NHS England has announced its intention to seek private hospital groups to help with reducing waiting lists. The planned contract could result in a spend of £10bn on outsourcing work by private providers over the next four years.
The contract notice says the work in privately owned facilities would “support the reduction of waiting lists forecast to increase as a result of covid-19 interrupting and reducing available NHS capacity”.
The notice gives private providers until later this month to register their interest in being on the framework to provide “NHS inpatient and outpatient services (including full supporting pathology and imaging and “NHS inpatient non-elective care”).
The procurement process will begin in September with private providers finding out in November whether they have been listed on the framework. The Tenders Electronic Daily notice said the £10bn price was an “estimated value based on a potential upper value over a four-year period, actual value will depend on actual demand”.
Full story in the HSJ, 17 August 2020
