Nuffield Health response to CHPI report ‘How safe are NHS patients in private hospitals: Learning from the CQC’

“Nuffield Health welcomes any dialogue that focuses on patient safety and increases transparency in the sector. We are extremely disappointed about the negative conclusions that the CHPI report draws and the inference throughout the report that patients are at greater risk at private hospitals compared to the NHS.

Patient safety is our number one priority and we work with outstanding and experienced Consultants and nursing staff to deliver the highest standard of care to all of our patients.  We are regulated by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) for safety and quality and their inspections for independent hospitals are no less rigorous than those of NHS institutions.  We are committed to ensuring our services are in line with CQC expectations and requirements.

We produce an annual quality report which is available to the public on our website, and which supports transparency and openness – this has been in place since 2007.  We are also members of the Private Health Information Network (PHIN) which allows the public to compare private health providers, including for some NHS procedures.  As an organisation we are fully supportive of providing comparable performance data so that patients can make informed decisions about their treatment.”

Notes to Editor:

Nuffield Health has adopted the ‘NHS Healthy Board’ structure and has a board level quality governance committee which follows the NHS Monitor quality governance framework, including reporting on serious events, deaths, avoidable infections and where possible comparing these with NHS information.

Last updated Thursday 10 March 2016

First published on Monday 30 November 2015