NHS pays private firm £26m for operations that never took place

Published 04th Jun 2010

Health chiefs have wasted £26million paying a private firm for operations that never took place.

The NHS signed a £70million contract with South African company Netcare to carry out 9,000 operations a year at the Greater Manchester Surgical Centre in Trafford.

However, fewer than two thirds of the operations ever took place.

But under the terms of the deal with Netcare - which ended last month - the NHS had to pay for the lot.

The amount of money wasted is enough to pay the salaries of 1,000 nurses for a year.

Paul Mainwaring, from Greater Manchester patients’ watchdog the Patients' Council said: ‘This is a huge amount of money and it could have been so much better spent.’

The £26million would also have been enough to fund 100,000 overnight stays in hospital and is more than it cost to set up the Wolfson Molecular Imaging Centre, in south Manchester - one of the world's most advanced cancer research units.

The 10 Greater Manchester PCTs have only used 62 per cent of the Netcare contract since it was signed in 2005.

Health bosses say the contract has helped reduce waiting lists dramatically and more than 34,000 people have been to the treatment centre, which has carried out 27,000 operations.

At the time of the agreement, some patients were being forced to wait 15 months for operations.

Almost 90 per cent of general surgery operations bought were used, 70 per cent of orthopaedic ops were used and just 30 per cent of ear, nose and throat procedures.

The centre will transfer back to Trafford NHS Trust, as planned during the summer.

NHS North West declined to comment.

A Netcare official said: ‘Whilst the level of activity completed at the GMSC is lower than what was contracted, this difference may be attributed to the GMSC helping to decrease NHS wait times much sooner than anticipated.’

Source: ' Daily Mail '

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