Private hospitals treated just eight Covid patients a day during pandemic (England)

[Northerner]

Private hospitals treated a total of just eight Covid patients a day during the pandemic despite a multi-billion pound deal with the government to help stop the NHS being overwhelmed, a report reveals.

And they also performed far fewer operations on NHS-funded patients than usual, even though hospitals has suspended much non-Covid care, according to research by a thinktank.

The Treasury agreed in March 2020 to pay for a deal to block-book the entire capacity of all 7,956 beds in England’s 187 private hospitals along with their almost 20,000 staff to help supplement the NHS’s efforts to cope with the unfolding pandemic. It is believed to have cost £400m a month.

However, the Centre for Health and the Public Interest’s report (Pdf) says that on 39% of days between March 2020 and March this year, private hospitals treated no Covid patients at all and on a further 20% of days they cared for only one person. Overall, they provided only 3,000 of the 3.6m Covid bed days in those 13 months – just 0.08% of the total.

Private hospitals treated just eight Covid patients a day despite deal to help NHS

Exclusive: Private hospitals in England also performed far fewer operations on NHS-funded patients despite multi-billion pound deal with government

www.theguardian.com

 

[nonethewiser]

Easy money then, another example of governments incompetence during pandemic.

 

[mikeyB]

It looks like a scam, but don’t forget that the Nightingale hospitals created were virtually unused. The beds ordered may just not have been needed, and there may not have been any resistance on the part of private hospitals - it’s perfectly possible that they just weren’t needed, and didn’t get the requests from NHS hospitals. That also may account for the lack of NHS referrals for taking up the slack in NHS surgery.

That said, you would think the government would have checked where the money was going, and have switched to the usual per patient payments rather than block booking, which smacks of a panic measure.