pay shareholders
- transactional processes: charging, billing, all that
- ethos: can be very different, but can also be much better in some respects than state provision
- unaccountability
The NHS would fall apart without private companies’ input. The provide all the equipment, build the hospitals, make the drugs. In the IT world, the whole of primary care IT is run privately – all your data is held on private companies’ machines. When the state tried to deliver a coherent IT vision, it failed, partly because the private sector had already delivered on a lot of it and fought to maintain its share. There is ample evidence that alternative providers can challenge state delivery and improve ideas, vision, relationships with users of the services.
Privatisation, strictly speaking, is the transfer to the private sector of services which were previously provided by the public sector.
Marketisation is the introduction of market principles and commercial competition into a sector previous run on other principles, and need not be associated with privatisation (though it usually is).
Equally a centralised planned economy need not be run through public sector organisations, though it usually is.
Markets In Health A Framework For Discussion
- A Modern Agenda for Prosperity and Social Reform Gordon Brown Feb 2003
- Adam Smith Institute
- Blair's case for radical change 2001
- Choice - Milburn v Hattersley August 2002
- Choice & competition Julian Le Grand 2009
- Choice, responsiveness and equity - Department of Health
- Circle's business model
- Circle take over management of Hinchinbrooke Hospital 2010
- Civitas
- Commissioning - Health Committee 2010
- Concordat with the Private and Voluntary Health Care Provider Sector Dept of Health October 2000 Benefits and Disadvantages of the Concordat
- Customer care won’t be enough Health Matters 2001
- Daniel Hannan MEP
- Doctors for reform
- Does competition between hospitals improve the quality of care? - Hospital death rates and the NHS internal market. Journal of Public Economics 2004
- Economics of the Private Finance Initiative in the NHS
- The End of the NHS - Allyson Pollock Feb 2002 - Punch
- Even Nye Bevan's NHS saw a role for the private sector Pat Hewitt 2005
- Evidence about competition 2011
- Extending Choice for Patients December 2001
- From Market Chaos To Common Sense 1993
- Funding and Performance of Healthcare Systems in the Four Countries of the UK Before and After Devolution Nuffield Trust 2010
- The Future of Health and Public Service Regulation A. Lansley 2005
- Guardian Letter Ursula Pearce November 2000
- Health and Social Care: Rediscovering the Socialist Alternative
- Health Direct Blog
- Health matters article Martin Rathfelder November 2000
- Health Reform Evaluation Programme
- Healthcare lessons from Australia: what can Michael Howard learn from John Howard? BMJ 2005
- Independent Sector Diagnosis and Treatment Centres
- ippr's Commission on Public Private Partnerships (pdf file)
- Keep Our NHS Public
- King's Fund (many resources)
- Labour's Values and the Modern NHS Pat Hewitt 20/7/05
- The last act of the NHS Allyson Pollock and Fiona Campbell April 2001
- Lansley and Privatisation 2011
- Learning from the market – not copying it John Reid 2003
- Local authority experience of compulsory competitive tendering 1995
- Look after our NHS (BMA)
- Markets and Health debate March 2010
- Markets in health care: the theory behind the policy Civitas 2009
- A very messy business - regulation of private healthcare 2003
- Milburn seeks hospital role model in Spain
- Ministers wash their hands of the NHS Guardian October 2005
- Modernising the NHS: a promising start, but fundamental reform is needed. Enthoven 2000
- Money Changers dismissed from the Temple (in Wales and Scotland) 2007
- The Mutual Health Service - Ed Mayo and Ruth Lea (40 page pdf file)
- NEW MODEL FOR ANCILLARY STAFF in PFI hospitals June 2001 NHS and GATS BMJ August 2002
- The NHS braces itself for privatisation April 2011
- NHS Market Futures Kings Fund 2005
- NHS reform ‘needs outside help’ Nicholas Timmins 2009
- NHS to hire German surgeons - Guardian Feb 2002
- NHS foundation trusts to link up with leading companies May 2006
- NHS spending and the role of the private sector BMA 2010
- No Mandate for Privatisation - Dr Peter Draper May 2005
- Nurses for reform
- One way capitalism can make health care worse and more expensive 2011
- Paying for statins BMJ Feb 2004
- Payments for care at private for-profit and private not-for-profit hospitals: a systematic review and meta-analysis - CMAJ 2004
- The plot against the NHS Colin Leys, Stewart Player 2011
- Politicians need to rethink the role of the private sector in the NHS Jan 2010
- Positively Public - UNISON’s campaign to keep our public services public
- Price competition in the NHS
- Private finance and "value for money" in NHS hospitals: BMJ 2002
- Private Healthcare Prof Joan Higgins Jan 2001
- Private Healthcare Network Map
- Private Healthcare UK
- Privatisation of the NHS is accelerating Allyson Pollock 2005
- Public are passionate about equity but would accept private treatment centres Ipsos MORI survey 2006
- Questioning the claims from Kaiser - BJGP 2004
- Redefining the National Health Service - Alan Milburn's speech to the New Health Network January 2002
- Reform of Public Services - Tony Blair's speech 16/7/01
- Refusing Treatment - the NHS and Market Based Reform Civitas 2010
- The
Role of the Private Sector in the NHS - report of the Health Select Committee
May 2002 SHA
- Evidence to the Health Select Committee on the role of the private sector, Autumn 2001
- Submission To Commons Health Committee Inquiry Into The Role Of The Private Sector In The NHS - Ursula Pearce October 2001
- Scotland opposed to private competition in NHS June 2007
- SHA statement on private sector involvement September 2001
- Should Brown set the NHS Free?
- Should the NHS follow the American way? BMJ 2005
- Statement by Alan Milburn on NHS reform
- Strong public services - Gordon Brown March 2002
- A systematic review and meta-analysis of studies comparing mortality rates of private for-profit and private not-for-profit hospitals Canada 2002
- Take care with privatisation
- The last act of the NHS Guardian Article April 2001
- Two-tier workforce - statement by Stephen Byers
- What is the Real Cost of More Patient Choice? Kings Fund 2003
- WHAT WORKS: PUBLIC SERVICES PUBLICLY PROVIDED By Colin Leys
- Why are our private hospitals so shy of lucrative markets? 2011
- Will NHS austerity mean feast or famine for the private sector? 2011
- World Private HealthCare Congress
Websites of organisations involved (actually or potentially) in providing health services in the UK, or commenting on them:
- Action for the Proper Regulation of Private Hospitals (the website has disappeared - this is an article about them)
- Amsurg
- Balfour Beatty Capital Projects-Healthcare
- Benenden Healthcare Society
- Birkdale Clinic
- BMI Healthcare
- Bupa
- Capio Healthcare UK
- Care UK
- Circle
- Exeter Friendly Society
- Fresenius ProServe
- German Medicine Net
- Germedic
- Guardian PFI News
- HCA
- Health Shield
- Interhealth Canada Ltd
- Johnson & Johnson
- Kaiser Permanente. Kaiser compared with the NHS BMJ Jan 2002
- King Edward VII Hospital Sister Agnes
- Laing and Buisson The UK's leading provider of information and market intelligence on the independent health and community care sectors.
- LSE Health and Social Care new Discussion Paper Series
- Nestor Healthcare
- Netcare
- New York Presbyterian Healthcare System
- Private Healthcare UK
- Secta Group Ltd
- Serco Group
- Siemens Financial Services
- St Andrew's Healthcare
- St Anthony's Hospital
- Surgical Centres Inc.
- Torex
- United Healthcare