The cracks are showing: Private healthcare providers

摘要

The winter, for the NHS, always brings with it sensational media headlines and this winter has been no exception. Strange, really, because winter conies every year, so how can we find ourselves in this state year-in, year-out? For example, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) (2015) suggests that accident and emergency departments are in crisis and that the crisis is the result of a lack of government funding. The winter crisis is also being blamed for the decision by a private healthcare provider (Circle) to pull out of its contract to run one NHS hospital (Hinchingbrooke) in Cambridgeshire. The provider had been running the hospital since 2012, the first private operator of an NHS hospital—a franchise.The franchise was the first of its kind for the NHS and was seen by some as a potential way forward in financing some aspects of the health service.