{"id":233288,"date":"2025-07-03T00:03:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-03T00:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/233288\/"},"modified":"2025-07-03T00:03:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T00:03:10","slug":"private-healthcare-groups-criticise-minimum-waiting-times-for-nhs-operations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/233288\/","title":{"rendered":"Private healthcare groups criticise \u2018minimum\u2019 waiting times for NHS operations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free<\/p>\n

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.<\/p>\n

Private heathcare providers have warned the NHS against introducing \u201cartificial\u201d minimum waiting times for routine operations. <\/p>\n

Patients are facing further delays for treatment as a number of local NHS organisations \u2014 seeking to reduce their deficits \u2014 have started informing hospitals they will only finance procedures after a patient has waited more than three months.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Patients have a right to choose a private provider to perform a procedure if the provider has a contract with an NHS hospital.\u00a0The private sector currently delivers about 10 per cent of all NHS elective care in England for routine operations, such as hip and knee replacements and cataract removal, up from 7 per cent five years ago, according to analysis by the FT. Last year alone, the private sector treated more than 1mn NHS patients.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government has rightly put patient choice at the heart of its reform agenda, but in artificially increasing waiting times, local NHS systems are completely cutting across that, denying patients the opportunity to choose a provider that can see them more quickly,\u201d said one private health official. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis needs urgently reviewing \u2014 not least from a clinical safety perspective \u2014 to ensure that patients can access treatment as quickly as possible,\u201d they added. <\/p>\n

The row comes as UK prime minister Sir Keir Starmer sets out the long-awaited 10-year plan<\/a> for the struggling national health service.<\/p>\n

Recommended<\/p>\n

\"Montage<\/a><\/p>\n

It will detail the government\u2019s desire to deliver three shifts: from hospital to community treatment, from analogue to digital technology and from sickness to prevention.<\/p>\n

The plan will \u201cfundamentally rewire\u201d the NHS, Starmer will say on Thursday. He will pledge that neighbourhood health services will be rolled out across England, bringing various services under one roof<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Starmer announced a \u201cnew agreement\u201d to expand the existing relationship between the NHS and private groups, designed to encourage the private sector to take on more patients and reduce bloated waiting lists.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The rollout of minimum waiting times would have a big impact on private health providers because it would remove the incentive for patients to select them for their care. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s completely counter-productive to expect to be able to reduce waiting times and meet the 18-week target by 2029 while at the same time forcing activity to slow down,\u201d said one provider. <\/p>\n

\u201cHow would we be able to explain to patients who are living in pain and losing more of their mobility and independence every day that, although we have the capacity to help them, they will have to wait longer?\u201d<\/p>\n

Tim Mitchell, president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, warned that minimum waiting times risked \u201cdistorting clinical priorities and leaving patients in unnecessary pain and anxiety\u201d.<\/p>\n

NHS South Yorkshire Integrated Care Board (ICB), which is responsible for planning, funding and commissioning NHS services within local areas, confirmed that hospitals in the region had been asked to work to a minimum wait of 13 weeks for routine care.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are committed to making care better, faster and more efficient, as well as prioritising more urgent treatment such as for cancer\u201d, the ICB said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sir Jim Mackey, NHS England chief executive, has signalled his support for the idea of minimum waiting times.\u00a0Speaking at a Health Service Journal summit in April, he said the changes would give local health leaders \u201cthe ability to say to providers \u2018you might be able to do a cataract in four days, but I want you to do it in 10 weeks, because that\u2019s what we\u2019ve decided is necessary\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Health leaders have been told by NHS England to expect a \u201cfundamental reset\u201d to the financial regimes of local health services.<\/p>\n

Last month, the government said it was reallocating \u00a32.2bn previously set aside for \u2018deficit support\u2019 to healthcare in deprived communities.\u00a0Officials denied this funding had been made available as a result of introducing minimum waiting times.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sally Gainsbury, senior policy analyst at the Nuffield Trust, said: \u201cThe public need to understand why this is happening and be involved in a conversation about how this can be done fairly, and politicians need to be honest that this is the reality of running a system on a fixed budget.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NHS said: \u201cThere is no policy supporting minimum waits in the NHS and we will work closely with all systems to ensure they deliver the expected level of improvement in waiting times set out in our 25\/26 planning guidance.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233289,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4316],"tags":[105,4348,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-233288","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114786376432365583","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}