A new study has found that alternative providers of primary care in the NHS, including private sector companies, do not perform as well as traditional GP practices. Alternative providers have been contracted to offer primary care in the NHS since 2004 under reforms designed to increase competition.
According to researchers at Imperial College London, these providers performed worse than traditional GP practices on 15 out of 17 indicators after adjusting for the characteristics of the practices and the populations they serve.
“This study provides data to inform the debate about the growing role of the private sector in the NHS,” said Dr Christopher Millett, lead author of the study, from the School of Public Health at Imperial. “New providers were allowed into the primary care market to stimulate competition, but our findings suggest that their introduction has not led to improvements in quality and may have resulted in worse care.
“The lesson is that increasing diversity does not necessarily lead to better quality. Regulators should ensure that new providers of NHS services are performing to adequate standards and at least as well as traditional providers”
The study looked at a range of performance indicators. These included how easily patients can get appointments, clinical measures such as how well they manage patients’ blood pressure, and efficiency measures. Among the differences between types of practices, alternative providers had worse results for patients’ diabetes control, higher hospital admission rates for chronic conditions, and lower overall patient satisfaction.
The study is published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.
