Workers Party Representative Fiona McCarthy has called on the Health Minister to withdraw plans in previous consultation documents to use the private sector in the delivery of Mental Health Services.
Ms McCarthy said an investigation by a national newspaper has found that the NHS in England is overspending by £164m a year on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) services, with an increasing amount going to unregulated private assessments. Data shows the amount spent on private ADHD has more than tripled over three years because of increasing reliance on outsourcing. Spending went from £16.3m in 2022-23 to £58m last year. This has raised concerns that companies are making millions from an under-regulated market, and cuts could be made in other services to offset the overspend.
The chair of the all-party parliamentary group on ADHD said the findings show that services were at breaking point and the NHS costs had soared while private providers profit from poorly regulated systems, leaving many patients in limbo without proper oversight.
The research by the centre for health and public interest (CHPI) found one company recently bought by a private equity firm had reported profit margins of 33% over the past two years mainly from providing NHS services. Ms McCarthy said the right-to-choose pathway which allows patients to choose a provider, the CHPI report warns that for business investors, the pathway is particularly easy to access, as a company needs only one contract to treat patients anywhere in the country and there is no cap on how much they can earn, because local NHS bodies cannot restrict the patient numbers.
Ms McCarthy said the NHS principle of treating patients was never meant to be a source of easy profit for private equity companies or venture capitalists. While this report is about services in England, we know from experience that large private companies do not confine themselves to one geographical area. It is important that we stop thinking that throwing enormous amounts of money at the private sector is the answer. It is not, it only increases their profits, and does not solve the crisis within our health and social care systems.
The Workers Party is calling on those responsible for running our services to learn the lessons from this report were experts have warned that assessments provided by private providers can be unreliable, pointing to cases in which patients have been harmed by poor continuity of care after private diagnoses.