Are Private Treatment Centres Safe? We Need to Know...

There is growing concern that private sector clinics doing work for the NHS could be less safe than NHS providers. New evidence has cast doubt on the safety record of several private treatment centres contracted to carry out NHS work.

The NHS Support Federation needs your help in demanding an urgent safety review, after the BBC’s Panorama program uncovered shocking evidence of three men who died after gall bladder surgery and another death in North West England, all in ISTCs (independent sector treatment centres) – private clinics forced on the NHS as part of the government’s commercialisation agenda.

 

In one tragic case, Dr John Hubley died after surgery because the private Eccleshill treatment centre in Bradford did not even keep blood on site. At the inquest into his death, the coroner said that, "Dr Hubley would have survived on the balance of probabilities had his surgery been carried out at the Bradford Royal Infirmary rather than at Eccleshill,” and that “surgery is about safety, not about what can be got away with."

 

Michael Parker, President of the Association of Leparoscopic Surgeons, said he would not want to be treated in an ISTC because of the lack of emergency facilities in case something went wrong. He said he would rather be treated 'right in the middle' of an NHS hospital.

 

Poor information on safety

 

Statistics for ISTCs have never been made public because of the curtain of commercial confidentiality that comes with private involvement. Cutting bureaucracy cannot be used as an excuse for compromising safety – death rates are not an incidental statistic but a fundamental piece of information.

 

What can we do?

 

We ask you to join us in demanding a proper assessment of whether private treatment centres are safe. Please write to the Secretary of State for Health, Andrew Lansley, and to your MP, asking for any information on incidents at ISTCs to be made public and for an urgent safety review to be carried out.

 

The ISTC program is at a crossroads as many of the original contracts expire. As well as safety concerns, the NHS Support Federation believes the centres have seen waste of taxpayers’ money on an epic scale and have fragmented the NHS. We call for an end to the policy of using the private sector to do clinical procedures that the NHS could do more cheaply and, crucially, more safely, and for the money to be reinvested in NHS care.