Concerns over private NHS clinics

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Private clinics doing NHS operations have not carried out all the treatment they have been paid for, figures show.

Independent sector treatment centres have been phased in since 2002 to drive down waiting lists and increase choice.

But statistics obtained by the Tories showed 59,960 procedures - 73% of the number paid for - were done by April.

The Tories said the clinics were not providing value for money, but the government said the shortfall now stood at 87% and would be made up in time.

The clinics carry out minor surgery, including hip operations, ear, nose and throat treatment and cataract operations.

The government has involved the independent sector without delivering value for money Andrew Lansley, shadow health secretary

The Tories say the under-performance is because the first-wave of ISTCs were given guaranteed levels of work, meaning they get paid regardless of the amount of work they carry out.

Shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley said: "The government has involved the independent sector without delivering value for money.

"Centres are not working to their optimum capacity and cost significantly more than the same service provided by the NHS."

Doctors agreed the figures were worrying.

Money

Paul Miller, chairman of the British Medical Association, said: "This shows what we have been saying for a long time.

"They have got preferential treatment of the kind the NHS can only dream of. The money spent on them would have been best invested in the NHS."

But the Department of Health said the situation had already started improving, with 87% of treatment paid for being carried out by July.

A spokesman added: "It's wrong to suggest that money has been wasted. No money has been lost.

"ISTC contracts are calculated over five years, not month by month or year by year.

"This means that any under-referral early on - while local GPs and patients are getting used to the new facility - is made up by the end of the five-year contract."

It comes after the Commons' health committee recently warned the centres had not brought a "major benefit" to the NHS and could actually end up starving hospitals of work and, therefore, money.