A government efficiency drive aimed at slashing spending in town halls and boosting productivity in the health service is likely to deliver billions of pounds of new business for private companies, the Guardian reports. But then we knew that. Outsourcing firms are preparing for a bonanza of local authority contracts to provide everything from bin men to back office bureaucrats and have reported a doubling in the number of deals on offer this year. Private health companies are also expecting to earn billions of pounds from the planned overhaul of the NHS in which GPs would take over responsibility for spending £70bn.
Executives at Capita, the UK's largest outsourcing firm, said the number of opportunities for local authority contracts has already doubled this year and they see the healthcare market as "vast and potentially lucrative". The potential volume of work is so great that firms from India and Germany have entered the market, which could ultimately mean some town hall functions being carried out abroad. "We are expecting more deals to come," said Rainer Majcen, managing director of Arvato, a privately owned German outsourcing firm that already has contracts with East Riding of Yorkshire and Sefton councils.
The US health giants Humana, UnitedHealth, Aetna and MCCI are all understood to be interested in healthcare contracts that could flow from a new commissioning system in which GPs may be given the power to buy in services from any health group or hospital that is properly accredited. Minnesota-based UnitedHealth has already become a key adviser to primary care trusts and is running two GP practices in Derbyshire and three in London. "There could be a bonanza for private companies if these changes go according to plan," said Jonathan Jackson at the stockbroker Killik & Co.
Privatisation of healthcare is being opposed by the unions. "Private health already has a small role in the NHS [providing 4% of services], but we don't want it to grow," said Karen Jennings a spokeswoman for Unison, the public services union. "The danger is that private companies will become so powerful that they will be able to determine what services are provided and how much they charge."
the Guardian
the Guardian
