Phoenix Hospital Group is the latest private healthcare provider to be hit with enforcement action by regulators over its failure to provide key performance and patient outcome data.
The hospital group has been criticised for “significant failings” in its latest data supplied to regulators and has been given four months to fully comply with its legal requirements.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) highlighted eight major issues with the most recent data submission from Phoenix Hospital Group to the Private Healthcare Information Network (PHIN) which is collating the data and publishing it publicly.
Those failings were:
- NHS numbers were missing or invalid in 86% of records,
- Anaesthetist codes were missing or invalid in 80% of records,
- Details of the main operating care professional were missing or invalid in 25% of records,
- The Primary Operation code was missing or invalid in 20% of records,
- Fewer than 1% of the admitted patient care records provided were of good data quality,
- No Patient Reported Outcome Measures have been provided,
- Patient Satisfaction measures were not submitted on time, meaning that measures cannot be published promptly,
- There were eight unaddressed consultant issues covering data for 2020-2023.
Phoenix Hospital Group has two London outpatient centres at 9 Harley Street and 25 Harley Street and two hospitals – the Weymouth Street Hospital in London and Phoenix Hospital Chelmsford in Essex.
It is the third hospital group to be named and shamed for non-compliance by the CMA following the Ulster Independent Clinic and Fortius Clinic in April.
Plan in place
The regulator said it was concerned that by failing to provide information as required to PHIN, the group was undermining the effectiveness of its order covering the private healthcare market and undermining the ability for patients to make appropriate choices in the private healthcare sector.
It noted that Phoenix Hospital Group had fixed the eight unaddressed consultant issues and put plans in place to meet its requirements on the other concerns by the November deadline.
This plan included:
- Providing NHS record numbers of patients to PHIN by October 2023,
- Providing anaesthetic codes to PHIN by July 2023,
- Providing the correct details for the main operating care professional to PHIN by July 2023,
- Providing the correct primary operating code to PHIN by July 2023,
- Fully integrating Patient Reported Outcome Measures into care pathways by November 2023,
- Providing patient satisfaction data to PHIN by August 2023.
“Phoenix Hospital Group must ensure that it complies with the order in full,” said CMA senior director, remedies, business and financial analysis Adam Land.
“The CMA has powers to issue legally binding directions to businesses that fail to comply with its orders.
“However, provided you achieve full compliance in line with your plan by no later than 30 November 2023, the CMA would not consider it necessary to take further formal enforcement action in relation to these breaches.
“The CMA will monitor Phoenix Hospital Group’s future compliance closely.”
Health & Protection has contacted Phoenix Hospital Group for comment.
