Private healthcare providers are delivering nearly one in five of all NHS operations, according to Independent Healthcare Providers Network (IHPN) analysis of NHS data.
The body’s analysis also showed in the first five months of 2024 the sector removed almost three quarters of a million people from the NHS waiting list.
And looking at official NHS referral to treatment (RTT) figures, as well as the NHS’ independent sector weekly activity return (WAR), the IHPN noted a steady rise in the independent sector’s role in tackling the NHS backlog over the last few years.
Private sector providers are on average delivering more than 100,000 patient care episodes per week in 2024 – an increase of around 30,000 patients per week since the WAR dataset began publication in 2021.
In the first half of 2024, private providers had also increased NHS activity by more than 30% compared with pre-pandemic levels in 2019, with trauma and orthopaedics, and ophthalmology ranked as biggest contributors to the overall increases.
In May 2024, trauma and orthopaedics activity was up by one fifth (21%) compared with the same month in 2019, while ophthalmology, driven by a significant increase in capacity for delivering cataract replacement procedures, was up by more than 190% in the same period.
In total the independent sector now delivers more than one quarter (26%) of all NHS trauma and orthopaedics elective activity and a similar proportion (23.6%) of all NHS ophthalmology activity.
This has helped ophthalmology to be the only major specialty where median NHS waiting times are now lower than before the pandemic.
The most recent NHS RTT data also shows that waiting times for NHS treatment continue to be shorter in the independent sector, with patients seen by independent providers waiting an average of under 13 weeks – compared with an average of 18 weeks for those seen by NHS providers, the IHPN added.
David Hare, chief executive of the Independent Healthcare Providers Network, said: “This latest data shows the positive impact independent providers are having on both patients themselves and the wider NHS recovery, taking over a month off the average patient waiting time and removing almost three quarters of a million people from the total waiting list in the first half of 2024 alone, with treatment delivered free at the point of use to NHS patients.
“The new government has been clear that the independent sector is an important part of helping to get NHS waiting times down for patients and there is a real commitment from the sector to ensuring that the capacity and contribution that the sector makes is scaled up over the months and years ahead, building on the good progress highlighted in our most recent quarterly data.”