A total of £45.6million has leaked out in profits from the NHS in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight to private companies over the past 2 years, enough to pay for an extra 260 doctors.
Out of the £362million spent by the NHS on private companies in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight over 2 years, £45.6million has leaked out in profits – the seventh highest amount for all 42 Integrated Care Boards (ICBs).
These are the findings of the Centre for Health and the Public Interest (CHPI), an independent think tank which aims to ensure the founding principles of the NHS are at the heart of how health and social care services are delivered.
The Hampshire and Isle of Wight ICB responded that it works with a range of providers, including NHS organisations, voluntary sector partners and independent providers to increase capacity, reduce waiting times and improve access.
David Rowland, director of the CHPI, said:
“Given the massive pressures faced by the NHS in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, the large amounts of profits which are leaking out of the NHS to private companies urgently needs to be looked at both by central government and local NHS leaders.”
A sum of £45.6million could go towards frontline patient care and would be enough to pay for an extra 260 doctors or 550 nurses over a 2-year period, the CHPI said.
Its research finds large profits being generated despite the NHS in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight facing ‘huge financial pressures’ and recently reporting a £76million deficit.
James Lowell, chief commissioning officer for NHS Hampshire and Isle of Wight, said in response:
“Our priority is to ensure patients in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight receive timely, high-quality care.
“Like NHS systems across England, we work with a range of providers, including NHS organisations, voluntary sector partners and independent providers, to increase capacity, reduce waiting times and improve access to services.
“The use of independent sector providers forms part of the national NHS approach to patient choice. Providers must meet strict accreditation requirements to be included, and patients can then choose where they receive their care.
“Where patients choose an independent provider, services are typically delivered at nationally set prices, ensuring consistency and value for money across the system.”
Mr Lowell added that all services the ICB commissions are subject to robust regulatory, financial and quality controls, and it remains focused on using resources as effectively as possible to deliver the best outcomes for patients.
Looking at those figures another way, the average profit declared by the businesses the Trust bought goods and services from was 25%.
On the high side of normal, yes, but still not criminally high and far less than the amount those companies will gave paid in taxes.
They are businesses after all and if, as the article suggests, they supplied their goods and services at zero profit, they would go bust. They would cease to be suppliers and their employees would lose their jobs.
The NHS is using private companies, what do they expect?
It makes one wonder how much sick pay is
paid annually to Island NHS employees
I bet that is millions of wasted money.
Why does the NHS have to use private companies, very simple the NHS is incompetant and you would not trust it with your childrens pocket money, like all nationalised industrires they are hugely overstaffed, run by people with a GCSE in home economics and have the highest sickness rates of any major company on the UK, and you wonder why they have to go to private companies, because those companies are run efficieintly and provide what the NHS would have to have years of meetings to even consider supptying.
“run by people with a GCSE in home economics and have the highest sickness rates”
True, but you forgot to mention their obsession with diversity and transinclusion, which is rife right across the country and defies the Supreme Court ruling that trans women with a penis……are men!
But if reform get into national government.. all NHS funding will go to the profits of private companies and insurance companies
Ha and they say they employ these private companies to increase capacity, improve access & reduce waiting times?
Obviously money well spent as its so easy to get an appointment, and after that they fix you up very quickly right?
Ah, no that’s not my experience….. Not at all, and I have heard others say the same too.
Spend a month in the care of St Mary’s then honestly, if you get a chance get referred to either Southampton or Portsmouth, while there are still waiting times involved for less serious afflictions, the level of care is so much better over there, yes it’s a pain travelling sometimes (literally) and not cheap, but I’d gladly pay that and get a better service!
We all know that the NHS is a cash cow for the private company’s its not about health for these companies it’s about money