Tories would ditch NHS ‘preferred
provider’ policy
The Shadow Secretary of State for Health, Andrew Lansley, would return to an ‘any
willing provider policy, within NHS quality standards, and within NHS prices’ if
they win the general election next year.
Speaking at the NHS Employers conference in Birmingham, he criticised the Government’s
NHS ‘preferred provider’ approach, stating that “…we must look for whoever is best
able to deliver the care we want for patients”, as well as emphasising a need for
a new relationship between health services and local independent and voluntary sector
services.
He also envisaged a greater role for social enterprises in the health service, including
employee-owned ‘John Lewis’ models on a smaller scale, citing the better employee
engagement and innovation that would result.
The Secretary of State for Health, Andy Burnham, recently announced that NHS providers
would be the ‘preferred provider’ where provision is good and there would be no
need to look at the market. There would also be a “clear, staged process with a
timetable for improvement leading to an open tender” where existing provision is
poor. New or significantly redesigned services would be required to engage with
a range of providers before deciding whether to issue an open tender, with good
NHS providers being given the chance to bid to provide these services.
The Tory approach differs from that of the Government in that they appear to favour
open competition on the ‘any willing provider’ basis, where any provider can bid
to provide the service so long as they meet NHS quality and payment criteria, regardless
of their status. The any willing provider approach is already in place for routine
elective care which is designed to offer patients greater choice in where to obtain
treatment. It remains to be seen what the detail of their policy will look like
and how it would work across all services.
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