Volume 1

The regulation of private and other independent healthcare : fifth report / Health Committee.

  • Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Health Committee
Date:
1999
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: The regulation of private and other independent healthcare : fifth report / Health Committee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    agreed between some medical insurance companies and some NHS private patient units. 103. Given these factors, we consider that all private health care facilities operated within the management of the NHS should be required to function within the clinical procedures and management of the Trust in which they are located. Such an arrangement should require full participation in the Trust schemes of clinical governance and controls assurance. Only consultants with a current service contract or honorary contract with that Trust should be able to admit and treat private patients. This arrangement should include a requirement that any complaint in which the private medical care provided by the consultant outside their NHS contract is an issue which should be dealt with under the full complaints procedure of the NHS including access to the Health Services Ombudsman. This provision should be applicable to any private health care delivered within the terms of the NHS Acts and thus be applicable to the private use of the occasional pay bed as well as the consulting and in-patient private patient units of NHS Trusts. 104. Where a private patient unit is operated by a company on behalf of the Trust, we consider that it should fall to be regulated on the same basis as a hospital in the independent sector. 105. The arrangements set out above, together with the additional and localised services that we propose should be bought into the scope of regulation, make it appropriate that the focus of the operational arm of the independent regulator should relate to the health regions. The following table, drawn up using the predecessor NHS regions which are the most recent comprehensive data, indicate the balance of facilities by region under such arrangements: Independent | Independent NHS Independent Hospices Totals Hospitals/ Psychiatric Private Mental National | (Detained Clinics'* Hospitals’ | Patient Health patients)'*° Units'™ Anglia & 29 1] 14 Oxford North 57 14 Zi rt Thames eo eae ele aii ae pag 73 117 94 106 4] 46 638 South 38 15 12 16. Thames ear West 20 1 ; Midlands pai aia Aimer schon vs] bande «| 68 oe 181 As at March 1997. Excludes Hospices. NHS Regional boundary changes 1999 will affect the above distribution. 182 Department of Health Statistical Bulletin 1998/38 (Number of establishments with operating theatres). 183 The IHA and Laing and Buisson database (1997). si Laing’s Market Review, 1998. oe Hospice Information Service.
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