Leaders of the UKs largest private hospitals and clinics are calling on insurers to provide new options, including private medical insurance (PMI) light products, to meet the needs of patients who want greater choice and flexibility in how they access their healthcare.
They added these PMI light products should be created for particular parts of the pathway such as diagnostics, and to give employers the ability to offer a range of insurance benefits for their workforce.
And the group concluded the sector’s future would be determined by a wider pool of younger users accessing preventative and diagnostic services, in contrast to the more traditional demographic using independent sector provision for elective operations.
The calls feature among insights from almost 20 sector leaders and other healthcare practitioners for the Independent Healthcare Providers Network’s report, Tomorrow’s World.
Vitality chief commercial director Ali Hasan, who will become Axa Health commercial director by the end of February 2025, was the sole the insurer representative involved in teh research.
Other participants included leaders from Cleveland Clinic, HCA Healthcare UK, Nuffield Health, Ramsay Health Care and Spire Healthcare.
Several respondents whose businesses covered the private medical insurance market also highlighted the need for insurance products to better meet the needs of users, and to provide low cost, quality coverage to a much wider customer base.
Building on the idea that patients saw themselves as customers or service users, respondents said they saw the independent sector capitalising on the existing appetite among the public for buying episodic care.
According to the report, choice, timeliness of access and cost were viewed as key drivers of this trend, and turning service users from occasional purchasers of private care to full pathway users was a key concern for some members.
Need for long term commissioning
Away from insured provision, the need for longer term commissioning and contracting cycles in the NHS was also identified by leaders as a way of helping unlock new investment from the sector and facilitate more “innovative” care for NHS patients.
The report anticipates that having weathered the pandemic and now delivering record levels of care to NHS and private patients, the sector’s role will continue to grow in importance over the coming years and become an even more integral part of the UK health system.
It also explores prospects for the next decade for healthcare from three perspectives – the future for patients, the operational future, the commercial future – and identifies a number of key developments and trends independent providers expect to see in the coming years.
These include:
Patients placed at the heart of their care with the future healthcare system built around choice, whether that’s around choosing how they pay for it, who treats them, where that treatment takes place, and what their care pathway looks like. Central to this is the provision of more accessible information including around the quality of services, strong outcomes data with easy-to-navigate platforms to support and empower patients, and increased use of digital technologies to bring healthcare into the home, as well as at the hospital.
Shifting care “upstream” with a greater presence for independent providers in the primary and community care space to meet the growing demand for more preventative healthcare. Closer integration with NHS services was also cited to ensure a seamless patient pathway – with the potential role for “care coordinators” to support the growing numbers of patients access care in both the NHS and independent sectors.
Setting out a vision
David Hare, chief executive of the IHPN, (pictured) said: “With a new government and forthcoming ten year plan for health, it’s the ideal time for the sector to come together and set out their vision for what the future of healthcare looks like and how they can better support increasing numbers of NHS and private patients.
“This report sets out just some of the ways that members and sector thought-leaders think healthcare delivery is likely to transform in the years ahead, whether that’s their relationships with the NHS, the way that patients as consumers seek to manage their health in new and emerging ways, or the types of care and support the sector provides.
“While the future is not set in stone, IHPN and its members see the independent sector playing an ever more crucial role in the healthcare of the nation in the years ahead, with empowered and informed patients at its heart.”