Delivering the 2015 Spending Review objective of successful NHS partnerships with the private sector

In the November 2015 Spending Review, the Government pledged to “encourage long term partnerships between the NHS and the private sector”. It intended that such partnerships should “modernise” NHS services and deliver “efficiencies”. It highlighted the potential contribution to better diagnostics and the development of new models of care. The Reform research makes the following key points:

• Private-sector companies play a much larger role in the NHS than is often realised. The main Department of Health definition is the amount spent by NHS commissioners on independent-sector providers. That stood at £6.91 billion in 2014-15, or 6.3 per cent of all NHS spending (up from £6.47 billion in 2013-14).  That figure, however, ignores the activity carried out on behalf of the NHS by independent contractors such as pharmacists and dentists. A recent estimate on the wider definition placed the level of spending on the private-sector contribution at around £31 billion.  The true figure will be even higher than that since private companies also provide a vast range of products and equipment to the NHS.  The Spending Review therefore goes with the grain of life in the NHS.
• What distinguishes successful partnerships is a focus on outcomes that the NHS wants to achieve, and a genuine sense of the contribution made by private-sector partners.  The Christie judged that an independent sector company, Baxter, was able to provide a higher level of resilience in the supply of high quality IV chemotherapy.  On PET-CT, the Christie joined with Alliance Medical to create a collaborative network that would lift the diagnostic infrastructure in England to a new level. Such a network would not simply provide diagnostic scans. It would provide training and education for radiologists, technologists and radiographers through a School of Oncology provided by The Christie. It would also generate data for researchers at The Christie and other academic institutions.
• Modern partnerships are flexible and future-proofed, so that the NHS purchaser is protected if external circumstances change.
• Central government should resist the temptation to direct the NHS towards partnerships, perhaps by introducing new frameworks or template contracts. Successful partnerships respond to local needs and judgements. They stem from local understanding, and creative thinking, on how services can improve for the long term.
•  The role of the centre should be to challenge the idea that partnership is in some way contradictory to the spirit of the NHS.  More broadly, the Government should act on the recommendations of the Rose review of NHS leadership. That review reported that the NHS is “drowning in bureaucracy”, in particular the very many requirements for data collection from the various NHS authorities. It rightly found that NHS leaders are distracted from strategic questions about service improvement, which would include partnership.