Call for foreign private firms to take over NHS hospitals comes under fire Care Quality Commission boss suggests up to 30 failing NHS trusts could be run by European or American chains.
The ex-Conservative MP who chairs the health service care regulator is under fire after calling for foreign private health firms to be allowed to take over failing NHS hospitals.
David Prior, the boss of the Care Quality Commission (CQC), said European or American "hospital chains" should be given the chance to turn around what he said could be as many as 30 NHS hospital trusts in England that have run into trouble by the end of 2014.
That is more than double the 14 trusts that are currently in "special measures" because of problems involving poor care, precarious finances or both.
Prior, a former deputy chair and chief executive of the Tory party, acknowledged in remarks to a health seminar in London on Thursday that his suggestion would generate controversy. "I know this won't go down well in some quarters, but actually there are some great continental [European] hospital chains as well, great American hospital chains," he said.
"Why don't we use their management – keep the hospitals as part of the NHS – but why don't we attract them to come over and help us turn round these failing hospitals?", the Health Service Journal (HSJ) reported on Friday.
"We should bring the best possible managers in the world into the NHS," he added.
Prior cited Hinchingbrooke hospital in Cambridgeshire, the only NHS hospital so far being run by a private health firm – in this case, Circle – as a model that could be followed if such takeovers were ever approved by ministers.
He told the HSJ that overseas providers could become involved in running NHS organisations for the first time by being given long-term management contracts, though hospitals' assets would stay within the NHS and any such firms would be "operating within the same rules as the rest of the NHS".
Labour reacted with displeasure to Prior's remarks, which follow his call in a Sunday Telegraph article last month for private firms to be given a bigger role in providing NHS services. "Labour does not share David Prior's analysis and will vigorously oppose these moves," said Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary.
Prior's arrival at the CQC has prompted concern in some quarters that ministers are appointing political allies to key positions in and around the NHS. In January the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, appointed Baroness Hanham, a Tory peer who was a minister until last autumn, as the interim chair of Monitor, the NHS's economic regulator. However, both Prior and Hanham have previously chaired NHS hospital trusts, so have considerable knowledge of the service.
Prior also voiced his support for well run, successful NHS trusts taking over under-performing ones to create "hospital chains". Hunt recently appointed David Dalton, the widely admired chief executive of Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust, to look into this possibility, though he is not examining whether private hospital operators could do so.
Dr Mark Porter, chair of council at the British Medical Association, the doctors' union, made clear it would oppose any further Circle-style takeovers. "Adequate funding, learning from best practice and management and staff working together to deliver the best possible patient care is what hospitals in difficulty need, not a takeover by private providers, foreign or otherwise, who are by definition driven by profits, not by the public service ethos to care for patients," Porter said.
Burnham demanded that Hunt "urgently clarify whether the suggestion that the NHS needs widespread privatisation of services is government policy. There is a growing suspicion among patients and staff that the NHS is being repeatedly run down to prepare public opinion for greater privatisation of services."
The Department of Health declined to respond directly to Prior's remarks. But a spokesman said: "We want to make even more of the extraordinary leadership already present in our best hospitals by making it easy for NHS superheads to take over struggling organisations and improve patient care. That's why we have asked Sir David Dalton, who with his team has turned the Salford Royal into one of the best hospitals in the country, to advise on what more we can do to use the strength of our current leaders to turn around hospitals in difficulty. We are also working with Harvard to fast-track talented leaders from both within and outside the NHS." The Guardian
The ex-Conservative MP who chairs the health service care regulator is under fire after calling for foreign private health firms to be allowed to take over failing NHS hospitals.
David Prior, the boss of the Care Quality Commission (CQC), said European or American "hospital chains" should be given the chance to turn around what he said could be as many as 30 NHS hospital trusts in England that have run into trouble by the end of 2014.
That is more than double the 14 trusts that are currently in "special measures" because of problems involving poor care, precarious finances or both.
Prior, a former deputy chair and chief executive of the Tory party, acknowledged in remarks to a health seminar in London on Thursday that his suggestion would generate controversy. "I know this won't go down well in some quarters, but actually there are some great continental [European] hospital chains as well, great American hospital chains," he said.
"Why don't we use their management – keep the hospitals as part of the NHS – but why don't we attract them to come over and help us turn round these failing hospitals?", the Health Service Journal (HSJ) reported on Friday.
"We should bring the best possible managers in the world into the NHS," he added.
Prior cited Hinchingbrooke hospital in Cambridgeshire, the only NHS hospital so far being run by a private health firm – in this case, Circle – as a model that could be followed if such takeovers were ever approved by ministers.
He told the HSJ that overseas providers could become involved in running NHS organisations for the first time by being given long-term management contracts, though hospitals' assets would stay within the NHS and any such firms would be "operating within the same rules as the rest of the NHS".
Labour reacted with displeasure to Prior's remarks, which follow his call in a Sunday Telegraph article last month for private firms to be given a bigger role in providing NHS services. "Labour does not share David Prior's analysis and will vigorously oppose these moves," said Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary.
Prior's arrival at the CQC has prompted concern in some quarters that ministers are appointing political allies to key positions in and around the NHS. In January the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, appointed Baroness Hanham, a Tory peer who was a minister until last autumn, as the interim chair of Monitor, the NHS's economic regulator. However, both Prior and Hanham have previously chaired NHS hospital trusts, so have considerable knowledge of the service.
Prior also voiced his support for well run, successful NHS trusts taking over under-performing ones to create "hospital chains". Hunt recently appointed David Dalton, the widely admired chief executive of Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust, to look into this possibility, though he is not examining whether private hospital operators could do so.
Dr Mark Porter, chair of council at the British Medical Association, the doctors' union, made clear it would oppose any further Circle-style takeovers. "Adequate funding, learning from best practice and management and staff working together to deliver the best possible patient care is what hospitals in difficulty need, not a takeover by private providers, foreign or otherwise, who are by definition driven by profits, not by the public service ethos to care for patients," Porter said.
Burnham demanded that Hunt "urgently clarify whether the suggestion that the NHS needs widespread privatisation of services is government policy. There is a growing suspicion among patients and staff that the NHS is being repeatedly run down to prepare public opinion for greater privatisation of services."
The Department of Health declined to respond directly to Prior's remarks. But a spokesman said: "We want to make even more of the extraordinary leadership already present in our best hospitals by making it easy for NHS superheads to take over struggling organisations and improve patient care. That's why we have asked Sir David Dalton, who with his team has turned the Salford Royal into one of the best hospitals in the country, to advise on what more we can do to use the strength of our current leaders to turn around hospitals in difficulty. We are also working with Harvard to fast-track talented leaders from both within and outside the NHS." The Guardian
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