A private mental health hospital which treats NHS funded patients including children has been judged inadequate for safety by CQC inspectors. The Priory Hospital North London was rated “requires improvement” overall by … Read more
Private Providers
Our work and news stories on private providers.
Ashford and St Peter’s Foundation Trust threatened to serve notice on an operational agreement with BMI Healthcare under which the trust provides some services to the company’s Runnymede Hospital, which … Read more
Last weekend tens of thousands of NHS staff, patients and campaigners marched to Westminster in protest against the underfunding of the NHS and the privatisation of many health services in … Read more
Babylon Health, the company that provides the GP at Hand service for the NHS, has claimed its app is able to provide clinical advice to patients that is ‘on par’ … Read more
A decision by Lancashire county council to award a £104m contract for children’s healthcare services to Virgin Care has been thrown out after a legal challenge by NHS trusts. A high court … Read more
A private hospital group has been told it must improve its corporate governance after a number of its sites were criticised in a leadership review by the Care Quality Commission. … Read more
Patients have been “put at serious risk of harm” by the failure of a £330m outsourcing exercise which NHS England contracted to the private firm Capita in a bid to cut costs, the National Audit … Read more
Virgin Care’s Sutherland Lodge GP practice has been placed in special measures two years after the company took over. The practice has gone from an official rating of “outstanding” to … Read more
The death of an NHS patient has led to the issue of safety for NHS patients treated in private hospitals being raised directly with health secretary Jeremy Hunt. Simon Nelson, … Read more
E-zec Medical Transport Service took over responsibility for non-emergency patient transport service from the NHS on April 1. The company was requested to take an elderly patient who cannot walk … Read more
Over-reliance on informal arrangements by independent hospitals and doctors is a “major concern” and could put patients at risk, the Care Quality Commission has warned. Following inspections of more than … Read more
Private hospitals have been given two weeks to come up with a plan to “get their house in order” on safety and quality or else face tough sanctions imposed by … Read more
Pulse reports that a second provider of private online GP consultations, Push Doctor, is looking to offer its services via the NHS. The company currently offers video GP consultations ‘in … Read more
EMRAD covers eight trust in the East Midlands and paid £30m for a cloud-based picture archiving and communication system from GE Healthcare. However, even in 2016 the programme was causing … Read more
Circle Health has pulled out of a bid to continue running services at the Nottingham Treatment Centre, and threatened clinical commissioning groups with legal action over their £150m three year procurement. … Read more
Thames Ambulance Service (TAS) started it’s contract with North Lincolnshire 18 months ago but has received significant criticisms since doing so. The CCG has served notice on the company due … Read more
Since being outsourced by Capita in September 2015, Primary Care Support England (PCSE) has had increasing problems. To target improvements within the service, NHS England had a management watch team. … Read more
G4S has a string of missing targets behind them regarding their performance with Kent’s non-emergency ambulance services. The company took over from NSL in 2016 with a £90m contract and … Read more
Ambulance staff working in Greater Manchester are considering striking after it was revealed that they were getting paid £2.40 less than other colleagues doing the same job. The service is … Read more
NHS England continues to receive between 5,000 and 10,000 items of clinical correspondence a month that have been sent in error by GP practices to Capita, according to a report by … Read more
