‘Innovative NHS partnership’ in Plymouth raises concerns

University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust has announced an 18-month pilot which will see orthopaedic treatments being carried out away from Derriford Hospital in the nearby Peninsula Treatment Centre.

As part of the plans, elective orthopaedic treatments will be undertaken by a joint team of surgeons and anaesthetists from Care UK and Derriford Hospital, aiming to reduce waiting times for less urgent operations, such as hip and knee replacements, and virtually eliminate waits of more than 52 weeks.

Last winter, the hospital temporarily converted the planned orthopaedic ward to use for general medicine to cope with the increase in medical patients, meaning that orthopaedic patients needing less urgent treatment waited longer, with as many as a third waiting more than the 18-week government target.

The partnership with Care UK will see emergency orthopaedic care separated from planned work. The trust has labelled the move as ‘innovative’ and ‘pioneering’, but the Labour Party has suggested that it looks like ‘front door privatisation’. Shadow Health Secretary Jon Ashworth said that the fact that the hospital has had to turn to private sector providers ‘blows apart Tory claims that austerity has ended’.

Ann James, Chief Executive at University Hospitals Plymouth said: “Winter is always a challenging time for the NHS and we are constantly looking at innovative ways to address patient demand. Using a trusted independent health provider to create additional capacity at times of high demand ensures that patients are not kept waiting longer than they have to, often in pain. With the existing treatment centre less than a mile away Care UK is uniquely placed to provide the service and the only difference that patients should really notice is that they are now being seen more quickly.”