News and press releases

Adrian Fawcett, whose company runs over 70 hospitals and clinics across the UK employing more than 9,000 healthcare staff, has accused Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats of constructing a "wall of silence" over the future of UK healthcare provision and called for a proper debate on how the UK is going to meet rising demand.

Mr Fawcett said: "Political timidity and party spokespeople afraid to put a step out of line has strangled any meaningful healthcare debate in this election.  Healthcare remains one of the main issues in the minds of voters but the response so far from politicians is to offer complicated arguments over budgetary funding which completely miss the point.  GHG  launches its own healthcare manifesto today which urges policy makers of all parties to back an ‘intelligent partnership’ between the NHS and the private and independent healthcare sectors to help meet the inexorable rise in demand for healthcare while simultaneously improving delivery and performance.

He added: "It is clear we have reached a cross-roads in national healthcare provision.  It is wrong for politicians of all parties to focus exclusively on preserving budgets and assuring people that they will always spend an equal or increasingly larger amount of their money on maintaining the status quo.  Ring-fencing funding is little more than a ‘quick-fix’.  We are now typically paying just under £2,000 each in tax to support healthcare, and in the past decade the NHS budget has risen massively – from £40bn to £110bn.

"No party has yet set out how it would cope with a rapidly ageing population, increasing medical inflation and new and more expensive treatments which will add massive further pressure on health outcomes over the next few years. The baby boomer generation is about to hit the point where it makes maximum call on the resources of our healthcare system.  Given the current budget deficit, we need fresh ideas and thinking. I am not presumptuous or arrogant enough to suggest we have all the answers but I do know that a real debate is needed and needed now."

The GHG manifesto argues that the spare capacity which exists in the private healthcare sector should be factored in to the country’s ability to meet rising demand for healthcare, and to improve health outcomes.

The private and independent sectors need a seat at the healthcare planning table rather than continuing to be a ‘fail-safe’ – stepping in to help only as and when needed.  A moratorium on building new NHS hospitals unless spare independent capacity has also been looked at is one of the recommendations in the GHG manifesto, and is based on the fact that the NHS could utilise the spare capacity in the private and independent sectors to the benefit of the patient and cost-effective healthcare delivery.  Accessing these extra beds at existing NHS tariffs would help avoid expensive new build and borrowing costs, and should be a precursor to a closer, genuine ‘intelligent partnership" between the NHS and independent and private sectors.

Other Manifesto recommendations include the ability for people to pay extra for services carried out in the private sector, rather than lose their NHS entitlement, and a call to offer tax relief for people who self-pay for treatment or who have private medical insurance on the grounds that incentivising those that can afford it to increasingly take personal responsibility for their own healthcare helps reduce the burden on the NHS.  
 
Adrian Fawcett added: "Our manifesto is not an agenda for privatisation – far from it. The NHS is excellent in a tremendous number of areas, such as emergency services and major surgery, but there is an argument that it cannot be expected to continue on its own to manage the increase in demand for services in the margins, such as hip replacements and weight loss surgery as well as our rising lifestyle disorders, without substantial further funding or another significant rise in waiting times.  We need our policy makers to look at how other countries less reliant on tax as the sole funding source have managed to achieve health outcomes and performance better than ours.

"The ideas in our manifesto echo what our patients tell us is on their minds and in their thinking, and are ideas that could make a genuine difference to the quality of healthcare in this country.  We have extensive and unique market experience, and believe there is strong potential for the independent sector – private and voluntary sector operators – to transform the provision of healthcare in the UK provided the Government supports an intelligent partnership."

Other manifesto recommendations include:

Fining all hospitals – independent and NHS – where an operation leaves patients with avoidable infections such as MRSA and C Difficile and use the money from fines to promote hospital cleanliness
Mandating the NHS and independent sector to work together on national skills planning to avoid shortages with emphasis on up-skilling nurses
Establishing consistent patient outcome measures across the NHS and independent  sectors by 2012 so that people can make informed choices
Allowing co-pay on top of the NHS tariff contribution for additional services carried out in the private sector
Having all healthcare providers put their information in the NHS Information Centre as a repository
Adrian Fawcett, added: "Our recommendations consider issues affecting public health, including our views on how to get the very most out of our healthcare spending.  We hope that this election period can set out an agenda for change which can be debated by the public – as it rightly should."

Please click here to view the full manifesto.