Private providers voice optimism
Doctors in private practice have good reasons to be cheerful this year if the outlook being painted by independent providers proves to be correct.
Despite broader pessimism about the UK economy, with high interest rates and the cost-of-living crisis combining to depress consumer demand, independent healthcare providers are demonstrating increasing positivity.
An Independent Healthcare Providers Network (IHPN) report Industry Barometer: State of the Sector 2023 surveyed 49 independent healthcare providers on their views about their key markets and the issues affecting their business.
Positive picture
Despite clear challenges, the picture painted is positive across the independent healthcare market, in particular domestic self-pay markets and private medical insurance (PMI) funded care.
Nearly nine-in-ten companies across the sector felt the market environment for PMI-funded services was ‘very positive’ or ‘positive’.
This is followed by domestic self-pay services, with 86% describing the environment as ‘positive’ or ‘very positive’.
For NHS services, the numbers describing the environment as ‘positive’ or ‘very positive’ stood at 54%, a significant rise on the previous year when under a third (30%) of respondents reported that level of positivity.
It marks the continuation of a general trend of upward positivity year on year across the industry since IHPN launched the barometer four years ago.
Workforce challenges
Workforce remains the greatest challenge and area of concern, with nearly seven in ten identifying it as a key challenge, which mirrors findings from previous years.
Respondents highlighted four main ways to combat these challenges: growing their own through apprenticeships, training and development; creating new innovative roles or changing skillsets; increase training; and changes to contract/benefit packages.
Nine-in-ten providers expect training to increase over the next five years, with just under half planning to increase the number of clinical apprenticeships in their organisation.
Relationship with NHS
The relationship and partnership with the NHS remains key and the report highlighted providers’ desire to continue to reduce the waiting lists in elective, diagnostic and community care through the delivery of NHS-funded services, although there is still a view that the NHS is not fully utilising the capacity and capability of the sector.
NHS policy towards the sector was highlighted as one of the biggest challenges – 65% of respondents identified that this year, compared with 40% last year.
Drivers of NHS commissioner behaviour have been perceived to have changed, with ‘the pressure to achieve savings’ overtaking ‘the need to tackle NHS backlogs’, at 47% and 42% of respondents respectively. In 2022, almost two-thirds of respondents viewed the need to tackle NHS backlogs as the key driver for commissioners.
Despite this, respondents believe that their relationships with the NHS are improving. 25% believe that the impact of Integrated Care Systems (ICS) have improved their business, up from 7% last year. Nearly six in ten believe that they feel involved in their local system, up from four in ten in 2022, and 43% feel that their relationship with NHS organisations in their local area have improved, up from 20% on last year.
Looking in the quality and safety space, other key concerns were the Care Quality Commission’s new assessment and inspection framework at 55%, and the data agenda (Digital Records, Outcomes Registry Platform and so on) at 40%.
IHPN Boss David Hare’s analysis
David Hare
‘Looking at this year’s barometer results, it’s clear that independent providers are positive about the prospects in all their key markets, with strong growth expected particularly in domestic self-pay and PMI but also in NHS-funded work as well.
‘This is despite the economic challenges, such as a cost-of-living crisis, which is impacting all healthcare providers’ ability to run their organisations and recruit and retain staff.
‘While healthcare workforce is an issue for the entire healthcare system across the globe, it’s heartening that respondents are actively taking steps within their organisations to manage it.
‘Almost nine out of ten providers expect to increase their levels of training over the next five years and half plan to increase their number of clinical apprenticeships in the next year.
‘This illustrates the commitment that the independent sector has to training and developing the current workforce. IHPN will be doing more work on this in 2024 to illustrate the length and breadth of the sector’s contribution to workforce development.
‘We know that the health system works best when it utilises the efficiency and capacity of the independent sector and it’s heartening to see that private healthcare providers are still motivated to increase the volume and quality of their NHS-funded care, reducing NHS wait times and providing high-quality care.
‘To see that providers feel that their relationship with local NHS organisations is improving bodes well for patients. It means that providers should have the opportunity to contribute even further to getting the healthcare system back on track.’