Turbocharging the NHS

In the biggest private expansion since the Blair government, the NHS is to use every “available resource” from the independent sector in a huge drive to lower waiting lists and improve efficiency within the health service.

New plans announced today will see 13 new community diagnostic centres (CDC) open around the country, with eight of them being run by the private diagnostics company, InHealth. These “one-stop shop” CDCs are to provide 742,000 additional scans, tests and checks a year in an effort to take diagnostic service pressures away from already-strained hospitals and expand capacity.  

Five of the eight new independently-run CDCs will be in the South West with the others in Birmingham, Northampton and Southend. At present there are 114 CDCs across the country which have carried out 4.6 million checks and scans since July 2021. But what will change under the new plans is that patients will be given a choice of where they can get further treatment as soon as possible. 

These latest plans from the Elective Recovery Taskforce, chaired by health minister Will Quince, come just a month after the government’s NHS Long Term Workforce Plan. This major proposal committed the NHS to spending £2.4 billion over the next 15 years to recruit and retain staff. 

As health and social care secretary Steve Barclay wrote then announcing the plan: “Modelling suggests that, with no action, the workforce gap could grow as high as 360,000 by 2037.” This is why, he said, it was so vital to use “every available resource to deliver life-saving checks to ease pressure on the NHS.”

Today’s proposals come after Rishi Sunak promised to “turbocharge” the use of the private sector to accomplish one of his five priorities: to reduce NHS waiting lists. Despite Barclay promising that two-year and 18-month waiting times had been almost eliminated, the latest figures show that over 7 million people – one in eight –  are still on waiting lists. 

Commenting on the plans, Quince said: “We have a duty to patients to use every tool at our disposal to tackle the backlogs that built up during the pandemic.

“That’s why we set up the Elective Recovery Taskforce, which I chaired, to bring together expertise from academics and experts within and outside the health service to explore ways to maximise spare independent sector capacity.”

NHS use of the private sector is not new. It was first introduced by the Blair government and has been increasing ever since. Even Labour’s health secretary, Wes Streeting, has called on the government to increase the use of the private sector to help reduce waiting lists. 

According to NHS England National Clinical Director for Elective Care, Stella Vig: “ We have increased our use of the independent sector by more than a third since April 2021 – carrying out 90,000 appointments and procedures every week”. Justin Ash, chief executive of Spire Healthcare, said: “The taskforce’s work will genuinely benefit patients, who’ll be able to choose where they can receive treatment most quickly, regardless of whether that’s at an NHS or an independent sector hospital.”

The aim is to increase the number of CDCs across England to 160 by 2025. But It is not only CDCs that the government hopes the private sector can help with, it also wants the sector to train junior NHS staff. Indeed, Barclay also said that, as part of this plan and the Longterm Workforce Plan, training positions would increase greatly. By 2031, undergraduate medical school training places will double to 15,000 per year, GP training places will also double to 6,000 per year, dentistry training places will increase by 40 per cent and there will be an additional 24,000 places for future nurses and midwives. 

Coming together with Sunak’s recent pledge to increase North Sea oil and gas production and his U-turn on LTNs, these plans show the PM is listening to voters’ concerns and committed to his promises. According to ConHome’s latest Cabinet rankings, he’s already on the move upwards.