Overview
Private Healthcare Information Network  |
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| Abbreviation | PHIN |
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| Headquarters | The Kings Fund Building |
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| Location | - 11 Cavendish Square, London, W1G 0AN
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Chief Executive | Dr Ian Gargan |
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Chair | Jayne Scott |
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| Website | https://www.phin.org.uk/ |
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It is intended to improve the availability of information to patients considering private healthcare service, making the information comparable with that which is already available for the National Health Service. [2] The order specifies 11 performance measures which are to be collected.
In May 2017 it published data about 149 common procedures at more than 200 hospitals showing the number of patient admissions, the average length of stay for each procedure, and the Friends and Family Test scores. [3] This is said to cover over 80% of privately funded healthcare in the UK. It is planned to publish more detailed data than the Care Quality Commission. [4]
Since 2017 the Care Quality Commission has used information supplied by the network as part of its regulation of the independent sector.
Its annual report for 2016-17 contained information for 285 hospitals providing private healthcare services, but 230 hospitals had not submitted sufficient data to appear on the network's website. These included 151 that had not submitted live data at all, most of which were NHS hospitals, in respect of their private activity. [5]
In June 2018 it was announced that the network would be developing an Acute Data Alignment Programme with NHS Digital to integrate the data it collects on about 750,000 privately funded hospital episodes each year into NHS systems and standards. [6] In December 2019 it published information on health outcomes for patients who had privately funded care in the UK, covering the period 1 July 2018 to 30 June 2019, for 282 independent hospitals and NHS Private Patient Units. [7]
In October 2022, the Competition and Markets Authority announced that it was escalating its public enforcement action against private hospitals and consultants. [8]
In March 2023, the Competition and Markets Authority published the action plans of 40 hospitals currently in breach of the order. [9] The action plans outline the steps the hospitals will take to achieve compliance within six months.
NHS Digital was the trading name of the Health and Social Care Information Centre, which was the national provider of information, data and IT systems for commissioners, analysts and clinicians in health and social care in England, particularly those involved with the National Health Service of England. The organisation was an executive non-departmental public body of the Department of Health and Social Care.
Clinical audit is a process that has been defined as a quality improvement process that seeks to improve patient care and outcomes through systematic review of care against explicit criteria and the implementation of change
Mark Douglas Britnell is an English business executive. He is a senior partner at the professional services firm KPMG and a global healthcare expert. He was the chairman and senior partner for healthcare, government and infrastructure at KPMG International until September 2020.
A private hospital is a hospital not owned by the government, including for-profits and non-profits. Funding is by patients themselves ("self-pay"), by insurers, or by foreign embassies. Private hospitals are commonly part, albeit in varying degrees, of the majority of healthcare systems around the world.
NHS Wales is the publicly-funded healthcare system in Wales, and one of the four systems which make up the National Health Service in the United Kingdom.
NHS Scotland, sometimes styled NHSScotland, is the publicly–funded healthcare system in Scotland and one of the four systems that make up the National Health Service in the United Kingdom. It operates 14 territorial NHS boards across Scotland, supported by seven special non-geographic health boards, and Public Health Scotland.
Health and Social Care is the publicly funded healthcare system in Northern Ireland. Although having been created separately to the National Health Service (NHS), it is nonetheless considered a part of the overall national health service in the United Kingdom. The Northern Ireland Executive through its Department of Health is responsible for its funding, while the Public Health Agency is the executive agency responsible for the provision of public health and social care services across Northern Ireland. It is free of charge to all citizens of Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom.
Emergency medical services in the United Kingdom provide emergency care to people with acute illness or injury and are predominantly provided free at the point of use by the four National Health Services (NHS) of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Emergency care including ambulance and emergency department treatment is only free to UK residents and a charge may be made to those not entitled to free NHS care.
Healthcare in the United Kingdom is a devolved matter, with England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales each having their own systems of publicly funded healthcare, funded by and accountable to separate governments and parliaments, together with smaller private sector and voluntary provision. As a result of each country having different policies and priorities, a variety of differences have developed between these systems since devolution.
The National Health Service (NHS) is the publicly funded healthcare system in England, and one of the four National Health Service systems in the United Kingdom. It is the second largest single-payer healthcare system in the world after the Brazilian Sistema Único de Saúde. Primarily funded by the government from general taxation, and overseen by the Department of Health and Social Care, the NHS provides healthcare to all legal English residents and residents from other regions of the UK, with most services free at the point of use for most people. The NHS also conducts research through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR).
Healthcare in England is mainly provided by the National Health Service (NHS), a public body that provides healthcare to all permanent residents in England, that is free at the point of use. The body is one of four forming the UK National Health Service as health is a devolved matter; there are differences with the provisions for healthcare elsewhere in the United Kingdom, and in England it is overseen by NHS England. Though the public system dominates healthcare provision in England, private health care and a wide variety of alternative and complementary treatments are available for those willing and able to pay.
The National Health Service (NHS) is the umbrella term for the publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom, comprising the NHS in England, NHS Scotland and NHS Wales. Health and Social Care in Northern Ireland was created separately and is often locally referred to as "the NHS". The original three systems were established in 1948 as part of major social reforms following the Second World War. The founding principles were that services should be comprehensive, universal and free at the point of delivery—a health service based on clinical need, not ability to pay. Each service provides a comprehensive range of health services, provided without charge for people ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom apart from dental treatment and optical care. In England, NHS patients have to pay prescription charges; some, such as those aged over 60, or those on certain state benefits, are exempt.
Spire Healthcare Group plc is the second-largest provider of private healthcare in the United Kingdom. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.
BMI Healthcare was an independent provider of private healthcare, offering treatment to private patients, medically insured patients, and NHS patients. As of 2019, it had 54 private hospitals and healthcare facilities across the UK, with headquarters in London. In December 2019, it was acquired by a parent company of Circle Health and was replaced by Circle Health Group in 2022.
Circle Health Group is a private healthcare provider in the United Kingdom, and is the country's biggest private hospital provider. The company was founded in 2004 and rebranded as Circle Health Group in 2019 after acquiring a rival, BMI Healthcare; in the same year it began an expansion in China. In 2023 the company was acquired by an Abu Dhabi-based holding company called PureHealth.
Clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) were National Health Service (NHS) organisations set up by the Health and Social Care Act 2012 to organise the delivery of NHS services in each of their local areas in England. On 1 July 2022 they were abolished, and replaced by Integrated care systems as a result of the Health and Care Act 2022.
NHS England, formerly the NHS Commissioning Board, is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department of Health and Social Care. It oversees the budget, planning, delivery and day-to-day operation of the commissioning side of the National Health Service in England as set out in the Health and Social Care Act 2012. It directly commissions NHS general practitioners, dentists, optometrists and some specialist services. The Secretary of State publishes annually a document known as the NHS mandate which specifies the objectives which the Board should seek to achieve. National Health Service Regulations are published each year to give legal force to the mandate.
Private healthcare in the UK, where universal state-funded healthcare is provided by the National Health Service, is a niche market.
NHS Improvement (NHSI) was a non-departmental body in England, responsible for overseeing the National Health Service's foundation trusts and NHS trusts, as well as independent providers that provide NHS-funded care. It supported providers to give patients consistently safe, high quality, compassionate care within local health systems that are financially sustainable.
The private provision of NHS services has been considered a controversial topic since the early 1990s. Keep Our NHS Public, NHS Support Federation and other groups have campaigned against the threat of privatisation, largely in England.
