NHS Deal for Private Pandemic Help Yielded Little, BMJ Says

(Bloomberg) -- The UK’s ailing National Health Service paid about £2 billion ($2.4 billion) to get private hospitals to help overwhelmed public ones early in the pandemic, but an investigation by the BMJ medical journal suggests little burden-sharing actually took place.

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“The private sector was massively underused in many areas of the UK during the pandemic,” the BMJ said Thursday. When the number of Covid-19 patients hospitalized hit its peak on April 12, 2020, NHS hospitals in England were caring for 18,921 inpatients with the virus, including 2,881 on mechanical ventilation. On the same day, only 52 were treated in private hospitals under the contract, it said.

The findings raise concern that the NHS wasn’t making the most of the resources available to it early in the pandemic, when swamped hospitals began to buckle under the strain. The study comes as government officials are again considering help from the private sector as waiting lists spiral out of control.

The £2 billion deal clinched in March 2020 expanded the hospital capacity by adding 8,000 private beds across England, about 1,200 more ventilators and more than 10,000 nurses.

Yet some of those hospitals treated more private patients than NHS ones during the first year of the pandemic, according to the BMJ. The journal found that just 30 of the 200 private hospitals contracted were used to treat patients with Covid when the first pandemic wave reached its peak.

‘Vital’ Support

The NHS defended the investment and said the BMJ’s analysis is flawed, reflecting the work carried out by all independent health providers rather than just the ones included in the contract.

“The support of the independent sector in the early stages of the pandemic was vital both to care for Covid patients in NHS hospitals and to the provision of emergency and routine services for patients in both NHS and independent sector hospitals,” a spokesperson said by email.

The contract was meant to cover all forms of urgent treatment — including cancer care and elective care — with the treatment of Covid patients seen as a last resort, the Independent Healthcare Providers Network, which represents providers including Circle Health Group, Nuffield Health, Ramsay Health Care and Spire Healthcare, told the BMJ.

“In all cases and at all times, the NHS had first call on the capacity of independent providers under the contract, with facilities, staff and equipment used according to local need,” the group said by email.

(Updates with private hospitals’ comment in last paragraph)

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