An area ready for joined-up working

Following his review of London’s private patient units last month, Philip Housden turns his spotlight onto England’s southern home counties.

Our last issue analysed private patient revenue growth for the greater London NHS trusts. This was the first in our revolving series reviewing the NHS PPU sector across all regions of England.

This month, it is again the turn of the 17 NHS trusts delivering acute care services to the southern home counties of Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.

Analysis of NHS trusts’ 2016-17 annual accounts for this group shows that total private patient incomes declined by 6.8% from £61.4m to £57.2m (Figures 1 and 2).  

Figure 1

Figure 2

This now represents 0.93% of these trusts’ total revenues, down from 1.01% in 2016-17. The combined national average including London is 1.1%.