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A new role for overseas and independent healthcare providers in England

  • Published date:
    25 June 2002

Health Secretary Alan Milburn is today meeting overseas private companies who are interested in coming to England to provide NHS services.

The meeting coincides with the publication of a prospectus setting out how the Government plans to attract capacity from abroad to boost NHS efforts to cut waiting times.

It sets out that the Government is especially interested in bringing clinical teams from overseas into the NHS to tackle long waiting times in orthopaedics and ophthalmology.

The prospectus says that "It is an explicit objective of Government health policy to shift towards greater plurality and diversity in the delivery of elective services."

It also says that overseas providers are expected to become a permanent feature of the NHS, working alongside traditional public sector NHS hospitals.

The Prospectus is the first time the Government has set out how it plans to build new private sector facilities using medical workforce capacity from elsewhere in Europe.

It also stresses that all patients will be treated as NHS patients, with services that are free and according to their need, not their ability to pay.

Mr Milburn said:

"The NHS is now growing and growing fast. But capacity shortages show it is still feeling the effects of decades of neglect. Waiting times are falling, but to get them down further still we will bring in new capacity from overseas.

"The Prospectus signifies the Government's determination to develop a new sector in England's NHS.

"It will make for a more diverse, pluralist NHS but where services to patients remain free and based on need, not ability to pay."

The first overseas clinical teams are expected to be in place later this year.

There are three defining characteristics of the schemes that the Government wishes to see developed:

  • The highest levels of quality health care productivity; these units will offer trail-blazing levels of clinically effective, efficient, integrated, patient care.
  • Real increases in the number of medical professionals working in England. The medical staff in these units will be from overseas and additional to the existing NHS workforce. This will ensure that the spare capacity that exists in other health systems is available to the NHS.
  • Value for money. The productivity levels of these units will ensure they can offer services at competitive costs.

This is a new sector in health care provision in England because:

  • it is additional to existing publicly-owned NHS health care provision;
  • it is radically different from the use that the NHS has traditionally made of the incumbent private sector in the UK - the NHS, as a public sector partner and purchaser, will be the core business of units in this sector;
  • the services will be provided in this country and these units will be managed and operated as independent sector units.

In the longer term the prospectus says that overseas providers could build their own facilities here as well as importing clinical teams.

Notes to editor

1. The new prospectus:

  • explains the sort of schemes that the Government and the NHS wish to bring forward.
  • sets out plans for developing and managing the market, in particular through a centrally-led programme to develop these schemes.
  • invites contributions and expressions of preliminary interest on the proposals from interested parties.
  • gives advance notice of the Government's intention to ensure that some early, high quality projects are worked up in the near future.

It can be accessed on the Department of Health's website.

2. Mr Milburn met with representatives of the following companies today: Ophthalmology Network Organisation (based in Switzerland), Deluca Medical (based in France), German Medicine Net (based in Germany), Germedic (based in Germany) and Capio (based in Sweden)

3. There are two ways in which the Government wishes to use external and overseas providers, working on an independent and contractual basis, to increase surgical and diagnostic capacity in the UK:

  • Clinical Teams: wherestaffare made available to supplement clinical capacity in existing NHS provider organisations, both to support existing services and to help staff new NHS-managed developments (especially new diagnostic and treatment centres).
  • Overseas establishment: where independent health service providers set up and run health care units (ie. they plan, finance, staff and operate the services for the NHS as a public purchaser).

4. In time the Department of Health expects the new hospitals will be operating within a new framework of prices for NHS treatment based on Heath Reference Groups (HRGs).

5. Contract lengths will vary depending on the exact nature of the services to be provided and on the size and nature of the underlying investment likely to be required.

6. In a speech to Primary Care Trusts in April, Mr Milburn stressed that they would be given full discretion over where to commission health care - from NHS hospitals or other public, private or voluntary sector healthcare providers. See press release 2002/0204 for further details.

7. Media calls to Mark Devane and Alicia O'Donnell-Smith on 0207 210 5724 or 5222.

  • Contact:
    Press officer
  • Address:
    Media Centre, Department of Health
    Richmond House, 79 Whitehall
    London
    SW1A 2NL
  • Phone:
    Media Centre
    020 7210 5221

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