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A private health company has lost one of the longest and longest contracts of treating patients with NHS, which is a blow to the creeping privatization of care.
Circle loses its 11-year contract to manage the NHS Nottingham Processing Center, which provides 240,000 transactions and controls per year. NHS Confidence at Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH) has been awarded a GBP 320 million contract to run the center for the next five years after a tough legal battle between Circle and the NHS.
Circle has been running the center since it opened in 2008 as one of the independent treatment centers (ISTCs) set up by the last Labor government to reduce the number of NHS patients waiting for treatment not urgent.
Labor was accused of privatizing part of the NHS because Circle was part of a number of private companies that were put in charge of the CISTs and allowed to profit from them. Other companies, including Care UK and Ramsay Health Care, still operate centers elsewhere in England.
The clinical commissioning group of NHS Rushcliffe, the NHS body that awarded the contract on behalf of a group of GCC, decided to entrust it to NUH despite Circle's legal threats. He added that the introduction of this service in the NHS would benefit "significantly to patients".
However, there are fears that thousands of people waiting to be seen in the center of Nottingham, including cancer patients, will be delayed when NUH takes over the contract on July 29 because it will not be able to to provide the full range of services. services immediately.
The transition was originally scheduled to last seven months, but it is now compressed in eight weeks as a result of acrimonies, claims and counterclaims and lawsuits from Circle against Rushcliffe.
In April, at a hearing in court to decide who had secured the contract, CCG's chief executive, Amanda Sullivan, said she preferred a "hiatus" of at least a month for services offered by the center after NUH took control. Extend Circle's contract.
In 2012, Circle became the first for-profit health company to be appointed to head an NHS hospital, when she took over management of the Hinchingbrooke Hospital, in Cambridgeshire. He made the contract to the NHS in 2015 after the hospital had financial problems and could not cope with the growing demand. The Quality of Care Commission found that the care provided by the hospital was inadequate.
Circle lost Nottingham's contract despite the quality of the badessment services provided by CQC. It had high satisfaction rates and, unlike many NHS hospitals, achieved the target of treating 92% of patients waiting for planned care within 18 weeks.
Shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth said he was delighted that Circle had lost the contract and blamed the firm for hiring lawyers to try to defeat the contract decision. "We are extremely pleased that this service is back in our public NHS and is no longer the responsibility of Circle. Patients remember very well the chaotic treatment of Circle's Hitchingbrooke Hospital contract and their failures in dermatology at Queen's Medical Center. [in Nottingham].
"It's shocking." Cercle fought hard in court, revealing everything that went wrong with the expensive and costly process of competition and privatization.
Circle argued that NUH's financial problems, which exceeded its budget by 31.8 million pounds in 2018/2019, meant that trust should not be allowed to run the center, whose services include cancer, gynecology, orthopedics and pain management.
A cabinet spokesman confirmed that he was challenging the CCG decision in court. "Circle thinks the commissioners [CCG] made an imperfect purchase that does not adequately guarantee the sustainability of the services currently provided. We believe we have launched the most credible offer, which would have continued to provide quality patient care and generate new investments and innovations, as well as additional savings, for the local health system. " , did he declare.
"Circle is disappointed with the local decision made in Nottingham, given the benefits of the past 11 years and the sustainable and innovative offer we have presented. We are convinced that the award of contracts must guarantee long-term sustainability. "
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