An international private equity firm has bought up a UK-based agency that employs NHS doctors and nurses outside their contracted hours – to do “insourcing” work in NHS hospitals, reports the Financial Times. … Read more
Commissioning
HSJ reports that NHS England has awarded Palantir a new £24.9m contract to “transition” its existing NHS projects into the new federated data platform – a £480m deal expected to … Read more
The (£ paywalled) Times has reported that one of the outcomes of Rishi Sunak’s controversial taskforce on boosting NHS contracts with private hospitals will be a new push to persuade patients to … Read more
Practice Plus Group (PPG) is taking legal action against NHS England over the award of contracts for prison healthcare in the South West, lodging papers with the High Court alleging one … Read more
Two weeks ago, the Lowdown took a detailed look at the situation of the private healthcare sector. We were seeking to understand why – after 13 years of policies promoting privatisation and … Read more
OpenDemocracy reports that the private hospital sector saw 6.6% fewer people in 2022 than 2019, despite lucrative contracts to fix wait lists. The government handed almost half a billion pounds … Read more
According to a recent report in the (£paywalled) Times, Rishi Sunak’s so-called “elective recovery task force,” steered no doubt by its private sector participants, is planning new legislation this summer … Read more
Staff and patients at Withnell Health Centre have won their campaign, – followed recently inThe Lowdown), against Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB), which has now agreed to … Read more
Luxe Lifestyle, a lifestyle company, was awarded a £25.8m government contract for PPE through the so-called VIP lane after the new Conservative chair, Greg Hands, was approached by a local Tory … Read more
The Observer reports that some of the country’s most senior NHS clinicians are running private firms that offer to cut waiting lists at their own hospitals. Top consultants in Manchester, Sheffield and … Read more
With no long-term NHS workforce strategy on the horizon, the government’s default policy on slashing elective waiting lists – pushing more NHS patients towards private hospitals dependent on NHS-trained staff … Read more
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) finally published their annual report and accounts for 2021-22 at the end of January – but were rapped over the knuckles for … Read more
The decision by Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB) to award a contract to run a well-loved and successful GP practice in Chorley, Lancashire, to SSP Health, a … Read more
Four urgent care treatment centres run by Partnership of East London Co-operatives (PELC) Limited have been rated ‘inadequate’ by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and put in special measures. The centres, King George’s Emergency … Read more
The Guardian has revealed that a second company, LFI Diagnostics, that the Tory peer Michelle Mone lobbied ministers over in an attempt to secure government Covid contracts was a secret entity of … Read more
The Times reports that Philip Johnson, majority owner and CEO of RamFoam, whose company made a £70 million profit on a contract for PPE that was mostly unused has paid … Read more
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has claimed that staff mistakes at Immensa Laboratories in Wolverhampton may have caused 23 extra deaths from Covid-19. The report said as many as … Read more
Byline Times reports that companies that were referred by Conservative MPs and peers to the expedited ‘VIP’ lane for personal protective equipment (PPE) contracts during the pandemic have seen their … Read more
A Pulse investigation into the continued problems of the Primary Care Support Services contract run by Capita since 2015 reveals that many problems remain. It’s been seven years since NHS … Read more
HSJ reports that NHS England is assessing the viability of establishing an NHS-owned consortium to bring some of the diagnostic work currently being done for profit in the private sector … Read more
