Private executives to run NHS trusts
pharmafile | June 13, 2008 | News story | |Â Â Â
The government has sent a warning to failing NHS trusts that their management will be turned over to the private sector if performance does not improve.
In a bid to drive up standards of care, lagging trusts will see managers forced out and replaced with equivalents from private firms or better-performing trusts.
Their operation will be pitted against tough new minimum benchmarks for quality, safety and finance, according to health minister Ben Bradshaw.
"As the Prime Minister made clear in his speech in January, we will not tolerate underperformance in the NHS and for the first time, we will publicly identify those trusts with poor safety and clinical records," Bradshaw said.
He was backed by other NHS leaders, who said the scheme will establish public accountability by helping patients understand how well their local NHS is performing and what to expect. The Healthcare Commission identified twenty trusts as "weak" in its report last year.
NHS chief David Nicholson has said the move will prove "a valuable tool to support managers, Trusts and Health Authorities", but the NHS Alliance, an association of GPs and primary care mangers, received the news with caution.
Alliance chairman Dr Michael Dixon said the complexities of NHS management will be a challenge for any external company and that private management is not automatically superior to the NHS.
He said: "Of course incompetent and inept management should be replaced – as should incompetent clinicians – but getting systems right and ensuring managers have the necessary skills is more important than punishment therapy."
The BMA, the doctor's association already at odds with the government over polyclinics, voiced similar concerns, and warned again of the creeping privatisation in the NHS.
Labour has increasingly invested to improve patient choice and cut waiting times through the use of private run hospitals and services, but many have been slow to show improvement and some were axed last year due to inefficiency.
But the government said its new management appointments plan will not involve any shift of NHS assets or staff to the private sector. Ministers said they will flesh out the new quality, safety and financial performance criteria for trusts later this year.
