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NHS helps private sector fill beds

The private sector has already gained from Labour’s ‘concordat’ between the NHS and commercial medicine, according to private hospital managers.

The general manager of BUPA Hosiptal Manchester told the Health Service Journal that work from the NHS was up ‘threefold’, bringing bed occupancy rates up to 100 per cent from the 50-60 per cent more usual in the private sector.

And industry analyst William Laing said that the concordat would make a bigger difference to the private sector than the NHS. ‘It could significantly increase the amount of business they do in total’, he said.

The NHS boost to private sector fortunes comes in the wake of figures showing a rise in private sector income of over 10 per cent in 1999, the highest growth rate since 1991.

Meanwhile, the care home sector has seen widespread casualties. Tight local authority budgets contributed to falling income, with some 760 homes closing in 1999, with the loss of over 15,000 beds.

The government is now working on a second concordat with care homes.